7 Tools You Can Use Every Week to Grow Your Online Presence
Fair warning, I am seriously going to geek out a bit in this blog post. Well, sorta.
I know how frustrating and challenging getting your brand out there can be...especially if you’re new to the online world. Building a great online presence puts your business in front of more people and will help you “get found" easier online.
Now...I'm sure you may be thinking:
"Uh oh...Kim, this sounds like it's going to be a lotttt of work". I won’t lie...initially it will take a little time to get things built up.
But here’s the best part about building an online presence:
There are a ton of inexpensive resources that you can use to make this process easier.
That’s what we will cover in this post.

YourChicGeek Online Presence Examples (Website, Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube)
Back in the Day…
Back in the day, before things got poppin on the internet, most businesses were using traditional marketing and advertising to get their businesses out there to the world.
This included expensive things like:
- Running ads in major newspapers (which was hella expensive back then)
- Direct mail advertisements
- Printing out campaigns at a local print shop
- Billboards (for larger more established businesses with big budgets)...
Now, don’t get me wrong...
Traditional marketing still works. But compared to online marketing, traditional marketing is crazy expensive.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume you are probably running your business the “lean” way and are looking for inexpensive tools and resources to help you grow.
The great thing about growing your business's online presence is this:
The majority of your ideal customers are spending more time online shopping looking for products and services, hence why companies like Amazon are doing so well.
This is another reason why there’s never been a better time to start setting up online real estate and using it to grow your business.
The Web Makes It Easier to Get in Front of Your Ideal Audience
Growing your online presence is not going to happen overnight. It’s going to take some time and great deal of effort - especially in the beginning.
- Get your brand and business in front of people who will benefit the most from what you have to offer -- and without spending a fortune to do it.
As I previously stated, in the good ole days most businesses were stuck using expensive and ole school marketing to get in front of their audiences.
Now we are in a new era of marketing that is known as Digital Marketing where the cost of customer acquisition has decreased tremendously.
With digital marketing, you can market using various tech tools and resources to get in front of your peeps-- on the cheap..
- Brand your business inexpensively and look good on a modest budget.
When I first started creating visual branding for YourChicGeek, I was amazed at how many inexpensive branding tools there are available that can be used to present your business like a PRO -- without shelling out tons of money.

Branded Visual Designs with Canva
As you know, visual content is HOT these days. Fortunately, there are tons of online based tools to create branded images and other branding materials for your business, especially if you are starting up online for the first time.
- Grow your business. Ever hear of this thing called social media? Yea...soooo social media is seriously a game changer on the small business growth front.
I was reading an article recently from one of my favorite bloggers and mentor Don Purdum where he mentioned that in the olden days of marketing, it used to take sometimes between one to 12 months before seeing any results from running various marketing campaigns.
Now with various social media platforms available, you can simply point, click and send MASS marketing messages to your followers, fans and peeps in your community.
Growing Your Online Presence: What It Really Takes to Be Successful
Growing your online presence is not going to happen overnight. It’s going to take some time and great deal of effort especially in the beginning phases of your business to get things going.
To effectively grow your online presence, you will need to:
Get extremely targeted + focus on getting your message in front of the right people.
Leverage technology! Yes, tech stuff can be scary, but...when used correctly, it can work wonders for your brand.
Market your brand consistently. True growth comes from staying the course and continuing to do things consistently to grow your business.
7 Resources + Tools I Use Every Week To Grow My Online Presence
1. Buffer - for social media marketing
Guys, I mean seriously if you are not on the social media train and using it to grow your online presence you are seriously missing out on a ton of opportunities.
Contrary to popular belief, social media is not just a place where the “cool kids” hang out to chat.
It is really a great communication tool and platform where you can engage with your followers, market your content, and grow like crazy… if you use it right.
I mean seriously...if you would have told me just 3 months after launching this brand that I would be:
Collaborating with a fellow entrepreneur (that I met on Twitter) to run a 31 Day Startup Challenge
Invited to write for a blog that gets more than 2 million visits per month -- all from using social media, I would have said no FREAKIN way!

Buffer App
But… this is what tools like Buffer helps you do. Instead of hopping from one social media profile to the next trying to publish content, I just use Buffer to send content to all of my social media accounts from “one” place. Hootsuite is another great alternative as well that you should consider.
Another feature with Buffer that won me over is their “Reshare” feature. This gives you the ability to re-share older content that performed well instead of having to re-create posts from scratch.
2. An Editorial Calendar - for blogging and publishing content consistently
I seriously have to give one of my biz besties props for putting me onto editorial calendars because..this little resource has been a game changer.
For a good while, every month I struggled with trying to come up with new ideas for “What to type of blog content should I write”... or “What to Publish to Social Media”.
I didn’t realize the entire time that the resource that I needed to blog consistently and get things on track was an Editorial Calendar.

Peeps….your editorial editorial calendar will take all of the “guesswork” out of what needs to be published and when.
After I created one for my brand, growing my online presence every week got a lot easier.
3. Canva Pro - for all things visual design
It's safe to say that I use Canva Pro for almost 99% of my graphic design needs.
If you are struggling with visual design and want to create “stand out graphics” and designs that help your brand get noticed by your ideal audience, I would highly recommend heading over to start using Canva like right now.
In online marketing, you only have a split second to make a great first impression.
Things like great visual design and branding will definitely help you stand out, get noticed and get peeps interested in your brand.
With Canva, you are a “template” away from creating stand out graphics for things like blog post graphics, animated graphics, social media marketing graphics, course promo graphics and more.
These are items that you can learn how to create with no design experience required at all in Lights Canva Action.
4. Sumo.Me - for social sharing
You see that little nice social media sharing tool on the sidebar of my blog?
Yeaaaa so that is the Sumo.Me social sharing app that I use to encourage visitors to share my content across social media (and you should too).
This app is free to download so make sure that you check it out and use it on your blog.
5. YOAST SEO plugin - to get your blog posts discovered in Google
Getting your content discovered in the search engines like Google is a fantastic way to get your brand in front of your peeps and also grow your online presence.
For my WordPress website, YOAST SEO is the plugin that helps me easily add the right mix of keywords and other information to my content.
This way, when someone is searching for a term like “How to Use Canva”, my website will come up in the search results because I have added specific keywords and phrases to my posts that tell Google to send traffic my way.
Here’s an example:

SEO Example for YourChicGeek
Good SEO will help your online presence grow tremendously because:
It’s FREE traffic and eyeballs to your website
Organic traffic seems to have higher conversion rates as people are looking for solutions to a specific challenge
Just goes to show that learning search engine optimization basics can be rewarding over time for your brand.
6. Active Campaign - for sending emails to new subbies
Communicating with your tribe aka email subscribers is a great way to grow your online presence. When you are in constant communication with them, it brings a more personable element to your brand.
This allows your peeps to get to know, like and trust you on a deeper level outside of just reading a blog post or seeing something on social media that you’ve shared.
I’m using Active Campaign right to communicate with my email subbies. It also works wonderful for selling products, courses and services as well.
7. Thrive Leads - to grow your email list
Thrive Leads is a powerful WordPress plugin that helps you grow your email list so that you can follow up with your email subscribers later.
One of the MOST important things that you’ll want to focus on with running an online business is growing your email list.
Emailing your list regularly is a great way to grow your online presence and keep folks engaged with your brand.
The Wrap Up
So you've learned the top 7 tools that I use each week to grow my online presence. Now it’s time to apply them to your business.
Download my ebook Digital Domination guide to unlock all of the tips I've used to increase my social shares, readership and blog post popularity or enroll in Blog Like a CHAMP via the Blazing Branding Academy to start building a 365 day marketing engine that grows your online presence and attracts clients to you.
Over to You Fine People
I would also love to hear from you all as to what tools you are using to grow your online presence?