Your online presence is how people find and connect with you online. If your online presence is weak or non-existent, your brand will disappear online. Whether you have a brick-and-mortar or an online business, you want people to find you with ease. The easier it is for people to find you will determine how much business you’ll receive.
Recent data from KPMG International shows that 55% of people search online for reviews, and 47% visit a company website when deciding how to spend their money. And that means you need an online presence. The visibility of your business, its brand identity, and brand awareness are vital.
If you are ready to improve your online presence, here are a few places to start.
Creating a perfectly branded website for your business is the first step in establishing your online presence. It serves as a valuable tool for generating leads and sales.
That said, your logo and the content on your website need to show how people find and view your brand online. If you need a logo, create one with a logo creator or graphic artist to help ensure every piece of content is consistent with your brand.
Moreover, it’s important to ensure your content is up to date and relevant. Try using a CMS (content management system) that allows you to keep your website fresh with creative content. Keep it active with blogs or how-to manuals to help prospective customers solve their problems.
Having a list of your consumers’ email addresses is an excellent way to stay engaged with your customers. You can use email marketing to make announcements, invite them to events, or share how your business is changing for the better.
One of the best ways to grow your email list is by offering a freebie in exchange for an email address. Other ways to build your email list include:
Not having a social media account could mean that your customers and industry peers will find other businesses instead. If you’re not using social media, it’s time to sign up.
Social media branding aims to create a visual image for your business online. It’s how people discover and interact with your business, as well as how they think of you as a brand and learn about new products and services.
The first step to establishing social media accounts is by creating a page for your business on each of the different platforms. Next, it’s time to learn how to create amazing social media campaigns that drive traffic to your website.
As you create your social accounts, consider the following:
Just as your website needs to be updated, so do your social media accounts. You must post new content regularly to increase your online presence and reach a wider audience.
Expand into new platforms. You can find more clients looking for what you have to offer. The expansion also provides a greater opportunity for building brand awareness.
For example, consider starting a blog using Tumblr or creating an account on LinkedIn if your services are for a more professional audience. In addition, you may want to see how your business fares on Snapchat or Pinterest. These platforms help you stay more engaged with your customers and potential followers.
Content marketing aims to attract a steady amount of customers and ultimately increase your online presence. You can up your content game by creating how-to guides, industry news updates, and how-to manuals for other businesses.
Consider creating other types of content such as:
Creating new content regularly teaches your customers how to do something and share content with others in the same industry. This increases online presence by showing you are an authoritative figure in your field.
Whether you choose videos or blogging guides, be sure to post on all of your social accounts and include links back to your website.
Online advertising is how you can get the right people to notice your business. To boost online presence, it’s important to learn how you can get more eyes on your ads and website through different types of ads such as:
The great thing about online advertising is you can see how effective your ad was the minute you created it. With ads, you can set your budget, choose your target audience, and constantly track how well it performs. Immediate feedback allows you to make changes as you move forward.
Once you’re online, stay active. If your business is sharing guides and tips for how others can start their own business, then interact with them by answering any questions they may have or thanking them for leaving a comment.
Being active online means not only creating outstanding content but also responding to how your customers are using it. The more often you interact with how they share, comment, and like your content, the more likely you are to develop a relationship with them. This builds your online trust and shows how knowledgeable you are about your business.
Personal branding gives your business a way to express how you come across online. Thus, your branding represents how you operate within your industry and how you stand out from the competition. As such, personal branding must include:
Personal branding also allows potential consumers to get to know who you are as people, which is beneficial for both your online presence and customer engagement.
Influencer marketing is a method of connecting your business to others in the same industry. With this form of marketing, you can build a mutual bond with an influencer by seeing how they promote themselves and their passions to their followers.
Research your industry and its key influencers. Once you’ve found the key players, see how you can work with the way they promote themselves to your target market. By doing this, you better understand how your business operates within that industry and where to focus your efforts.
When learning how to build a brand, it’s vital to know how your competitors do the same. By understanding their online presence, you gain insight into how to increase your business’s online presence.
Conducting competitor research is one of the key strategies to get ahead of your competition online. It requires looking at the way other businesses operate, how they engage with consumers, how they promote themselves online, and how to use these research findings to your advantage.
Developing relationships with other businesses within your industry or outside of your niche can benefit both parties. In addition, cross-collaboration and mutual sharing can lead to an increased online presence for everyone.
Find key players in your industry or industries you’d like to break into that operate similarly to you. By connecting with them on social media and sharing each other’s posts, you’ll be able to build a mutual bond with them.
You can also see if they’re interested in sharing your content or creating content together. If so, create unique content that builds off each other’s industry expertise and engages the same followers.
Monitoring and analyzing your results is a critical component to improving your business’s online presence. Without monitoring and analyzing your results, you won’t know what works or doesn’t.
Monitoring and analyzing your results allows you to:
To properly monitor and analyze your results, have a consistent schedule. Take time out of each day to look at the performance of your content across various social media platforms.
Overall, learning how to boost the online presence of your business requires you to be willing to learn, grow, and evolve constantly. With each change, you must act with the ultimate goal of providing value for your target market.
Natasha Ivanovic is a Vancouver-born creative writer that started her writing career as a freelancer while studying for her Master’s in Investigative Psychology. On the weekends, she writes short stories for her blog, TheLonelySerb, and cuddles with her bulldog, Bob.
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