An interesting incident that happened a few days ago prompted me to write this article. In one of my client meetings with a business owner, he frustratingly stated “We already have great credibility in our offline market, and doing reasonably well, but in spite of having invested in a website and a blog, we’re not recognized well enough to our online customers”. “How can we get recognized?”
In an increasingly competitive online market, a successful web presence is what attracts your audience, and incorporating just a website and blog is not enough. It’s important to look at the big picture and know there are many ways for people to find you.
I came across thinking that his problem resonated with hundreds of other clients that I’ve dealt with –how to build a unique web presence/brand identity that drives conversions. And while there is no one solution (as every client’s industry and set of challenges are different), there are some tried and tested tactics that can help.
Here are the five overarching elements that are required for any young brand to take off and build a powerful web presence.
Developing a Well-Defined Objective
Often business owners and young start-ups fail to create a goal towards their web presence strategy. Their objective could be either to increase visibility or obtain an expert reputation in their niche, or to drive inbound leads or to create a buzz in social media. Knowing what users are trying to achieve heads you towards the right activities and eliminates time on wasting on others.
Remaining Brand Consistent and Brand Coherent
Whenever anyone comes across a reference to your company, the brand messaging, what it says and how it looks should remain consistent. This is important for them to recognize you across other similar businesses, with maybe even a similar sounding name as yours. Your entire web presence including website, social accounts, display advertising and offline presence should have similar and consistent colour scheme, logo and information to help ensure that people recognize your web properties immediately.
Continuous Participation through Content Building
You cannot just create profiles and forget it. You need to be present regularly to create and update your content, respond to questions, participate in conversations and acknowledge those who follow you on social media sites and your blogs. Should you find it overwhelming to create the right content, you can start by defining a content strategy that will help in gaining visibility and be found be audience searching for a solution.
Marketing any business in tough, but with the right efforts put into content distribution along with good SEO and web presence best practices, all come together to help you market your business successfully.
Ongoing Search Optimization
Another aspect of a brands overall web presence is it’s prevalence on SERPS (search engines results page), which helps your site to stay visible and highly ranked in search results. Since Google’s algorithm keeps tweaking its factors, continuous optimization and keyword monitoring is required to keep your web properties popular and relevant.
Mobile Presence Optimization
Technology habits changing, your website, not the least must be address mobile friendly. This means that not only should your site render properly on a mobile browser, but also functions in the same seamless manner and usability. Mobile web presence also extends into other marketing components such as email marketing, messaging.
The ever-evolving nature of online marketing can get a bit overwhelming for a small business owner. To find most value from your efforts, you can take help from a search specialist who can help you create a proper plan and prioritize your marketing activities in a streamlined manner.