As any business knows, building your online presence can be time consuming and challenging, but it’s also incredibly important. Building your online presence is the only way that people can find you, interact with you and get to know you online, which ultimately leads to them liking you and trusting you.
Building trust with your clients is something that takes time and energy, but it’s absolutely worthwhile establishing your identity and building your reputation.
Want to know how to build your online presence and stand out from the crowd? Read on our top 6 tips:
BEGIN WITH A MISSION
What does your brand stand for? What are your business goals – on both a short and long-term basis?
The mission of your brand is to tell a story and create an experience for your clients. As you begin to grow your online presence, you should always be asking yourself how every online effort you make is helping you to achieve your business goals.
Write down your goals so that you can refer back to them and keep on track. Your online presence should be built strategically so that it can help you to achieve your overall business goals.
BUILD A PLATFORM
To build a solid platform you need to start with a high-quality web design. This website should be attractive, engaging and interactive, to encourage people to keep browsing and ultimately get in touch with you. You may also wish to include valuable content, such as a business blog, audios or videos.
SEO is important here too as this is what gets traffic to your website. If you’re new to SEO, see here and here for some top tips. Also, Google’s Keyword Tool is a fantastic resource that helps you to locate the keywords you want your website to rank for.
KEEP THINGS SIMPLE
When you do a marketing campaign, it can be tempting to throw in a lot of information. But doing this overwhelms your audience and confuses them. Instead, keep a clear, simple focus that concentrates on your core offering. Make the assumption that people are hearing your message for the first time.
NEVER STOP OPTIMISING
The beauty of the internet is that it is a continually evolving, fast-changing entity that can easily be adapted and amended. With your web design, there’s no need to put pressure on yourself to be perfect. You can always try something, test it out and if it doesn’t work, edit it or delete it completely! It is better to improve and optimise on your current content than to not get that content out at all.
ALWAYS PROVIDE VALUE
Whether it’s through your website, blog or social media channels, your priority should always be the same: to provide value to your followers. Your content, whether that’s podcasts, blog articles or videos, should always be consistent and valuable, as this will help you to build a positive reputation as an industry expert. Providing value is also important for your online growth and visibility.
TRACK YOUR PROGRESS
Use Google Analytics to establish what’s working and what’s not. By tracking all activity, you will be better able to recognise trends and identify any large spikes in traffic (and why those spikes occurred).
SUMMING UP
As you can see, there are plenty of ways to build a positive online presence. Ultimately, the process can take time so it’s important that you are willing to be patient: remember, there is a great deal of competition out there.
How you interact and engage with your customers (and potential customers) can help to increase brand awareness and grow your following, which will naturally lead to more customers. No, you don’t need to be everywhere online, but you do have to be somewhere, and if you can ensure that your online presence is of the highest quality, you will be far more likely to expand your online presence very rapidly.
About 8 Ways Media
8 Ways Media is your leading branding and web design agency specialising in the creation of bespoke services designed to help you succeed as a business. Get in touch today for more information on how we can help you transform your business and reach out to an even bigger audience.
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