Your business’s online presence is crucial for reinforcing your brand image and helping you interact with your target market. With more people using the internet to buy a product or a service each day it is vital that you are using this to your business’s advantage.
Here are 7 ways that you can help build your online presence.
Website
It is essential for every business to have a website. A website is usually where a customer will go to find out more information about your company. Your website is a great opportunity to convey your brand image to consumers through the use of colour, images, text and video. You should ensure that your website is user-friendly and well-suited to your target audience. You should always build your website with your customer base in mind. Try to question what about your website would make someone stay to look at it.
Produce Engaging Content
As a business, you will want to ensure that you are regularly producing content. The more content you can produce and put out there into the online world, the more chances there are of people seeing it. Try to switch up your content from time to time so that your customers don’t lose interest.
Videos and gifs can be visually pleasing and help keep people engaged so don’t be afraid to use them. Not everyone wants to read mountains of text so try to break this up with other features such as images. Always try to think outside of the box and produce content that is creative, unique and on trend. Trends are hugely important as they help your video go viral so always keep an eye on current social media trends so you can use this to your advantage.
Email List
Creating and growing your email list is essential when building your online presence. Having an email list is an effective way to engage with your customers on a regular basis. Growing your email list can be fairly straight forward. You can create content that users have to sign up for to receive. One of the most effective ways to grow your list is by having a call to action on your website and social media pages which promotes your email newsletter. A newsletter is a great way to collect leads and it also gives your business an opportunity to show customers your creative content.
Be Personal
It has become apparent that people appreciate transparency from a business. More people want to get to know a company on a more personal level. Don’t be afraid to crack jokes on social media or talk to your customers as if they are your friend. You will find this will help to give your business personality and also reassure people that you are not just a big corporate robot who wants to sell, sell, sell.
It can be nice for your customers to put a face to the brand. Sharing team photos or having a “Meet The Team” profile on your company website can be a great way to let people know that you are in fact human! It may sound silly, but it can help your consumers build a better connection with you and consolidate their loyalty with your brand.
Build Relationships
It is important to reach out and build relationships with other organisations within your industry. The more contacts you have can increase your chance of being seen online. For instance, if you build a trusting relationship between yourself and some popular bloggers then they may feature your company in a post. They may even offer to let you guest post to showcase your product or service to a wider audience.
Look At Your Competitors
You should always keep an eye on your competitors to see what type of content they are posting. This can give you an insight into what works and what doesn’t when it comes to certain social media platforms. Just because something doesn’t work on Facebook, doesn’t mean that will also be the case for Instagram.
Looking at your competitors’ content will also allow you to spot any gaps that they are missing. You can home in on this with your content and create something that is unique and that will help you stand out from the crowd. Think about what will engage your audience and make them want to follow your social media platforms.
SEO
Search engine optimisation helps your business rank high in search engine results. You should be aware that the majority of consumers use search engines to find businesses or products. Being at the top of the search engine result will be hugely beneficial in helping you attract more customers. You’ll need to build a strong SEO strategy to help your website perform better in searches. It is crucial that you are ensuring that you are hitting your target market.
