Episode C.012 Build Your Online Presence

Why Online Presence?

Some type of online presence is 100% necessary for businesses as we navigate COVID19 and its aftermath.Maintaining an online presence requires consistency and testing new things to see what works best for you and your business. Not all platforms are created equal, and you might find what works for one business doesn’t work for yours.

Six Basic Components of a Strong Online Presence

1. Website And/Or Blog: More and more people look to the internet for their consumer needs. A website or blog is your virtual storefront. 
2. Clear Target Market And Keywords: Know your target market and their pain points and fears. 
3. Social Media Marketing And Interaction: Use Social Media to build a relationship with your target market. 
4. Consistent And High Volume Traffic: Design campaign to increase traffic, promote yourself, gain fans, followers, and business connections.
5. Capture Leads: Create compelling content and effective calls-to-action that lead people to the next step in the sales process.
6. Lead Conversion: There’s no use in capturing leads if you can’t convert them. This again includes compelling content, aesthetically pleasing design, organization and clear calls-to-action that lead people to the next step of the sales funnel.

As you build your brand in a systematic way it will dramatically improve your engagement, traffic and conversion indicators. 

Ten Strategies to Build a Strong Online Presence

1. Website: Create your company website with your domain name.In a recent survey, 92 percent of consumers said they would prefer to get information from a business’ website instead of their social media page.
2. Blog: Provide information about the high-quality products or services your brand offers, build strong and lasting relationships with your customers, and create a community of like-minded followers and educate them about your brand. Publish content consistently. 
3. Guest Posting: Gain credibility by posting articles on reputable contributor platforms.  rite articles for publications that have a large number of readers who may potentially migrate to your site. 
4. Effective Social Media Channels: Select the top three platforms that will yield the highest returns and focus your marketing campaign on them.If you are not sure where to start try LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Post daily short messages, take polls, organize contests, ask your followers questions. 
5. Email: Use your domain name as your company’s email address. Categorize your subscribers by repeat customers, recent subscribers and former customers you lost touch with. Customize your messages to each group, selecting words that resonate with each to drive active buyer behavior.
6. Business Directories: Boost your website rankings by creating a profile on platforms like Google My Business, Yelp and Yellow Pages.
7. SEO: Pre-COVID19 study showed 89 percent of consumers were using search engines to research a product, service or business before making a decision. That number is probably much higher now. Insert strong keywords in your text to push your website higher in search rankings.
8. Online Advertising: Consider online advertising for faster growth using search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing to advertise on. You can also use social media advertising on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.Pick the platform that is best-suited for your target audience to promote that content on.
9. Online Personal Brand: Integrate your professional and personal accounts to stand out. Create one coherent brand that integrates your career and personal goals. Transparency and relate-ability are the keys to draw more customers and partners. Use your real face on your social media accounts. Business logos are important, but your customers want to talk to you, not a logo.
10. Feedback: Thank users for positive reviews and reach out to negative reviewers to see how you can do better next time. Don’t get into an argument. Let the unhappy customer vent and see what you can do to make it right. Never argue with a reviewer. If you find false information, reach out to the review site—not the individual. Share positive reviews as testimonials

Caution: Don’t build an online presence for the sake of it, or because that’s what all your competitors are doing right now. Build it as a strategy to help your overall business goals.

Overall, a strong online presence is all about being interactive, helpful, and a resource to your audience. Since there is no hard and fast rule to these things, don’t be afraid to play around with your methods to see what works best for you and your audience. Over time, you will learn what works for you and what doesn’t.

​FINAL THOUGHT: Systematically practice this approach for building an impressive online presence to gain a large base of loyal customers, boost revenue and elevate your website's search rankings.