Unless you’re a niche store, a classic brand, or a firm purposefully intended to be ‘offline and off the grid,’ then the overwhelming returns of building an online presence are worth considering and implementing ASAP.
Sure, you may have social media profiles, or maybe even a Google Business listing, but are you using your online presence to your advantage? And perhaps more than that, do you know what kind of confident online identity you wish to go for?
After all, brands, more than ever, express themselves multiple times a day via what they choose to post online, how they curate their website, and how active they are in pushing that kind of marketing.
Additionally, it’s worth considering the practices that orbit this discipline, such as how to proactively have your website and social media pages seen, how to draw organic traffic, and how to convert leads into sales.
For instance, using a local SEO firm can be a fantastic means of increasing your websites’ backlink authority and search engine ranking. From there, you may wish to consider:
Keep Your Imagery Consistent
Keeping your imagery consistent is important. Think of how many brands the average web user sees a day. Unless they use special AdBlocking features in their web browser (and even IF they do this, marketing will still be seen), it’s likely hundreds of brands a day that they come across.
In order to cut through all that and stay memorable, you need to have a brand that can be immediately recognized. This means your social media advertisement should match your brand influencing before YouTube videos, or it means keeping consistent in tone with your social media posts and promotions.
It means all of this should relate back to your website properly, with proper formatting, fonts, and more.
Find Your Voice
It’s important to find the voice of your brand if you can. This can imply very different outcomes depending on your particular brand and what it entails. For instance, the online approach used by a law firm or funeral director’s will be much less bombastic and zany than a new mobile contract firm trying to appeal to people in the city.
Finding your voice means knowing how to write copy, and how to promote yourself without sounding overfamiliar. It’s a difficult line to find, but one that can have tremendous effects if you know how to go for it.
Of course, developing that as a business startup with employees who may or may not understand how to achieve this voice can be tough. This is where hiring the services of a competent online copywriter can be so useful, and will help you move forward with a competent approach.
Online Affiliations
Sometimes, it’s not just who you are, but who you’re seen with that can define how people regard you. This is true for businesses, also.
Think of how brands like Headspace (the meditation app), connected with Spotify to offer free subscriptions to those who paid for Spotify’s service. Sure, the business had to take a loss for a few months to offer this promotion, but immediately it aligned itself with a much more established, trusted name, and raised the profile of its branding almost immediately thanks to such an effort. Could it be that an approach like this from your end could achieve similar results?
Run A Blog (No, Seriously)
Many people think that blogs are old-hat and tired. That’s not the case at all. Business blogs are not only places where organic traffic can be incentivized, but a place where you can practice SEO techniques to raise in the search rankings.
Of course, a business blog can also be a great way to define its online presence. You don’t need to run a stuffy business blog for that to work. For instance, think of a local charcuterie using their blog space to showcase the latest cheeses they’re working with, or the craft beer breweries they’re supporting, or events and markets they’ve run.
Intersperse this with a little cooking advice and the willingness to interact with your audience, and before you know it you’ve developed your brand identity with goodwill, perhaps even building a community around doing that. It’s hard not to see the value in such an approach.
With this advice, we’re certain your brand will confidently define and refine its online presence anew. If not, you can always head back to the drawing board and try again.
