The 15 Best Ways to Build Your Online Presence
As society has developed, and new technologies are released and readily available, a lot of our time is now spent online, in the digital world.
Naturally, for businesses, this is a great opportunity to capitalise on this time, and market your products and services to potential new clients.
To help you optimise your digital presence and start seeing an increase in sales and brand awareness, we’ve created this list of the 15 best ways to build your online presence.
- Increase Your Interactions
There are so many different ways you can interact with your existing and potential customers online now. You should be utilising as many sales channels as you possibly can.
You want to be careful to not spam your customers. It can be a careful balance of interacting enough to maintain your relevance, and not reaching out so much that you become annoying.
You can interact with your customers online through:
- Building an email list and utilising email marketing
- Posting on social media
- Direct messaging on social media
- Comment sections on your website
- Comment sections on your social media profiles (YouTube, FaceBook, Instagram etc.)
- Optimise Your Website
Your website is the base of your online operations. It is where you are funnelling people towards, and where you will be showcasing your products and services.
Naturally, you want to make sure that your website is well designed and looks great.
Your website needs to have high speeds, an eye catching and appealing design, and a strong SEO plan.
You want to design your website with your ideal customer in mind. It should be intuitive to use and user friendly. People will easily lose interest in buying from your website if the links don’t work or the design doesn’t look trustworthy.
- Implement an SEO strategy
A good Search Engine Optimisation strategy is going to increase your online presence immensely, by pushing you higher up in search results.
It may take a little while to set up, but the long term benefits are going to be astonishing for your businesses success.
Implementing an SEO strategy doesn’t just stop with designing your website though, it needs to extend to every part of your business.
You should be frequently updating the on-page and off-page SEO, as well as making sure your social media platforms are well optimised, you have legitimate reviews, and you are improving backlinking to your website.
- Stay Connected
If you want to improve your online presence, you need to stay connected with your target audiences.
Your social network will likely extend far across the web. From social media pages, to your website. You need to stay connected online if you want to help maintain your connections, and boost your presence.
If you don’t stay connected, people may forget about you, and you can lose the progress that you have worked so hard to build.
- Stay Consistent
If you want to improve your brand identity, and build up a strong following online, you need to stay consistent. You should have a posting schedule, so you aren’t just posting once one week, and then 20 times the next week.
This can be off putting to many people. You also want to stick to content within your area. Of course you can branch out to new things, but if you want to completely change your type of content, you should notify your followers about what is happening.
When food pages start constantly posting about celebrity gossip, people get annoyed because it is not what they followed the page for.
- Mix Things Up
You may be thinking, how can you stay consistent, while also mixing things up?
You still need to stay consistent with your overall tone of voice, and the visual aspects of your branding. But you also want to try to implement new marketing strategies, and not just let your content stagnate.
You don’t just want to be posting the same things over and over again, or your audience will become bored.
Creating new and interesting content related to your brand can help keep people engaged with you.
- Use Ads Wisely
Paid Ads are an excellent way to improve your online presence, as you can get yourself seen in front of more people almost instantly.
You want to make sure you are using paid ads wisely though, in order to get your optimal return on investment.
If you have a strong ad strategy, you can see a huge boost in your sales and your brand awareness online. You just need to make sure that you are targeting the right audience, and not just throwing ads out there for anyone to see.
Testing out different approaches can help you find what works best for you.
- Collaborate With Businesses
Guest posting on another businesses website is a great way to build up your online presence.
Guest posting on a different website is going to do wonders for your SEO strategy. You will have your name and a link to your website in more places online. This is going to boost your website in search engine results, as well as put you in front of more people.
Finding a site that is relevant to your industry can be a great place to start.
- Collaborate With Influencers
Influencers have become a huge part of digital marketing for many companies. If an influencer is talking about your product or service, you are being marketed to their loyal fans.
Often influencers have an established and trusting relationship with their followers. If you sign a brand deal with them to promote your product, or give them a product for free, you are being put in front of a large audience.
People will often believe what their favourite influencer says, and will want to buy the same things that they have. This can be a very powerful form of marketing when done right.
Collaborating with influencers is more effective for certain industries, such as beauty products, but if done right, it can work for nearly any product or service.
Just make sure you choose an influencer whose followers are likely to want your products.
- Apply For Industry Awards
Applying for awards that are relevant to your industry can be a great way for you to improve your online presence.
Even if you don’t win, but simply get mentioned by the organisation holding the Awards, you are boosting your business online.
There are so many awards for large and small businesses out there, it shouldn’t be hard to find either a local or global award you can be nominated for.
And if you win, even better. Your name will be put all over their website and social media, and you’ll earn yourself some more credibility and prestige.
- Keep On Top Of Trends
Everything happens so fast in the digital world, it can be a ‘blink and you miss it moment’. Keeping on top of trends is a great way to improve your online presence.
You don’t need to jump on every single trend, and in fact that can actually backfire. If you occasionally see a trend that could be relevant to your business, then it’s a good idea to capitalise on that.
Whether it’s creating a meme or writing a blog post, just make sure that you are staying creative and unique from what everyone else is posting.
- Utilise Social Media
Improving your social media profiles can be a great way to boost your online presence. Social channels are so important, because those connections are what will help you maintain a steady presence.
Make sure that you are utilising the relevant social media channels for your business. If you are having a lot of interactions and engagements on one site, but not another, then you are better off focusing your time on the one that is doing well.
You don’t want to make a half-hearted effort. If you are going to use social media, you should make sure that you have a proper strategy, and you are posting quality content.
- Develop Strong Branding
Developing strong branding is going to help you get recognised online. There’s no point in having your business everywhere online, if no one even remembers who you are.
You need a distinct logo, colour scheme and name. There are millions of businesses trying to make a mark online, so what makes you any different?
If you develop a strong brand identity, you can make sure that all your digital marketing efforts will actually have a good pay off – people will recognise and remember who you are.
- Use Statistics
Statistics, statistics, statistics. You want to be keeping data on every single marketing strategy you are implementing.
This way, you can see what is actually working and what isn’t. You don’t want to be investing time and money into something that actually isn’t giving you the results you need.
With statistics you can optimise all of your strategies and make sure that you are doing the things that are actually getting you noticed, and helping you gain customers.
- Don’t Just Promote
If you truly want to build a good and strong online presence, than you can’t just promote.
People don’t just want to hear about how great you and your products are. This can feel hollow and like a cash grab.
You need to actually be having meaningful conversations and engaging with people. If you become known as a cold and unfeeling corporation, people will be put off.
However, if you actually post real and meaningful content, as well as self promotion, you will be showing that you are a genuine company, filled with genuine people.
Humans are emotional creatures, we want to connect to each other, and feel listened to.
We are more likely to give our money to a business that shows they care, and that feels genuine, than to a business that doesn’t.
These 15 tips are a great way for you to start building your online presence, just remember to stay authentic and real.
