In a world where consumers are increasingly using digital channels, such as company websites and social media profiles, to engage with businesses, it is crucial that you create a strong online presence. This will allow your enterprise to connect with customers, so they are more likely to buy your products and services. Here Turner Little explains how you can boost your business’ presence online.
Utilise local SEO
It is pivotal that when customers search for local businesses online, they discover your company, as 97% are now using this tactic to find goods and services. So, you should strive to leverage local SEO tactics. Let’s say for example, you are builder in London. By employing local SEO strategies, which, if done correctly, allow you to rank highly on search engines when customers look up services near your location. So you can ensure that if a customer searches for ‘builder in London,’ your firm appears prominently in the results.
There are various means through which you can do this. It is key that you feature consistent contact information e.g. address, across your firm’s online assets, and embed a Google Map into your website, to ensure the search engine always associates your company with this location. Another good tactic can be optimising your content and meta tags (snippets of text that describes a page’s content and is used by search engines need to rank your website), on your digital assets with your location to achieve this aim.
Communicate with your consumers
It is a case of use it or lose it here. Have an online conversation with your customers, so they can communicate their needs to your venture, allowing you to create the kind of authentic relationship you need to attract and retain business. To make this happen, work to establish a consistent voice for your brand, and respond to customer queries quickly, so they place trust in your brand. Also measure your online activity through tools such as Hootsuite, which includes features which allow you to track online traffic on your social media channels, so you can tweak your strategy where necessary.
Listen to customer reviews
If you want to form that relationship with consumers, make sure that when they give you feedback in the form of online reviews, you take on board what they say and use it to improve. Remember that data shows 88% of consumers now trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, so if you do not follow this strategy, you could lose consumer trust and see your profit margins fall.
You would be advised to make it as easy as possible for customers to review your business, so you can access this critical feedback. Including internal review systems on your company website, and linking to them on your social media channels is a good idea. Keep in mind that review signals make up 9.8% of total ranking factors in search results, so doing this can also help you improve your local SEO too!
Embrace mobile platforms
It is not enough to just establish a strong online presence. You also need to ensure your company’s online platforms can be accessed easily by customers on whichever device they want to use, so it is truly effective. This means that you need to ensure your firm’s digital assets, especially your website, are compatible with mobile, as consumers are increasingly using this technology to engage with businesses online.
Focus on overall usability, speed and optimisation. According to studies, if a website takes over three seconds to load on mobile, 40% of people will leave, while 72% of mobile users say that it is critical that a website is mobile-friendly, highlighting the importance of these factors. You can increase speed by leveraging Google’s recently-released ‘Accelerated Mobile Pages’ tool on your company website, which has been shown to increase a firm’s digital traffic by as much as 80%.
It is also a good idea to form a mobile marketing strategy, so you can reach out to as many consumers as possible. One way to do so is to join mobile marketing networks, which allows users to share your ads with others in the network for a small fee, to increase traffic. You need to ensure that any mobile marketing content you push out makes a splash, so it is also handy to use Google’s mobile-friendly test to ensure your portal is responsive to these platforms, allowing your marketing efforts to shine.
Push a connected strategy
There are so many moving parts in business marketing now – online, offline and mobile. If you want to create the strongest online presence possible, connect these elements, to promote a strong, trusted brand identity. Again, embrace consistency in all customer communications, so your offline content enhances – rather than detracts from – your online and mobile content. It is also a good tactic to leverage any data you collect from online, offline and mobile marketing, to allocate your budget properly, so you can devote more funding to the areas that work and promote a stronger online presence.
Get the fundamentals right
Before you use these strategies to boost your firm’s online presence, it is essential that you get the fundamentals right. This means that you should get a robust company website in place, providing the solid foundation you need to build your online presence upon. We can supply assistance here, as Turner Little sells the affordable internet services, such as website hosting and development, that you need to go forward and create a vibrant presence for your business online.
