These days, every business needs a good digital presence to be competitive. But what is a digital presence? Basically, it is your digital footprint. It’s how and what people find about your business when they search you online, everything from your website to your Instagram, customer reviews, and more…
90+% of consumers use the internet to search for local business and 85+% read online reviews for local businesses. What customers find when doing these online searches will impact how and where they spend their money.
When you Google your name or business – this is your digital presence? Is your website in the #1 spot (UNLIKELY)? If you have a hard time finding information online about your business, so do your customers. It takes time and effort but a strong digital presence can be created and curated.
Where to Start?
- YOUR WEBSITE
A well-designed website, with pagespeed optimization, and good SEO – will stand out in a crowded field. It only takes a few seconds for users to form an opinion about your website regarding whether they will explore the site or bounce to another.
A well-developed website has the potential to increase leads, sales, and conversions, for you. It can supply consumers with information about your products and services 24/7.
- SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and hundreds more, allow you to share content, and other information quickly with friends or followers.
Focus on the social media channels that will reach your target audience. Social media is your chance to connect and interact with your customers and potential customers.
For businesses, social media isn’t static, it needs to be attended to. It is dynamic, it takes time, you need to update it frequently, and monitor it daily, or with twitter ~ hourly.
- ONLINE CUSTOMER REVIEW(S) MANAGEMENT
Online reviews about your business have a major impact on your digital presence. TripAdvisor and Yelp make a lot of money every year connecting client’s opinions ~ with potential clients. In fact, 75% of consumers trust a company more, based on positive reviews, I know I do. And accordingly, the majority of consumers say negative reviews will influence them to NOT use a business.
And you can’t control what everybody says about your business online, you can make an effort to treat every customer with respect; and it’s always a good idea to monitor and respond to any reviews that your business receives as quickly and professionally as you can – no matter if it’s a good or a bad review. A response shows that your business is engaged.
- EMAIL AND/OR TEXT MESSAGE MARKETING
Email marketing is as old-skool as it gets with digital marketing. It reaches consumers directly, quickly and affordably. But be careful, generally less is more in this channel, nobody wants an email every day, and also always give people a way to opt out. Spam is a quick way to alienate potential customers.
The use of text message, or SMS, marketing is definitely on the rise as mobile phones move to the forefront of technology. Text message open-rates are significantly higher than email-open rates, close to 100%, making it a potentially useful resource for reaching customers with offers, coupons and promotions.
Email and text marketing work well together as tools to keep your customers engaged and keep your business in mind, for those who have double-opted-in (another blog) to receive your marketing SMS and emails.
- SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) [THE HOLY GRAIL]
Once you have your website design in mind, you can get to work on your Google search keywords, basically there are short-tail and long-tail keywords to drive traffic to your website organically (Google search). For example: Search Google for ‘SEO’ and ‘SEO in Gilbert Arizona’ The first being a short-tail, one- or two-word query (generic), and the second being a multi-word Google search that is more specific and normally has higher conversions, but less clicks.
Best practice for creating your website, is that you or your webmaster implement strategies to increase your rankings on Google, such as writing keyword-heavy copy (content + SEO + keywords) and updating your content/blog/tweets/social media… frequently, filling in your website’s metadata, headers and footers… SEO is a long-game that needs constant monitoring, and takes months and even years to grow.
Alternatively, you can Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, such as Google Ads or Bing Ads. PPC allows you to see results quickly by getting your business to the top of relevant search results within days or weeks. They are pretty straight forward to set up, choose your budget, write the ad, and they are live in 1 hour to 1 day. Google AdWords give you a gazillion metrics so you can very quickly see what is working and what is not. Google Ads has an 8:1 ROI (Return on Investment) https://economicimpact.google.com/methodology/
On average 1$ in spending =8$ in sales.
SO, NOW WHAT?
It takes a lot of work to make a strong digital presence. Google’s organic results can take a year, and always need to be tweaked. Luckily, My Digital Presence can help you get started. Reasonable prices, no pressure quotes. Whether you’re just starting with the basics or you want to take your digital presence to the next level, we have the tools to help you succeed. Drop us a line anytime, and we can help answer any of your questions about what our experts can do to give your digital presence a major boost!
