In marketing, a digital presence or digital footprint is what people find when they Google you or your company; and it is about how brands can build and grow digitally.
As the number and influence of digital marketing channels continue to grow, it’s important that businesses have a strong digital presence so they can raise brand awareness, reach potential customers, engage target audiences and drive growth.
So ~What is Digital Presence?
Digital presence is how your business shows up online. Your web presence is the impression your brand makes through your websites, search engines results, and social media platforms, blogs, posts and online content associated to you.
What Are the Essential Elements of a Digital Presence?
Digital marketing channels continue to grow exponentially every year. Businesses need to develop a strategy for how they will, implement, and refine their digital presence across these channels.
Your website is the center of the web of your digital presence. When potential customers want to learn more about your brand or your business, your website is probably the first place they will look. As such, everything from the ‘About Us’ page to your landing pages for products and services needs to be optimized and refined. That means consistent branding, helpful information, responsive design and simplified page navigation are all important to a high-quality customer experience. Which allow you to help shape your brand’s image as reputable, making a big impact on online users.
Social Media
A social media presence is essential to most digital marketing strategy today. Social channels are primarily useful as a means to help customers attach to your brand and lift awareness. Every post you make on Facebook or Twitter is an opportunity to engage followers, as well as project the type of brand identity you aim for. Being active on social media can allow you to improve your digital footprint in many ways, by letting you engage with your customers or potential customers.
Organic Search Vs. Paid Advertising (PPC)
When customers visit your website, they often do so after searching for your company on Google. How you appear on search engine result pages (SERPs) factors into your digital presence. Those with the top results (first page) get the most clicks, and thus the most business and trust. The more optimized your website and content are, the greater your chances of being on the front page. Paid advertising gets your online presence in front of potential customers. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads, are great to lift brand awareness and digital presence fast, in just a matter of days or weeks, and typically have a high ROI.
Content
Blogs, Facebook posts, eBooks, graphs and charts that you have made, — these are all content marketing assets that are critical to building an online presence. Content is KING, and it is the best tool for defining and strengthening your digital presence. High-quality content can help you increase your chances of ranking well for key terms and engage prospects, nurture leads and become a thought leader.
Working Toward a Profitable Digital Presence.
Requires ongoing refinement and tweaking. Somethings will work better and others need to be let go of. Customer preferences and perceptions are formed in large part by their interactions with the above elements of a digital presence. To make the best impression, be sure that your digital presence is:
Consistent: The same color scheme you use on your website should be used on your social media profile and in your content assets. Taglines, imagery, tone and style and other aspects of digital marketing need to be brought into alignment across platforms and channels.
Takes into account what people are saying about you or your brand: Interactions with customers have a lot of impact on your online reputation for better or worse. Interactions with customers can also determine your customer reviews, which in turn can either support or undermine your web presence.
Is optimized for mobile devices: Increasingly more people are surfing the net on their phones more than their computers. Even a carefully crafted digital presence can fail because of poor performance on mobiles and tablets. Website pages that aren’t optimized for smartphones or tablets can drive away potential customers. Yet mobile also presents opportunities, not just challenges, particularly regarding apps, local search and social media presence.
6 Ways to Optimize Your Digital Presence:
A good digital presence often requires daily work, especially if you are working with social media.
- Pay attention to the details
Lots of effort will be put into optimizing your website, and for good reason. But don’t let that come at the expense of other elements of your digital presence.
For example, online search directories and business listings must contain up to date and accurate data like your business hours, locations and contact information. Customers who come across outdated or incorrect information will have less trust in your brand, which ultimately has negative consequences on your digital presence.
- Go Beyond the Basics
While it’s important to not forget the small things, you should also endeavor to do more than the bare minimum. In terms of your content marketing, don’t rely on just your normal blog posts.
If you want to show authority, consider having guest blogs that can expand your marketing reach as well. Ditto for email marketing. Drip campaigns are ok, but an email newsletter that delivers something interesting or useful to customer inboxes can really set you apart.
- Play with Visual Content
Your website needs good content that is optimized for the keywords you are trying to rank for. Well-produced visual content also helps sell your brand and message to potential customers also has a high impact.
Visuals like videos or dashboards can be impactful content assets, as well as highly shareable material for social media. When you incorporate all of your visual assets consistently you project a digital presence that online users can easily recognize.
Be Active on Multiple Social Platforms
Speaking of social media, it’s not just Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that you need to be active on. There are new platforms being created daily that can help you build up digital presence.
Find out and target the platforms your customers use most. For instance, B2C brands may want to have profiles on Pinterest or eBay; for B2B companies, a LinkedIn profile is a must.
- Don’t be static – keep growing and changing
If you are not growing your digital presence is will stagnate. Google’s algorithms and what’s popular are always changing, so your brand needs to keep up to date with what is relevant. This means paying attention to and trends and other developments that impact how your digital presence is delivered and refined.
A digital presence needs constant attention like plants, and thrive with nurturing. With time, you can create an online footprint that brings your brand to the top of customers’ minds or SERPs. Do you have any tips for crafting a superior web presence? Leave them in the comments below!
