Having a strong online presence is everything in today’s business landscape. No matter what industry your business is in, you need to be visible online to be seriously considered by customers. That’s a simple truth.
According to a study conducted by Salesforce, a notable majority of small and medium businesses (SMBs) moved at least a portion of their operations online. Nearly three-quarters of SMBs made efforts to strengthen their digital presence, whether through social media, organic search, or ads. Further, these efforts are expected to boost growth and build deeper relationships with customers.
If you do not want to be left behind by your competitors, then start putting more effort and resources into increasing your web presence and online brand visibility. Here are the essentials:
Professional-Looking and Responsive Website
Your website is a representation of your brand. Users will judge your business according to how they experience interacting with your website. An expertly-designed website will signal to users that your business is credible and trustworthy.
According to a study on web credibility conducted by Stanford, people quickly judge a website through web design alone. Careful attention should be paid to the layout, typography, images, and more. When it comes to building a professional-looking site, many factors will come into play and it’s best to ask for the assistance of an expert.
Gaining Organic Traffic through SEO
Having a steady flow of free, organic traffic to your website is the hallmark of having a solid digital presence. Organic traffic takes time to build but will be well worth it in the long run.
After building a website to represent your business, the next step, of course, is to make sure that people will be able to find it. This is where SEO comes in. SEO has different aspects. First, it involves optimizing the pages of your website (On-Page SEO) and ensuring that the technical issues are well-covered (Technical SEO). This is to ensure that the site is crawlable by search engines. Lastly, many efforts can be done outside your website to further improve search rankings (Off-Page SEO) These include tasks such as link building, social media sharing, and the like.
A Solid Social Media Strategy
With the sheer amount of users sharing and consuming social media content, it’s a no-brainer that social media is crucial when increasing online presence. Think of social media as an amplification tool. It allows your brand to spread the desired message to a vast network of people.
However, keep in mind that when it comes to social media, quality often trumps quality. Start with identifying the right target audience and limit your focus to what social platforms they use. With that, you can build an effective content strategy that appeals to your target audience’s needs and desires. Content shared on social media should be informative or inspirational enough to lead others in sharing it.
Getting Discovered Through Business Listings
With the help of business directory listings, your brand can to show up in more places online. There is a plethora of business listings out there, especially local business listings relevant to your area. These are the ones that would help your business be more visible in “near me” searches.
Also, links from high-traffic listings to your website are very helpful in establishing authority and credibility in the eyes of search engines. This can be an effective tactic for your Off-Page SEO strategy to build long-term consistent organic traffic.
Get Expert Help in Creating a Professional Website
When getting started in your journey to building a strong digital presence, one of the first steps is to ensure you have well-designed, functional website. Luckily, there are experts you can rely on in making sure your website is as professional as possible. Arrow Edge helps SMBs solidfy their web presence and cast a wider net to reach more qualified customers.
