10 Effective Ways To Build Online Presence, Influence People, and Increase Conversion Rate
An online presence is the accumulation of all of the internet identities that you have and the interactions that you have with others on the web. This presence can be personal or business-related but is always used to build some sort of brand presence. If your online presence has a broad reach, you have a great chance of gaining new followers, customers, and fans.
For those who are fairly new to running their own business, building an online presence seems like a daunting task and many will be swayed to take shortcuts to gain a quick following. Actually building a quality following will take time and your brand presence is extremely important. Here are 10 ways you can build your business’s online presence to influence people and convert them to customers.
1. Determine What Your Goals Are
The very first step of establishing brand presence online is to understand what your goals are. What is the purpose of the brand you’re establishing? What are you trying to influence people to do? What are the ways you plan to get them to do that? These should all be questions you should consider. You also want to set a list of short- and long-term you want to achieve in your business. If you build your brand presence strategically with goals, you’ll produce more results than just doing things whenever.
2. Create A Professional, Appealing Website
A well-designed website can really make or break what people think of your brand. The quality and professionalism presented in your website’s layout is the first component in creating a lasting online presence. These days you have the luxury of using a variety of site builders to help you construct the best looking website possible. While you don’t have to do any coding or possess any graphic design knowledge, there are a few things to keep in mind while building your site.
Focus on visuals. Those who visit your site will make a judgment immediately based on what they see. The images, colors, and fonts you use contribute to the impression you portray. Grammar and spelling mistakes will also contribute to this. You want to make sure you’re putting the best visuals up on your site to keep visitors interested.
Have a responsive design. Mobile optimization is important in this day and age. More and more people are spending time looking at websites from their mobile devices. Having a responsive design makes sure that your website is being viewed the best they can on tablets and smartphones. If you’re not “mobile-friendly” then you run the risk of being passed up almost immediately for a site that is.
Concise content and message. Using too much fancy or flowery language when creating the message in your website content, can turn many people off from following your brand. You also don’t want to put up images that are in no way associated with what you’re trying to do. You want your content and message to match your overall goals, values, business identity, and mission.
3. Optimize Every Part of Your Website
Search engine optimization (SEO) will be the way to get more people looking at your content. It uses techniques to direct potential customers or followers to your website by driving your site to the top spots on search engines. It’s essential work that you must do to ensure that your business is seen by search engines and ranked. The simplest form of SEO is keywords, which are any phrases or words that are specific to your business that people search for. It’s important to remember to avoid keyword stuffing and to use related keywords that aren’t extremely common to the industry you’re competing in.
Another important thing to remember about keywords is that there are two forms: short- and long-tail. Short-tail keywords are keywords that are less specific in nature and are intended to reach a larger audience. Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, are usually phrases that people use in searching for something very specific. These people usually are already set in buying something. For you to gain brand presence, you’ll need to use a mixture of both of these keywords. If you’re having trouble determining what keywords are best for your website’s needs, there are plenty of tools around the web to assist you.
4. Use Techniques That Will Increase Traffic to Your Site
One technique that is relatively easy, but will increase the traffic to your site, is using paid search advertising. Paid-per-click, or PPC, ads is a way to get an advertisement on one of the top spots of a search engine. This is an extremely effective method to gain online exposure as more than 65% of people click on Google Ads when they’re searching for something to buy. This is another technique that requires the use of keywords. You want to make sure you’re not using general keywords when defining and promoting your brand through PPC ads.
5. Utilize Social Media Platforms
Social media is an extremely powerful tool in aiding your business’s online presence. From Twitter to Instagram, LinkedIn to Facebook, Pinterest to YouTube, and all of the other types of social media available, websites for social media and the apps that accompany those sites are the best way to get your targeted audience’s attention. It’s an important tool to utilize when interacting with your following as well as getting the attention of new customers. The other benefits that having social media presence present are low-cost but effective advertising, increased communication between customers and leads, and social proof.
To effectively use social media to help grow your business there are a few things you need to do. The first is to grow your following on your platforms. The followers that you gain need to be actual, quality followers. Often times on sites like Instagram and Twitter, you run the risk of having followers that are dummy accounts. The second step is to encourage the occurrence of inbound linking. You can increase this by providing your audience with authoritative and high-quality content. The next step is to provide your posts with strong anchors to optimize them. This type of content is video clips, compelling photos, articles, and infographics. Make sure to use descriptive titles for your content as well as relevant keywords and specific queries. Your overall goal is to appeal to users so that they’ll share your posts.
6. Network with Others That Have Similar Goals
While it may seem counter-intuitive to build a relationship with someone you view as competition, it can help you build your brand presence. Others who have been building their brand longer than you will have unique insight that you can’t find from guides on the internet. They can help you through any problems you may have as well as assist in building something that you know will last.
Another networking opportunity you should always take is the chance to work with bloggers. Bloggers can really boost your brand presence especially if they have a large following. You can reach out to blogs to create genuine, interesting content that promotes your brand. It’s a great alternative for those who don’t have the resources to buy paid advertisements on search engines. There are resources that can get you in touch with influential bloggers that can help you specifically with what your brand focuses on.
7. Develop an Authority on the Content You Create
A way to improve your brand’s reputation and remain aware of it is to develop some authoritative voice in forums that are pertinent to your business. Doing this can also drive more traffic to your website. People on online forums go there to post questions, messages, answers, and have discussions about a brand or service. There are millions of forums on the internet, but no worries, choosing just one or two will allow you to effectively reach leads and customers. You can utilize forums to post links to your site, giving you many clicks and impressions. Using them for links shouldn’t be the only thing you do though, you should also engage with users, answer their questions, and make a name for yourself as having an authority over the content.
8. Connect with Your Audience Through Email
Utilizing email opt-ins on your website is a really good way to interact with dedicated customers and keep tabs on conversions of leads to customers as well as grow your audience. If you have a visitor to your site that signs up to receive emails that means that they’re pretty interested in what you have to offer. It not only grows your brand presence but retains the customers you convert.
9. Prove Consistency in Your Content
No matter the content you’re providing your audience, whether it be blog posts, videos, social media, or absolutely anything else, you want to ensure that the quality is consistently good. Creating valuable and consistent content are ways that you can gain authority and credibility throughout your industry or niche. This authority will allow you to grow and become more visible. Providing value will also help your social media presence to grow, again growing your brand presence. It’s also important to share other people’s content as well. Sharing other people’s content that has the same value as yours shows that you’re not just self-promoting and will help you build trust with your followers. It’s also a great way to build your relationships with others in your job niche.
10. Track and Analyze the Improvement of Your Brand
You can see how well your techniques for improving your brand presence is working by tracking your progress. Some tracking will be easy; you can simply check if you have an increase of followers on Twitter or Facebook, but others will require tools and analysis. There are many tools available across the web to help you analyze and track how you’ve been doing over a certain amount of time. The important thing to remember is that, after you’ve tracked how well you’ve been doing and analyzing what’s been working, you adjust methods that didn’t work and keep applying methods that were successful.
The Bottom Line
It’s obvious that a good and visible brand presence can get you a better following and more customers but it’s not something that will happen overnight. You have to be willing to be patient if you want to truly see results. If you start with a strong platform that is providing quality content, you can build by forming strong relationships and utilizing social media and SEO techniques. Don’t worry about being everywhere on the internet, but do concern yourself with being somewhere.
