Strategies for Optimizing Your Online Presence

A study done by Statista states that “As of January 2021 there were 4.66 billion active internet users worldwide – 59.5 percent of the global population.” In other words, over half of the people in the world use the internet.

In addition to connecting with family and friends on social media and falling into Google search rabbit holes, people use the internet to learn more about various businesses, connect with different brands, and shop.

Because of this, making a brand visible everywhere its customers are online is no longer a suggestion. Instead, it’s a requirement if the business is to be profitable and ever-growing.

Digital marketers and brand strategists take on the arduous task of building an online presence. But you can do so successfully with persisting tactics and a clear vision for your online presence. Here are 11 strategies for optimizing your online presence.

Learn All You Can About Building an Online Presence

Building a solid online presence is more than getting the business website visible in search engines. It’s contingent on you making your entire business visible online wherever ideal customers are.

Spend time learning all you can about building a complete online presence, from social media to the business website, to video marketing platforms, and so forth. Boost your brand recognization with creative social feeds by Powr.io. Find out how to create value online for your customers, be active and productive online, and build strategies for different online platforms.

Ultimately, if you want your business to stand out online, it must wow potential and current customers. You can also learn about building an online presence through your competition.

Study How Competing Brands Optimize Their Online Presence

Don’t be afraid to take notes on how your competition optimizes its online presence. They’re doing something right if you consider them one of your top competitors. One of those things is likely how they get their audience to engage with them online.

Study competing brands by keeping up with them via their email lists, social media profiles, in-person and virtual events, and manual research.

Next, the success of your online presence is reliant on a firm brand story.

What’s the Brand Story?

To build a robust online presence, there must first be a story behind the brand to tie that presence too. It isn’t the products and services that bring some to and keep them with your brand. Instead, it’s the people and story behind the business and brand.

Whether you’re helping a freelancer build their personal brand, or working with a company on their brand story, here’s what you want to explore:

• Why did the owner start the company?
• What is the company mission?
• What or who inspired the business vision?
• What are the brand values?
• How do you define the brand’s personality?
• What is the brand’s core message?
• What makes the business different from competitors?

Once your brand story is intact, you can move forward with strengthening the brand identity.

Strengthen the Brand Identity

A brand identity is the visual elements of a brand that make it unique, for instance, the logo, color schemes, typography, voice and tone used in the content, and design standards. Your brand identity will ensure customers recognize your brand whether they’re on your Youtube page or website.

Also, a strong brand identity can help you in your brand awareness and brand recognition efforts. A potential customer may become aware of your brand when they see your logo and continue to recognize it through this element and other original visuals, consistent messaging, and aesthetics across all your online platforms.

So, put together a brand identity guidebook. Include the brand colors, logo, and typography.

It might also be a good idea to break down how you want things to look on each platform. For instance, let’s say you’re determining how to ensure your social media pages remain consistent, cohesive, and representative of your brand identity.

Using the same photo filter you use on your website photos, email images, and other digital pictures for your social media photos can help. Whichever filter you use, it should look good with your brand colors and logo.

Next, learn all there is to know about your audience to give them an online presence that resonates with them.

Know All There is Know About an Audience

If you don’t know your audience, you won’t create an online presence that they connect with.

In addition to demographic information, you want to learn how they feel and what makes them feel that way. You should also study how their feelings and emotions fuel particular behaviors.

Most importantly, though, you want to know all there is to know about how your audience behaves online.

• Do they make purchases online? If so, how often?
• How do they navigate websites? What navigational features are they used to?
• What keywords and phrases are they typing in to learn about the kinds of products or services your business offers?
• How long do they spend on web pages?
• What makes them bounce from a website?
• What triggers them to open an email?
• What CTAs resonate with them most?
• What is their online buyer’s journey like?
• Which digital platforms and channels do they engage with the most?

Let’s look at the last bullet point in a bit more detail.

Choose Online Platforms Wisely

A huge part of optimizing your online presence is choosing the right platforms to build that presence on. The platforms you choose should be those that are most popular with your ideal customers. These platforms could include:

• Email
• Website
• Social media
• Knowledge-based platforms
• Media-sharing platforms

Once you identify which digital platforms will be the foundation of your online presence, spend time on content and define your digital marketing strategy.

Spend Time on Content

Lots of time. It’s challenging to stand out online because it’s saturated with content and information. However, if you spend time on your content and put in an effort to make it as original and unique to your brand as possible, you’ll make a name for yourself in due time.

Be sure to put out content consistently. You can do so with the help of a content calendar that maps out what content will be published when and on what platform. You should also be updating and refreshing content just as often as you put it out.

Choose content and media types that resonate most with your ideal customers, identify which digital marketing channels would be most productive, and start with these.

Also, be sure to use engaging visuals to accompany any written content to enhance the experience customers have with your content.

Furthermore, you can optimize your online presence by leaning on reviews and user-generated content.

Lean on Reviews and User-Generated Content

People gravitate toward reviews from real people. In fact, many say reviews make or break their decision to buy a product or service from a business. Ultimately, people trust authentic product and service reviews from actual customers more than they do a paid ad from the CEO.

So, ask your customers for reviews. Then, take your requests a step further and ask that they submit user-generated content like product unboxing videos or videos sharing an honest assessment of service from your brand.

Then, with the submitter’s permission, share this content on your website and social media platforms to boost brand awareness and customer engagement. This kind of content may also inspire visitors to finally become customers after absorbing your content for quite some time.

Another strategy for optimizing your online presence is taking advantage of cross-promotion opportunities.

Encourage Cross-Platform Interactions

It’s good practice to encourage cross-platform interactions among your customers. You’ll have more than one digital platform rounding out your online presence. Why not enable your customers to experience them all? Even if customers don’t at that particular moment, at least they know they can interact with your brand in various ways online when they’re ready.

So, when you’re on your social media pages, link to blog posts and other content on your website. When you send out your email newsletter, include your social media handles at the bottom of it. When publishing a video on your Youtube page, ask viewers to subscribe to your email newsletter for updates.

You can also consider working with influencers to expand your online presence.

Consider Working With Influencers

Influencer marketing is becoming more and more popular on social media. You can leverage the large following and connection influencers have with their following by working with them to promote your products or services.

With that being said, you must approach influencer marketing carefully. Be sure to do your homework on influencers you’re interested in and ensure they match well with your brand mission and values. Also, do your best to choose influencers who will actually use your products and services; that way, they’re more inclined to leave an honest review.

In addition to working with influencers, make an effort to work well with various internal teams.

Work Well With Other Teams and Individuals

If they work well with others, marketers and brand strategists can be more powerful in their roles. For instance, you may work with the customer service team to determine the most pressing issues customers have with your products. You can then create content that helps mitigate those issues and help them make better use of your products.

Another example is working with product owners if you’re a part of the tech industry. Product owners have various roles, one being defining the vision for a product. Working with product owners can help you better understand the product vision and develop ways to incorporate that vision in your online presence.

Other teams you must work well with to optimize your online presence include:

• Sales
• Data analytics
• Development
• Leadership
• Finance
• Research

Ultimately, when you collaborate with all internal teams, you put together a more cohesive online presence for your customers because you’re targeting each touchpoint.

Conclusion

Optimizing your online presence is crucial to the overall success of your business and brand. Be sure you’re taking an organized, productive approach to it by using the tips above.

All in all, your online presence can help you make deeper connections with your potential and current customers and elevate your brand in the eyes of its specific industry.