10 Ways to Build a Strong Online Presence for your Brand
If you’re looking to establish yourself as an authority in your niche, it’s critical to have a strong online presence that sets you apart from your competitors.
The #1 thing you need to know about building an online presence for your brand is that it takes time, just like offline businesses. While some businesses have an established online presence before creating their product, most do not.
So, it’s critical that you spend a little time developing a strong online business before launching. Many of the benefits of building an online brand are still valid for companies that don’t have one yet. But, to build an online presence that’ll keep your brand in front of your audience long-term, you will need to invest a lot of time and energy into creating something that people want to interact with.
If you’re serious about building an online presence for your business, you need a plan. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but it must be strategic.
Table of Contents
1 – Build an Authority Website
What exactly is a website for? Is it a repository for information that’s easily accessible on-demand, or is it a virtual space that allows you to interact with your customers and potential customers?
Whatever your website definition, a powerful one is necessary for any company to succeed online. A website that doesn’t reflect your brand or business is like an empty storefront.
A site with no traffic is useless unless you plan on spending thousands of dollars on advertising every month. A website without a call to action, a strong message, or a clear objective is worthless.
Set up a Blog
Think about your goals. What do you hope to accomplish with your blog?
- Do you want to share your expertise?
- Are you looking to build a brand?
- What do you want your readers to take away from your blog?
These questions are essential to think about before writing your first blog post. Don’t expect your readers to know what to take away from your blog post when they read it. It’s your job to explain it to them.
Write a Compelling About Us Page
An About Us page is a powerful marketing tool to inform visitors about your Brand and build trust in your company. Make sure that all content related to your About Us page is user-centric and designed to build a positive image of your business.
Keep your About Us page clean and concise, including links to your social media profiles and email subscription form. You should also ensure that you’re using keywords relevant to your industry.
Have a Clear Focus on the Value Proposition
Once you have determined what you’re trying to communicate, it’s time to focus on your offering value. What exactly does your product or service do for the customer? And why should they buy from you instead of your competition? Emphasise the benefits your product or service offers customers over the features.
It doesn’t matter if you’re selling a car, an iPhone, or coffee; the value proposition is the thing that will differentiate your business from the competition. For example, the value proposition for a coffee shop is the experience it provides its customers. A car dealership offers services and products for the customer.
- Osterwalder, Alexander (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 290 Pages - 10/20/2014 (Publication Date) - John Wiley & Sons Inc (Publisher)
Generate Traffic from Social Media
It doesn’t take long to see how popular social media sites are. Facebook and Twitter have billions of monthly users, and Instagram is proliferating.
According to a recent study by Pew Research, 82% of Americans use at least one form of social media. So why do some websites only have a handful of followers?
One reason is that many websites aren’t using social media to drive traffic to their sites. The key to getting traffic to your website is to create content that people want to share on social media.
2 – Develop a Brand Identity
Think of yourself as the face of your brand. What do you want people to associate with your online presence? For example, what kind of image would you like to convey if you’re a car dealership? An image of a beautiful, classic car? Or perhaps an image of a luxury vehicle ready for anything your family may throw at it?
It’s your choice. But whatever you choose, you’ll want to stick with it. You’ll want to use consistent logos, fonts, colours, and visuals.
If you don’t know exactly who you are and what you stand for in the market, you’ll lose potential customers. Suppose you can’t clearly define your Brand’s purpose, vision, and values. You risk confusing your customers, losing them as customers, and even alienating them if they realise you’re not being honest.
Identify Your Audience
Your audience can be the same as your target audience, but they’re also likely to be different. Your audience can be the people you plan to reach with your content, the people who read your blog or follow you on social media.
They could also be the people who buy from you or even those who don’t. Once you figure out who your audience is, you’ll be able to create a strong online presence that better serves them.
Create a Brand Promise
Think back to when you first heard the term ‘brand promise.’ It’s a way to describe a brand’s promises to its audience. If you are trying to sell anything to someone, you have a brand promise.
Think back to the last time you bought something you didn’t really need. It was most likely because the business promised you whether the product or service truly delivered.
Think about the brands you are a fan of. If you’re a fan of a particular business, you can be pretty confident that that Brand has made some promises about its products and services.
Define Your Mission
Your brand mission is the critical statement that identifies what your company does. Think of your brand mission as your mission statement for your business.
A brand mission should answer the questions “Why?” and “How?” The “Why?” is the primary purpose of your Brand—it explains why you exist, what makes you different from the competition, and why customers need your products or services. The “How?” is how you plan to execute your mission.
It’s essential to stay focused on your brand mission because if you don’t, you’ll spend too much time on a strategy that won’t improve your online presence.
3 – Create a Branding Strategy
You must have a branding strategy. Your brand identity is everything to your business, message, customers, and reputation.
Once you have developed your identity and message, you need to think about how it will be represented in your online presence.
Will it be represented through logos, web design, and other visual design elements? How will it be conveyed? Are you using your own photographs, stock photos, or videos?
Build a Brand Voice and Stick with it
A brand voice is a set of values, principles, and personality traits applied consistently to every piece of marketing material. Brands need to have a consistent message across all touchpoints and platforms.
This consistency in messaging allows the audience to recognise the company and understand how to approach and interact with the business. Brands with a unified message across their organisation can better differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Know what your brand stands for and keep it front and centre
Knowing what your brand stands for is vital for a few reasons: If you’re marketing to a company, what kind of company is it? What’s its personality?
These questions will help you determine your target audience and ensure your business messaging matches whom you’re trying to attract.
If you’re a startup, your branding needs to match who you are. A startup’s brand identity should be unique, but it still needs to convey a strong sense of purpose, mission, and values.
4 – Create a Content Marketing Plan
Content marketing is a powerful strategy because it is something people are already interested in, and it requires little investment, so it’s free to execute.
The key is to create content that resonates with your audience, which separates successful content marketers from those struggling to gain traction.
Once you clearly understand what you are creating for your audience and why it is, the next step is to consider the most efficient and effective ways to reach them. This step is crucial to the success of any online presence.
Focus on How you can Benefit others
When developing a strategy for building a robust online presence, there are some key questions to ask yourself:
- Whom am I helping, and why?
- Where do I want to be, and why there?
- What skills should I acquire to accomplish my goals? How will I earn respect and trust of my audience?
In other words, what do I want to say, and why should people care? What’s in it for them?
Use Visual Content to show your Brand’s Personality
You should be aware of three vital visual elements to effectively use visuals within your content marketing strategy: colours, images, and videos.
When creating your visuals, think about how your Brand wants to appear in the marketplace. Are your colours bright or muted? Do you prefer bold or subdued? Think about the colours you want to convey in your marketing messages.
The same goes for images. Be careful about using too many images within your text. If you can show the same information through text alone, do so. Finally, you should use videos sparingly, but they are an excellent way to convey information.
Create an SEO Strategy
While SEO is important in the early stages of your startup, you’ll probably want to put your efforts into creating a solid online presence to drive organic traffic.
If you have a great product or service that people need, chances are someone will find it through search engines. Building authority and trust will take longer, but it’s still crucial to your strategy.
You can’t control who will visit your website, but you can control what kind of content you create and what you do on your website. With the help of SEO tactics, you can use Google and other search engines to drive more traffic to your website, which means more conversions.
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Coombe, Will (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 249 Pages - 09/08/2017 (Publication Date)
Grow Your Email List
To grow your email list, start by asking your existing list members what they’re interested in. If there’s something you can share with them that they didn’t know about or find valuable, you should be able to get them to opt-in for updates.
Try to personalise your messages so that your contacts know that you care about their preferences and interests.
Also, be sure to include a call to action to encourage signups. Finally, offer exclusive discounts and freebies to help entice people to sign up.
5 – Increase Brand Awareness
When it comes to building brand awareness, a considerable part is a visibility in your online presence. People who follow your social media channels and engage with your content better understand your Brand, company, and products.
The goal is to reach the people who care enough to take action. You don’t want just anyone viewing your Brand.
Use Social Media to Create a Brand Persona
It’s all about being authentic in a social world, but you may not know precisely who you want to connect with if you’re new to social media marketing.
That’s why it’s a good idea first to create a brand persona to guide you throughout your social media marketing efforts.
A brand persona is a fictional character representing your business or company, complete with personality traits, interests, and goals. It gives you a better idea of how your Brand should communicate through social media.
Launch Giveaways to Encourage Fans to Share your Content
One of the most effective ways to get your content shared on social media is to give away something in return. However, just offering a freebie doesn’t necessarily get you noticed.
The giveaway should be highly visible and offer something of value to the winner. Think of giving away a $5 Amazon gift card or free download of your latest song.
It may seem like a small reward, but the freebie becomes much more meaningful when combined with the social sharing options on your website.
6 – Convert Customers into Advocates
I like to think of advocates as those who have been there and done that — they’ve purchased your product or service before or even tried it and loved it.
They become advocates because of the value they receive from using your product or service. The key here is that advocates don’t just sell your product to others; they tell others about it.
One of the most critical questions you need to ask yourself is, “why would someone recommend our company/product/service?” The answer should help you figure out if you’re creating a positive experience for your customers.
If you’re using your online presence to showcase your products or services, don’t just provide a bunch of information. Instead, ask your readers what they need to know and how you can help them.
Find out what People are Saying about your Brand
Research is the backbone of any successful business strategy. It should be the first step in any marketing campaign.
Research tells you what people are thinking about the Brand; it helps you understand whether people are talking positively or negatively about it.
Many brands don’t pay attention to research, so it’s up to you to use the insights you gleaned from the research to take action. Start with online reviews and comments because people who aren’t happy with your business often talk about it online.
Generate Leads and Engage Customers
One way to generate leads is to create a lead magnet on your site. Lead magnets are free, valuable content that entices people to sign up for your email list. The more enticing your lead magnet is, the more signups you should see. Examples include free guides, checklists, and videos.
For some companies, the answer is “yes”. For others, it’s “no”. Either way, the first step is the same.
It would be best if you got the customer to act. So you’re going to use a mix of marketing tactics to reach your goals. Some are direct, such as Facebook ads, and others are indirect, like SEO and content marketing.
Regardless of which tactics you use, it’s essential to realise that a great sales funnel results from interactions between you and your prospects.
Offer User-friendly Customer Service
Don’t just promise to answer emails, respond to requests, and respond to complaints. Create an account on your website, and make sure you offer easy access.
People who don’t want to give you their email address can contact you through Facebook, Twitter, or Live Chat. And if you’re getting the same questions repeatedly from different people, think about automating customer service.
7 – Measure Your ROI on Online Marketing
With Google’s help, marketers can set up a free analytics tool and start monitoring the impact of their digital marketing efforts.
This will help you track the ROI (return on investment) of your online advertising campaigns to continue to optimise your budget. But be sure also to monitor the performance of your social media sites since these will help drive traffic to your website.
An article suggested the following: “As a general rule of thumb, an ad spend of 1 per cent of your site’s traffic generates $1.50 in revenue. An ad spend of 0.5 per cent of your site’s traffic generates $0.75 in revenue. The goal is to increase your ad spend until your ROI approaches the point where it is equal to the cost of the investment. If you spend $100 per click and receive $10 per lead, you’re still in the red since the cost of acquiring the lead is greater than the $10 in revenue you’re likely to earn.
Set Clear Goals for Your Marketing Efforts
A prevalent mistake for first-time web marketers is not having a clear idea of their goals and not knowing whether they are achieving them.
Marketing is the art of knowing what to do, doing it, and measuring the results. Once you know what you are trying to achieve (which is not always easy), you can set realistic goals and monitor the results.
If you are happy with what you have achieved, you will be able to tell others about your success and inspire them to follow your lead.
Use A/B Testing to Optimise Conversions
We all know that you can’t know if you’re optimising anything if you don’t test. But what do you test? The answer is A/B testing.
A/B testing involves two versions of the same page: one with a feature or content change and another without. You then track which version leads to more clicks, conversions, or subscriptions and which version is a better user experience.
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Saleh, Khalid (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 433 Pages - 11/01/2010 (Publication Date) - O'Reilly Media (Publisher)
Leverage paid ads
You should use paid ads to grow your online presence, but they’re only successful if you can keep your costs down.
Google Adwords is a great way to keep advertising costs low. However, it’s not an all-or-nothing strategy. You can start with smaller, less expensive campaigns and add to them over time as you grow.
8 – Make Marketing Automation Work
Marketing automation is the process of using software to automate your marketing strategies. It’s been gaining traction among marketers for years, and there’s no reason why it should stop now.
However, if it’s going to work for you, it’s essential to know your audience and your company’s needs before creating a marketing automation plan.
Don’t forget to use tools like MailChimp, HubSpot, and ConvertKit in tandem with social media. While there are plenty of free and low-cost options to automate marketing, those are only useful if used in tandem with other marketing strategies.
Without automation, you’re just making people click, but you aren’t doing anything else that would lead to actual results.
9 – Be Persistent and Consistent
An online business should be persistent and consistent. If your online presence is not visible on Google, you are invisible. So don’t think, “ok, it’s been a month, no sales” —that’s too short a time to build traffic and sales.
It would help if you had something interesting to say. It would be best to keep trying until you find the right way to say what you want to say. You don’t just write something, hit submit, and think, “Oh, I’m done” – you should write a new post every day until you have a body of work that demonstrates what you are capable of.
But it would help if you also give yourself time between posts so you don’t have any new content and an audience wondering why your blog is so empty.
Build Trust and Rapport with Fans
The first step in creating trust is to recognise that you need to earn trust. You’ll likely fail if you try to build it too quickly or assume it’s already there.
The second thing you need to do is establish rapport with your audience. You need to understand them and be seen as a credible source of advice or information. Then you need to prove you’re trustworthy by providing valuable content and offering helpful answers.
In addition to showing that you appreciate your fans’ intelligence and opinions, you also need to show them that you respect their time and attention. This means being a good listener.
One of my favourite things to do after a blog post goes live is to answer comments. I’ll usually respond within a couple of hours if someone asks me a direct question, and I’ll try to answer any questions a fan might have in a quick and straightforward response.
Don’t be Afraid to Ask for Help
It doesn’t matter if you’re just getting started or already have a thriving business; chances are you could use some help building a strong online presence.
There are plenty of people willing to lend a hand to businesses who need assistance building their Brand, optimising marketing efforts, and improving their website’s conversion rate.
Whether you need design advice or web development services, people are willing to help you get started.
10 – Become a thought leader
It’s effortless to build a strong online presence and get tons of attention. But becoming a thought leader means that you’re making a difference.
People follow thought leaders because they’re changing the world. This can be a little tricky. You want to become a thought leader who makes a difference.
There’s a big difference between being a thought leader who talks about change and doing it. You need to live your life differently to become a thought leader who makes change happen.
Think of yourself as a brand ambassador. That’s the role that a thought leader takes to build a strong online presence. This blogger is constantly on the lookout for people who need to know about their product. They don’t just talk about it; they demonstrate it and explain how it can help customers.
Thought leadership is an excellent way to position yourself as an expert in your niche. So many companies now have blogs, podcasts, and social media pages dedicated to sharing their knowledge and ideas.
Thought leadership doesn’t mean you have to be a prolific blogger. You can build a platform for sharing your thoughts and expertise through your website or social media channels.
- Audible Audiobook
- Jocko Willink (Author) - Jocko Willink, Leif Babin (Narrators)
- English (Publication Language)
- 09/25/2018 (Publication Date) - Macmillan Audio (Publisher)
Establish Trust and Authenticity
To earn trust and authenticity, you need to show a sincere interest in the community you’re trying to reach. Be open to sharing your knowledge and expertise with others.
Use the platform that people are already using and enjoy; this can build trust and authenticity. People will feel comfortable talking to you if they feel like you’re listening to them and that you’re interested in what they have to say.
Conclusion
The first step to building a strong online presence is being deliberate about how and when you share your content. A strategy like this will help you manage your time and ensure you don’t fall into the trap of spreading yourself too thin.
Create content that you’ll find valuable to your audience and interesting to you. This content will be a good reflection of who you are and what you care about. In addition, you can share your content on multiple platforms.
Choose the medium that resonates most with your audience and has the potential to bring the most value. You can use several platforms to build an online presence: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
You know you need to have a strong online presence to grow your business. And we’re here to help you start today.
Last update on 2024-04-27 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
