Optimizing Your Online Footprint - 5 Things to Include in Your Business & Professional Profiles

How’s your digital footprint looking these days? Whether you’re looking to burnish your personal brand or optimize (and widen) your corporate

sales funnel’s ingress

, you probably have work to do. That’s okay — you’re far from alone. Don’t revel in that company, though. Use these five straightforward strategies to improve your digital footprint and take control of the assets upon which you rely to build buzz for your personal or corporate brand.

1. Make Sure Your Contact Details Are Complete and Up to Date

How difficult is it to make sure your contact details are accurate and up to date? For some professionals, pretty difficult, apparently. Your social media profiles and online directory listings exist first and foremost to remind the world that, well,

you exist

. Putting them out there without ensuring that visitors can act on them verges on malpractice.

2. Add Social and Website Links to Your Directory Profiles

There are literally dozens of well-trafficked, highly search-visible business directories on which you could plausibly list your company for free. Whether you actually need to claim or create listings on them all is another story, but you’ll certainly want to attack those popular with your target audiences. This Crunchbase profile for entrepreneur David Mimran is a model for how that attack should look; in particular, you’ll want to embed outbound links to your top social media properties and website.

3. Burnish Your Value Statement — Or, Why Should Anyone Care?

Why should anyone care about you, indeed. Make the limited space in your social and directory bios count with a concise statement of value that advances your case. This isn’t quite an

elevator pitch

; think of it as a spark for further conversation around your personal or corporate brand.

4. Spring for a High-Res Professional Photo (And Not a Cheesy School Headshot, Either)

Give your personal properties a quasi-personal touch with a photo that doesn’t curdle milk. Yes,

of course

keep those pics you wouldn’t want your parents or kids to see where they belong, but know that a work-appropriate candid never hurt anyone either.

5. Add a Low-Key Call to Action

Let’s be clear: your digital properties

are

sales collateral. You’re selling a distinct personal or corporate brand, here. Just understand that not all sales collateral needs bright flashing neon lights. Where appropriate, your social media profiles and online directory assets should gently encourage visitors to take the next step, whether that’s to reach out to you with ideas for collaboration or click through to your website. Be hospitable, in other words — and solicitous, too.

Your Digital Footprint Works for You — Not the Other Way Around

Never forget that your digital footprint works for you. If you ever feel as if you’re hostage to your web assets, you’re doing something wrong. And while this may not be your fault — the Internet is a scary place, after all — it

demands corrective action

. You simply can’t afford to divert your attention from the pressing matters that demand it.

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