When you are searching for something as a user, you would likely start your investigation with online instruments. It is very probable that you will choose those products and services that have a digital presence, as this naturally produces higher levels of trust. As a business owner, you acknowledge the importance of online presence and understand that building online presence these days is essential. This guide will take you through the steps to create and increase online presence for your business.
What is a digital presence?
Going digital means that you use modern technological advancements in your business. Digital presence, in turn, means that other people are able to find your business representation in the digital environment. That might sound a bit complicated, but let’s see some examples to grasp the meaning of digital presence fully.
When a user goes to the internet browser and types some keywords in a search engine like Google - the list of websites appears. Each of these websites represents a certain company or brand, and thus we could affirm that those companies have a digital presence.
Another case is when users surf the social media environment using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. When they find business pages of certain brands on those social media platforms, it means that those brands are present in the digital world.
As you see, having a website and business accounts for your brand on social media networks are the main instances of digital presence. However, being present digitally might also be in other forms, though all of them must be accessible online using the internet.
How to create and increase a strong online presence?
Building online presence for professional purposes is probably the core thing of any marketing strategy within any company these days. Along with the creation of online representation instances, companies are also concerned about strengthening them. Below you will find several effective techniques you may use to build and reinforce your digital presence.
Create website
If you do not have a website yet, consider hiring web developers to create one immediately. Even if you are a small local business, the website will only benefit your business development. Also, create more backlinks for your website to get more references from external sources. This would greatly help to strengthen your online presence as link building is a great tool for lifting your website positions on search engine rankings.
When creating your website, you should adhere to the principles of on-page SEO. This means that the articles and text within your website should be original and of high quality. Also, the technical characteristics of your website should be appropriate so that it does not take long to load the web pages.
Pay elevated attention to your official website design and the core principles of the UI/UX concepts. Your website should open appropriately on different devices, otherwise, users will likely bounce out of it in case it does not show up correctly.
Guest articles
Another important SEO technique that greatly helps to improve your digital presence is guest blogging. You might consider using promotion in guest articles to increase awareness of your brand in a digital environment.
Guest blogging is very similar to traditional blogging, though you create articles and post them on a different platform. Thus, your business appears as a “guest” within another blog Your guest article talks about your business but is also related to the subject of the host blog.
Social media
Today, the digital world offers marketers a bunch of different online social media platforms and their number tends to grow. You should have a business account at least on one of those social media platforms to claim a digital presence. If you want to establish your business accounts on several social media platforms, you are good to go. However, make sure that you will have enough time and resources to manage all of them. Selected social media platforms should also correlate with the specifics of your target audience.
Connect outside of online
As previously marketing was based exclusively on traditional distribution channels and offline techniques, it might be still a good practice to use them for your business promotion. That could be an announcement of a new shop opening, the offline presentation of your new business product, or some event dedicated to a special occasion. When people see your offline activities along with the online ones, that would build stronger connections with your audience. At the same time, your digital presence will improve as users will know where exactly they can find you online.
Importance of online presence for business
The role of digitalization along with the tremendous opportunities it provides for businesses cannot be underestimated these days. You can reach a wider audience worldwide and gain more customers that way. Also, digital presence allows you to improve the awareness of your brand and shape its reputation.
Digital presence is especially highly important for small and medium-sized businesses. Having a website and social media accounts will help more people learn about your business activity and connect with you.
