The Importance of a Good Online Presence
A Good Online Presence
Is more than just a website.
“Online”. Using that term a few years ago would have had many of us asking what you meant. It was a foreign term for most. Today though, we often find ourselves more immersed in an online world than we are in our tangible one.
Even a few short years ago, an online presence constituted simply having a website, and yet that is now often just the stepping stone as potential customers explore your social media and reviews. The fact is, your business needs a well established online presence in order to grow in this modern era. Here are a few key aspects of your business's online presence that you will want to craft carefully:
Professional website
Branding
Social Media Platforms
Podcast Guesting
Blog Posts
Email Marketing
This might sound like a lot of work, and to be honest, it does take diligent effort to establish and maintain an online footprint. So is it worth it? And just how important is an online presence for your business?
Ease of Access
Customers are short on time and have plenty of online options. By increasing your SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and having a large online presence, they can easily find and access your content, giving you an edge over your competition. You don’t want people to have to search for you, and they should not have to!
Be at the forefront of searches they make by having a solid online presence
With a few simple clicks the potential customer can see online what you offer and what your brand stands for. Your consumers will be thanking you for it, and so will your company's success rate.
The Ability to Virtually Showcase your Product or Service
Video, images and testimonials integrated into your website can quickly show potential consumers just what you are all about. You can show your product in various settings and ways that it can best be utilized. Videos can show scale and easily demonstrate how the product is used, or how the services can benefit customers. Testimonials and customer reviews can strengthen a consumer's confidence in their purchase, and encourage them to try it out. An online presence serves as a shadow of your company which never sleeps, as your website and social media are available anytime of the day, regardless of time zones, and serves to lift any restrictions on your business hours.
Marketing your Brand
The possibilities of online marketing are quite possibly endless, so you can choose what best works for you! Websites and social media platforms help establish the foundation of your online marketing and serve as the ever essential and cost effective method of reaching out to thousands of people. They give you the ability to instantly share sales, deals, promotions, and new products. Often this is delivered in an instant to a consumer's smart device or computer. Generally, when a business fails to have an online presence, it is considered a negative through a consumer's eye.
Making the most of the opportunity of online marketing via your online presence includes creating evergreen content through outlets such as podcast guesting, which we will detail further on (so stay tuned!).
Relationship Building
Build a voice for your brand through social media. You can build long lasting relationships with your existing customers and followers, and also reach out to prospective consumers. By interacting and sharing personal antidotes and relatable content, you add a human touch to your brand. Do you have a green initiative? Share posts of how you integrate sustainable practices into your everyday business and personal life. Was your brand or business inspired by a personal story or experience? Share how this pushed and inspired you to work harder to build your company. Your viewers can then interact and comment on your posts to be a part of your story. Using social media to boost your online presence is a simple and extremely effective way to grow interest and plant seeds of interest in viewers minds.
We have now established some great “pros” to having an established online presence. You might be wondering then, “where do I start”? Let’s dig into the key aspects of an online presence as listed above.
Professional website
Your website is the first introduction, the handshake so to speak, to your business. Just as in a job interview, first impressions matter, and you want to make sure this impression is a positive one. When someone sees your website, the goal is that they can instantly see what your business is and what services you provide. A website design with an impressive user interface will be able to deliver this result.
Branding
Web design is absolutely crucial to your business, and in reality, design can either make or break the professionalism of your site. Design isn’t your thing, you say? Ah, my friend, branding and design are key!
A professionally designed website makes all the difference in the eyes of your target audience and how they perceive your company. To your audience a lack of professional design to your website may very well equal a lack of trust in your business being legit. Keeping branding completely uniform across all avenues of your online presence is what enables customers to identify that they are in the right place, and that you are the same business, whether it be on your website, social media, or an email. Using your logo, a few specific branding colors, font and image style all allow the visitor to see, in an instant, that they are where they want to be.
Social Media Platforms
LinkedIn is a platform designed to connect you with other professionals. You can share updates on your business initiatives and link up with both potential collaborators or consumers for your business. We recommend you aim to grow your network to 500+ connections to establish yourself on this platform.
Although not as specifically curated for business the way LinkedIn is, Facebook is a great avenue to connect with a high number of followers and share content related to your product or service. Request to follow like minded connections and businesses in your area to grow your outreach.
Newer to the scene than some other platforms, Instagram has proved to be one of the best ways to share content with younger generations. You will need to spend time commenting, liking and requesting to follow others in order to build your followers. It can be a bit slower to build your following but it is certainly worth the leg work. Create a hashtag with your brand name or slogan, and encourage consumers to use it while they post. Using giveaways is a great way to gain new followers and increase people posting with your product, and for this reason products especially can benefit from this network.
You can share simple, straightforward information through Twitter. A quote or clip from a podcast interview, fun fact or trending hot topic pertaining to your industry are just a few examples of content you can share on Twitter.
Still want more Social Media tips? Check out our blog 10 Ways to Drive Traffic to your Podcast Interview on Social Media
Podcast Guest Interviews
A fresh approach to boosting your online presence is podcast guesting. Podcasting enables you to share your content on a globally searchable arena. When you appear on a host's show, you will attach yourself to the host's momentum. We can easily visualize a snowball being rolled downhill. As it goes, it collects more snow along the way, adding to its size, and increasing its momentum. As you appear on the podcast, you contribute to the growth and spread of the hosts content, essentially bonding your name to the established name of the show. This serves to benefit the host as they create a flourishing show, and you can propel yourself further faster, snowballing your way towards success.
A key part of your interview success will be by host’s including backlinks in their show notes for your episode. Essentially, they include your website and/or social media links in their description of the episode on their website, and maybe other platforms where the show lists. If you choose to work with a podcast booking agency, that is an aspect they should be able to guarantee for you - that they will only book you on to podcasts that provide backlinks to your site.
You can also reap a bumper crop of content through the seeds you sow on podcasts. After the episode is recorded, you can create blogs, videos, social media posts, quotes, graphics and audiograms based on snippets from the episode content. This content can be used on your website or social media to attract more visitors and majorly boost your online presence.
Still want more ways to grow with Podcast Guesting? Check out our blog, How To Grow Your Brand with Podcast Guesting
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a fast, efficient and effective way to drive up traffic to your website. Do you have a new product, sale or new store opening up? Creating an email that shares this information can prompt them to simply click on the link to your website that you have provided and in a snap they can pick up the latest from your business. Many companies offer new customers a significant discount on their first purchase (usually 10-40%) if they provide their email address and agree to being sent future emails.
Blog Posts
Writing articles that address commonly asked questions, or provide further information on how your business works is a rich source of online content. You can simply use your podcast interview and transcribe it into a simple transcript, or step it up with creating it into a blog article. In either case you can integrate links to your social media and further contact information. By creating an article that will help your interview content to rank higher in search results, you are tapping into major SEO value.
Taking advantage of online tools such as a website, social media, consistent branding, podcast guest interview, blogs and email marketing will without a doubt prove to boost your online presence and rocket you to your very own online success story.
we are podcast bookers
Who we are: Simply put we are expert podcast bookers. We have been busy for years now, booking guests on podcasts for business owners, podcast hosts, book authors, business coaches, financial advisors, retail brands, SaaS, Apps, tech companies, fitness and health professionals - really anyone who wants to tell the world who they are. We also work with marketing agencies who would like to offer podcast guest booking to their clients, but want to use our team. We are proud of our team - we have been around long enough to know that it takes hard work to book our clients on top podcasts - but when we see our clients successfully grow their client base and build a great online reputation - it is worth all the effort and more.
Email our team manager Michelle to see if you qualify to be a podcast guest. michelle@expertbookers.com