If you like to begin your day with a hot cup of coffee in one hand and your Google Analytics dashboard report in the other, you’re a rare breed of business owner. For many others, there’s just not enough time in the workday to cover all the bases of your online presence, such as
- Keyword rankings (increases/decreases)
- Backlinks
- Competitor’s rankings
- On-page SEO scores
- Followers & subscribers
- Target demographics & their behaviors
- UI/UX experience
Seriously, the list gets longer and longer each week—especially as Google announces yet another algorithm that will impact how users find you online.
Because SEO is a constant uphill battle, it’s understandable why you’d rather leave the data analysis and digital strategy to the experts. But to ensure you’re getting the most out of your digital marketing team, it’s important for you to understand what web presence is and which of its many components to pay careful attention to, so you stay competitive online.
What Is Web Presence?
From your website to your social media posts and customer reviews, your online presence is your brand in digital format. And because the majority of customers begin their shopping journey online (63%)—regardless of where they make their final-point-of purchase (e.g. eCommerce or brick and mortar)—that means your online presence must be ready!
Why Does Web Presence Matter?
A poor user experience can lead to bounces off your site, abandoned carts, and customers leaving you for other competitors. It’s a cruel online world sometimes, but there’s good news. There are many ways you can improve your online presence and give customers a reason to come back and (better yet) stay connected with you online.
3 Tips for Effective Online Presence Management
At Brandography, we spend the majority of our day helping companies all over the country improve their digital presence—it’s kind of our thing. So, we understand that most business owners don’t have the time (or patience) available for effective online presence management.
Though we’re happy to handle this essential task on your behalf, one of our core values is educating our clients on how to become successful. This allows us to have open conversations with your team, brainstorm strategy together, and ensure you see the level of quality services you’re receiving and how it will impact your future business goals.
Okay, ready to get started? Let’s review 3 components to pay attention to when monitoring your digital presence.
Your Brand’s Image
Developing a consistent and reputable online brand across all media channels is essential. This includes, but isn’t limited to, your visual identity (e.g. logo, font styles, graphics, images, etc); tone and voice; social media channels; and email marketing campaigns.
Here’s a few suggestions on how to keep tabs on your brand’s image:
- Make sure your brand’s offerings, benefits, and CTAs are quickly communicated to the user. A simple way to do this is by treating your home page as an opportunity to define your brand with images, video, and copy.
- It should increase consumer interest by describing what your offer, encourage engagement by demonstrating user benefits, and inspire loyalty by sharing exciting resources.
- Be sure your fonts and tone are consistent with your brand style guide.
- Don’t have one? Consider investing in a brand guide, as it will ensure you and your team maintain brand consistency—whether you’re posting on Facebook, emailing a customer, or creating a digital ad.
Your Users’ Experience
Great user experience means more sales but it all begins with quality web design. If a customer lands on your site but is turned off by a clashing color scheme, confused by a lack of organization or simply unimpressed by an absence of quality content, they will run.
Remember, your website is your primary web presence. That means that all other online advertising mediums—email, social, video, and even audio—should work together to direct traffic back to the site.
It’s easier to think of your website as a wheel hub and any additional channels as spokes. Special attention should be paid to the wheel hub because spokes don’t offer much without something strong holding them together.
Here’s a few suggestions on how to keep tabs on your users’ experience:
- Site/Page Speed: Images and video are effective when used correctly but improperly formatted JPEGs can do you a real disservice by taking a long time to download. Webpages should only require a few seconds (less than 3) to completely appear or users quickly lose interest and click away.
- Broken Links: Crawling your site can identify and fix any “404″ errors on your site. Broken links that lead to nowhere are not only bad for the user, but they also affect your SEO score.
- Responsiveness: It’s reported that 50% of customers shop on mobile vs. in store. That means your site should be both desktop and mobile friendly! If not, you could be losing potential customers faster than you think.
Your Online Security
Would you ever browse a website that was “unsecure”? Probably not. And guess what? Your customers wouldn’t either. The real motor behind any website is how it’s built—as this has a dramatic impact on how secure the site is from malicious attacks and hackers.
To keep customers coming back to your site, signing up for your newsletter or blog, or purchasing your products online, you need to provide them with a safe and secure experience—every time!
Here’s a few suggestions on how to keep tabs on your site’s security:
- Make sure all plugins and themes are updated! – Platforms like WordPress constantly update their software to ramp up their security, fix bugs and prevent hackers.
- Check that all custom plugins are audited for updates
- Ensure all needed patches are applied
- Check to see all links and forms are working
Need help ensuring proper security checks and maintenance are ongoing? Our Guardography services are exactly what you need! From broken links to mobile responsiveness, we fix any bugs on your site that will impact the user experience of your visitors. And each month, one of our developers will log into the backend of your website to perform a manual backup.
To learn more about this service, contact us for details!
Need Online Presence Management?
Building a strong online presence that attracts and engages customers requires many tactics that work strategically in tandem over a long period of time.
If you’re looking for digital presence strategy or management services, we can help! Contact us today for a consultation, so we can learn more about your web presence goals. We’ll create a comprehensive plan that outlines where you are and how we can help you get to where you want to be!
