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In today's digital climate, it’s more important than ever for businesses to develop and maintain a strong presence and reputation online.
To increase your likelihood of success, a comprehensive digital strategy may include content marketing and social media management, developing an SEO-friendly website, targeted display ads, SEO, connected tv, online video, remarketing, and creating meaningful connections with customers.
Using the right tools and tactics, any business can build a robust digital presence to help them reach their goals and objectives.
In the sections below, we’ll explore the steps necessary to effectively create and manage a digital presence, focusing specifically on your website, social media pages, and digital targeting.
What is a Digital Presence?
A digital presence is the totality of an organization's online marketing activities. It encompasses how a business interacts with its customers on digital platforms such as websites, social media, and search engines. A strong digital presence is key to enhanced customer engagement, improved website performance, better lead flow, and increased sales.
If your organization takes the time to build a robust digital presence now, it’ll lend credibility, boost sales, expand its reach, and secure new customers.
The development of an effective digital presence requires a focused approach that blends technical know-how with creative problem-solving capabilities.
Why is a Digital Presence Important?
To maintain a competitive edge and capture the attention of prospective customers, having a clear digital presence is key to making your business stand out from the competition.
Three specific elements of your digital presence could impact how prospects and customers view your business, including your website, social media, and your digital targeting. Let’s dive into each of these in greater detail.
1. Website
When it comes to digital presence, first impressions count. Your website is often the first thing potential customers or partners see when researching your business. This initial presentation must speak positively about who you are and what you do. If your website is outdated or unhelpful, it could damage your digital presence by making a poor impression on visitors.
Your website should provide relevant and up-to-date information about your products or services and clear directions on how customers can get in touch with you.
To ensure your website positively supports your digital presence, verify that it’s regularly updated with new content and kept free of broken links and other technical issues. Investing in quality design and visuals signals that you take your online presence seriously, and optimizing for search engines helps ensure that more people can find your website in the top results of their searches.
Below are several recommendations for what your website must do and have to establish a strong, positive digital presence.
What your website must do:
- Tell users what you do/solve
- Tell users who you are
- Show users what you do
What your website must have:
- Easy navigation/quick loading
- Mobile-friendly/responsive pages
- Clear call to action on pages
- Contact Us page
- Reviews/testimonials
- Video content
- Unique, keyword-rich content
- Links to Socials
- A regular stream of fresh content
By investing time and effort into creating a great website, you’ll have a valuable tool at your disposal that can help you reach more customers and establish your brand
2. Social Media
Even though a great website is critical to your digital presence, digital marketing has evolved to the point where a website is insufficient on its own. Consumers expect interaction and opportunities for engagement.
Social media has become an invaluable tool for businesses and organizations looking to build brand awareness, connect with their target audience, and better understand customer needs. Through various platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, companies can share information and engage in conversations with potential customers, partners, and influencers.
Social media provides a platform for organizations to create relationships with their existing and potential customers by responding quickly to comments, answering questions about their products or service, running contests or promotions, and staying on top of industry trends. Businesses can track and measure the success of their campaigns through social listening tools and analytics.
Using Facebook and Google Business Profile
Facebook and Google Business Profile are two free tools that offer businesses the opportunity to improve their digital presence and exposure.
With Facebook, users can create business profiles, connect with customers and potential customers, share blog posts and other content, and promote special events.
On Google, companies can use Business Profile as a comprehensive platform for managing their company profile, driving customer loyalty, managing reviews, and getting discovered on Google Search and Maps.
Both services offer businesses powerful tools to engage with customers and build relationships. Through these services, businesses can build trust and credibility by providing accurate information about their products and services and responding to customer queries in a timely and helpful manner.
3. Digital Targeting
Once you’ve set up your website and/or Facebook page, what’s your strategy for getting people to visit your new site to see all the great work you’ve accomplished?
Digital targeting is an effective tool to help you bring the right audience to you. By leveraging resources, such as search engine optimization (SEO) and targeted ads, you can reach the right people with your message.
By optimizing your website for keywords relevant to your industry and products, you can increase your chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and bring in more traffic organically. Additionally, targeted digital advertisements on popular websites or through email campaigns can ensure you reach a more targeted audience who will be interested in what you have to offer.
With digital targeting, you can measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and use these insights to refine your approach and optimize performance over time.
Digital + Data = Reach the Right Person at the Right Time
By leveraging this data to make smart decisions, enterprises can target their marketing and advertising messages to the people who matter most – the right person at the right time.
This data may come from third-party cookie tracking, customer information, and other details users share online. It provides invaluable insights into consumer behavior and preferences, allowing companies to craft intelligent campaigns that reach customers in precisely the right way for maximum impact.
By taking advantage of the data provided in today’s digital age, companies can easily collect and analyze customer data, allowing them to serve the needs of their customer base better.
With the right strategy, digital data can be an invaluable asset in any business’s pursuit of success.
Concluding Thoughts
It’s clear that having a solid digital presence is essential for any business today.
That means creating a website that's optimized for search results and mobile devices, as well as engaging on social media channels, and having a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.
Your digital presence can make or break the success of your business in this day and age – make sure you’re taking the time to invest in it!
