An impactful Online Presence for any business forms the backbone of the marketing success of an organization today. Most organizations aim to create a rewarding Online Presence but many have succeeded. In majority of cases, the reason for this failure is none other than an unplanned approach towards the online marketing process.
The essence of Online Presence Management is creating and presenting a particular brand in a way that it attracts and engages the target audience. The whole process of Online Presence and marketing is inclusive of the website designing and development and also the strategies for promoting today’s prevalent marketing channels. Here’s a five step approach shared by experts in online marketing to create a prominent presence for a business online.
1. Develop a website that is easy to maintain and manage
Website development is the first step of online marketing. The websites in earlier days were coded with html were hard to update, but today, the websites are developed oncustomized platforms where it is quite easy to manage the content via the CMS (content management system) tool. For lead generation and branding, it is undemanding to use a CMS like WordPress or Joomla as they have a variety of templates to choose from. For ecommerce or marketing websites, it is advisable to use self hosted and open source platforms like Magento, Open Cart etc as they require lesser updating and the website maintenance is hassle free. Also, choosing a domain name is of great importance when making a website. It must align with your brand and must lay the foundation of giving you a good ranking over search ranking.
2. Create an alluring web design for your visitors
An appealing color scheme, layout and graphics form the basics of a good webpage design. A customer focused approach and a user friendly interface is also an important part of web design that must be given a primary place. For attracting and converting more customers, it is important to build a trust. One way to do it is by displaying your credibility in the form of awards, testimonials, value propositions and social proof to them through your webpage.
3. Provide content that engages prospective customers
Providing a quality and detailed information to the audience forms the backbone of any online business. Any website with the content that gives value addition to the audience fetches greater success in comparison to the more generic and minutely detailed content one. The basic strategy for valuable content is identifying the target customers and their topics of interest and then creating the content that in a tone and style that attracts them.
4. Visibility on search engines
In the era of internet and networking, for any online business to be successful today, it is important to feature in the search engines. Being able to gain more rankings on a search engine is always fruitful for any business. You can easily buy a higher ranking on search engines through pay per click ads and also by providing SEO friendly content.
5. Build a good relationship with the prospects &customers on Social media
Being visible on different social media platforms is not as important as socializing with your target audience on a single platform. For a better marketing, you can devise your social media goals and can create a company fan page. After planning a crisp and beguiling content, you should regularly update the page for the latest information to catch the attention of people.
Thus, an Online Presence doesn’t just stop at the website. There’s more to it. While an alluring website is the initial step, it needs to be supplemented with a proper content strategy. Quality content helps to strengthen your SEO efforts and brings your online existence to limelight.
