With more and more people going online to shop and use services, there has never been a more important time to boost your brand’s online presence. When creating your company website, free business tools can help you to devise the essential elements required to build a brand, such as the best names, descriptions, logos, business cards, and more.
But once you’ve created your website and established your brand, how do you boost its reputation and credibility online? We’ve provided some useful tips to help you.
1. Social media
Used correctly, the right social media network is a powerful, but cost-effective way to widen your audience, enhance customer relations, and increase your brand’s reputation. Make sure you choose the platform that best represents your services or products and is most likely to be used by your target audience. For instance, if you’re a freelance photographer, then Instagram is the ideal platform to showcase your brand; whilst a media company would benefit from Twitter or Facebook.
The best way to get your name out there and boost your brand awareness on social media is to use multi-channels, but only if you have the time and resources to do so. Whichever platform you are using, it’s vital that you keep it active. Use it to network and try to keep it updated regularly. You can do this by posting news updates on the company’s latest exploits, sharing media articles that are relevant to your business or customers, or posting photos and videos that will encourage customer interaction. Make sure your push notifications for your account are switched on, so that you can respond to any comments or messages swiftly. This will help to build a credible reputation and trustworthiness.
Another way to encourage engagement and therefore attract potential customers, is to use your social media page to offer exclusive promotions and competitions. For instance, you could ask your followers to like and share a post or tag a friend in order to win vouchers or freebies from your business. This is just one example, but there are endless possibilities for you to use your profile to promote your brand.
2. SEO
Maximising your website’s search engine optimisation – or SEO – can increase site traffic, and thereby help to boost your brand’s online presence. A strong SEO strategy will maximise your website’s visibility by ensuring it ranks higher in search engines, so it’s an essential part of any brand’s marketing process.
A large component of SEO marketing is the use of keywords, so it’s crucial that you make sure you do adequate research in order to determine the most relevant key terms for your brand. Don’t just consider general keywords within your industry; it’s important that you research and understand SEO that’s localised to your business. You don’t just want to rank high in Google searches, you want to be visible to people searching in your local area.
A good place to start when utilising SEO is to put yourself in the position of your clients – what words would your target audience input into Google to find your services? When applying SEO to your website, consider all the content –product names and descriptions, image captions, blog posts, domain address, and meta tags and descriptions.
3. Influencers
Using an influencer to endorse your goods or services can be highly effective in boosting your brand online. But before you jump on the first influential person you find, ask yourself if the influencer aligns with your target audience.
You need to consider who your customers are and what message you want your brand to convey when choosing the correct influencer. For instance, if your business is a small, community grocery store, you might use a local celebrity who your customers can relate to in order to endorse your products. In contrast, if you’re an online beauty brand, you might consider asking a make-up artist with a huge social media following to review and recommend your brand.
Choosing the right influencer to help promote your business is vital if you want to convert your online followers into customers. If the answer is yes, then you’re off to a good start.
4. Email marketing
There are many ways other than using social media to interact with your clients on the online platform. One method is through a well-designed email marketing strategy, where you send out material, such as company newsletters, notifications of events, and promotional offers.
Encourage customers to sign up to regular emails when they purchase goods or services from your business, either when they make transactions online or when they pay at the counter in your store. Offer attractive incentives, such as entry into a prize draw or money off their next purchase, to make them want to subscribe to your emails. Also include links to encourage your customers to visit your website.
Keep your emails regular, but be careful not to be too eager as you don’t want to annoy people and cause them to unsubscribe. A steady flow of email communications will ensure that your brand is always in the forefront of your customers’ minds.
Conclusion
With the correct marketing strategies, it should be relatively simple to boost your brand online.