Do you feel like your business is stuck? Are you frustrated with the lack of online presence or marketing tools to help increase your leads and sales? If so, it’s time to take a step back and think about how to build an online presence that will reach your target audience and positively impact your brand.
What is an Online Presence?
An online presence is not a singular thing; it’s a variety of things that create a whole. To have a presence anywhere, one must be seen and heard. What does it take to be seen and heard online? It starts with the basics: a business name and logo, a website updated with SEO-optimized blog posts, social media profiles, consistent branding, and clear messaging. When done correctly, your online presence is your primary tool for promoting your brand, attracting your ideal customers or clients, driving website traffic, collecting leads, and generating sales.
Where to Have an Online Presence?
Think of your online presence in terms of a pie chart. The larger sections of the pie should be occupied by the platforms that generate the most money–leads and sales. These sections are where your target audience spends their time and engages the most. While no two businesses will have the exact same online presence pie chart, most companies should have an SEO-optimized business website–your own platform, branded to you, and dedicated to your business.
Social media platforms are also a valuable tool. Instagram and Facebook, yes, but don’t stop there. Your target audience may spend more of their time on YouTube, LinkedIn, or Etsy. When it comes to learning how to build an online presence, you must think about who you want to attract, figure out where they spend their time online, and establish your business in those places.
How to Build an Online Presence and Engage Your Target Audience
An SEO-optimized business website will serve as a central hub for all your business has to offer. A social media presence will educate, engage, and steer your audience back to your website, where they can learn more about you, your business, and your products and services. Most importantly, you need to create relatable, reliable, and relevant content on every platform, so your audience feels heard and understood and hears and understands you. So, how do you accomplish all of this? Learn how to build an online presence in five steps.
1. Identify Your Target Audience
Simply put, your target audience is a specific group of consumers that are most likely to engage with your brand based on a variety of factors, including:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Income
- Educational level
- Profession
- Relationship status
- Family status
- Likes and dislikes
Discovering who is most likely interested in your products or services will help you know where to look for and find your audience. You can also look to your competitors since they have the same, or similar, target audience as you.
2. Find The Best Social Media Platform
Once you’ve narrowed the search for your target audience, find out where they spend their time online so that you can promote your business on those networks and social media outlets. Follow the numbers. Ensuring your efforts are seen by your target audience is marketing time and money well spent.
For example, posting a rare vintage car for sale on Craigslist will no doubt result in locals wanting to come by just for “looks.” However, placing the ad on a rare car specific site will increase the number of qualified buyers that view the car. The same can be said about choosing the right social media platform for your brand. If you want to know how to build an online presence, you must find the best social media platform to engage your audience, even if it’s not the most popular or your favorite platform.
3. Create A Website for Your Audience to Call Home
All “roads” should lead to your “home,” your business website. Social media platforms are a great way to increase brand awareness, but they shouldn’t be the only place you build an online presence. While Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users and Facebook has 2.9 billion, these numbers aren’t even that big compared to Google. Google processes 3.5 billion searches per day and 100 billion each month. Chances are your audience is searching Google to find products and services like yours. Without a business website, SEO-optimized landing pages, and relevant blog posts, your audience won’t be able to find you.
4. Share Valuable, Engaging Content With Your Audience Consistently
As E. James Rohn said, “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying basic fundamentals.” When a person shares a piece of wisdom with you one time, you most often do not think of them as wise. However, if that same person shares wisdom with you every day for years, you recognize the consistency and trust what they say.
When it comes to genuine, relevant, helpful information, do not withhold it from your audience. Share openly and freely about all you have to offer. In this day and age, you can easily set your business apart from others by posting valuable, engaging content consistently. You naturally become a reputable source for your target audience by sharing such information regularly. With sincerity and a little time, you will become a voice of reason that’s heard above the noise of those who refuse to stay consistent with their content. That is how to build an online presence that your audience actually loves to see, hear from, and engage with. The only reason Google gets 3.5 billion searches per day is that it’s consistently answering our questions.
5. Engage, Connect, and Build Relationships Online
Once you have an online presence, the work isn’t done. You must engage your audience and build a community with your followers to keep your presence strong and growing. Here are a few ways to do that:
On your website: Personalize your website content, use professional photos of yourself, so people know who is behind the brand, provide an opportunity for people to become part of your community by starting an email newsletter, and write SEO-optimized content your audience actually cares to read because it relates to their pain points and needs.
On your social pages: Don’t post and ghost. You will build your following quickly when you engage with your followers. Ask questions. Answer questions. Show your face on your Stories. Be consistent. Post content you know they’ll like. If you want your audience to engage and connect with you, you must first engage and connect with them.
Now you know how to build an online presence; it’s time to go do it. And if you need help creating content that’s SEO-optimized, interesting, engaging, and relevant to your target audience, contact us!
