Many articles talk about what business owners should be doing to improve their online presence. Today, I want to talk about 3 things you may be doing that actually hurt your online presence and what you can do to remedy the situation.
Have a Website That’s Not Search Friendly
This is a biggie, and is easily fixable. The worst offenders are websites built entirely in Flash, but this point seems to be resonating with many business owners. In my experience, the exception is restaurant owners and interior designers who still think that a website whose first impression is a loading screen with a percentage counter is a good idea.
Seriously, well-designed, search-friendly websites are not hard to come by, especially if you’re working with someone who can publish your website on a content management system like WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal. Wordpress is especially well-known for being search-friendly, and there are several plugins that ensure you can fine tune your website content to be crystal clear for the search engines.
No Social Media Activity
There’s no doubt social media takes work, but so does any other form of networking — that’s why it’s called netWORKing. The challenge is knowing what do with social media and where to do it. This mostly depends on what forms of social media your target audience consumes.
A simple process to you can put together is launching a business blog and posting once a week. Create an editorial calendar and think about the different questions you answer daily from prospects and partners, and you will have more than a year’s worth of content. Every time you create a new blog posting, distribute it via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and social sharing sites like Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg.
Congratulations! You are now active with social media.
Unclaimed or Incomplete Google Places Profile
For local business owners with a physical presence, claiming and completing your Google Places profile is absolutely critical for helping your visibility in search. After claiming your Google Places profile, add as much information as possible — meaning fill out every possible field. If you don’t have a video, create something using your smartphone or compile screenshots of images or your website and mix with a voiceover.
Even a complete Google Places profile is not truly 100% complete until you get some reviews from happy customers. Remind your customers that, if they’re happy with service, it would be a personal favor to you, if they could leave a review on your Google places profile. Be specific in requesting what you want them to review, and they will provide you with the review content you need and Google loves.
Make these 3 adjustments, and your online presence will improve tremendously. Both you and your customers will appreciate the effort.
Image by Anderson Mancini
What other changes have you made to improve your online presence?
Free Inbound Marketing Plan Template
Online presence optimization is a key ingredient in your inbound marketing plan. You want to clearly identify your target customers and how they are searching for your services online.
If you don’t have one already, here is a free template that will help you make sure you have clearly identified and aligned your business objectives and marketing activity.
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