Tips for Building a Better Online Presence
1. Strategize
The first thing you need to do is to identify what your short-term and long-term goals are. As you start building and growing your online presence, it is important to always ask yourself how each of your efforts online is taking you a step closer towards achieving your business goals.
Write down your goals and ensure that they are smart so that you can easily refer to them and track and measure the progress you have made at any point. You want to ensure that whatever you do online actually helps take you a step closer towards achieving your goals.
It is important to stop and track your progress at least once every month to be sure that you are on the right track. This will also ensure that you don’t waste time doing something that doesn’t help you achieve the desired results. So, schedule your progress checks in your calendar to avoid forgetting to do them.
You shouldn’t build an online presence simply because you are obligated to, build it in a strategic way to help with your overall business goals with Zero Gravity Marketing.
2. Build a Solid Platform
For the vast majority of entrepreneurs and small businesses, building a solid platform begins with your website. It is essentially your hub i.e., a centralized place where people can go if they want to contact you, learn more about what you are offering, and engage and interact with your content.
You need to have a clear message (what the business is about), an about page, a contact page, an opt in giveaway that will help you start building your email list, and some form of valuable content for your audience to enjoy.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is another important consideration. If you aren’t an expert in SEO, that’s perfectly fine. The Internet is full of great resources that can help. You can even ask for help from the people around you with sufficient knowledge to help you get started.
The Google Keyword Planner is another excellent resource if you would like to start with at least finding suitable keywords you would like your website to rank for.
Building your platform involves a lot, so much so that it is impossible to cover it all here. Fortunately, you don’t have to be an expert since you can always partner with a professional who can help you build a solid platform.
3. Optimize and Improve Constantly
Don’t get stuck assuming that you should not put something out there before it is perfect since it probably never be. Just start with the knowledge that you will constantly be improving upon your content as well as what you have to offer.
Constantly looking for ways to optimize and improve your website and content after launch is 100 times better than n
ot launching. Understand that it is a process and the longer you delay starting, the longer it will be before you can achieve your goals.
4. Offer Consistent, Valuable Content
You should always strive to provide consistent, valuable content first whether it is through your site, YouTube channel, your podcast, social media, or even an online community.
What content are you offering the audience? It could be a podcast, a blog, eBooks, videos, etc. Whatever form the content takes, it is always important to ensure that it is not only consistent but also valuable.
Offering quality content is one of the most important things to focus on since creating consistent and valuable content will not only help you gain authority and credibility in your niche or industry but will also give people a reason for wanting to follow you.
Your online growth and visibility will depend on your having a good content creation plan. You can also provide a lot of value in the online communities you are part of and/or manage. Furthermore, each of your social media channels is an opportunity for you to provide value to your followers.
Providing value first is perhaps the most important step when building your online presence. If you ever find yourself at a loss for the type of content you should create, you need to ask yourself the following:
What type of knowledge or content can I share with my followers and community that might not necessarily be my own, but still can provide value to them? A 70/30 mix is a decent rule to follow: share other people’s content 70 percent of the time and your own content 30 percent of the time on social media.
Taking such an approach will not only help you build trust with your followers but it will also help you build relationships with others in your niche or industry since they will be more likely to share your content with their audience.
5. Be Engaging and Social
One of the best things about the Internet is that it lets you be everywhere. However, you should avoid being ‘everywhere’ especially with regards to social media. A better approach would be test out different platforms and choose just 1 or 2 that work best for you and your business.
Being social does not mean that you must have an Instagram profile, Twitter profile, Facebook page, Quora blog, Pinterest board, Medium page, LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn page, YouTube channel, and so on.
Being social, however, means that you need to have at least 1 or 2 of these profiles set up that you can regularly post and engage on. The key here is consistency. If you are unable to manage your social channels through regular posting and being part of the conversation, you will find it incredibly challenging to increase your following.
Social media can be an excellent marketing tool that can help you gain followers and fans, and once you have them, it will help you develop a strong relationship with the people that like, know, and trust you.
