Consumers are constantly scrolling through their phones, and online shopping is growing in popularity. Establishing your brand identity and making it unique to the industry is the cornerstone to building recognition. If you follow these guidelines, you will gain more customers and build your credibility.
Define Your Brand
The first step in building your online presence is to develop your brand. Define the business’s core values, personality, and mission. Let these qualities guide you as you build elements of your brand, such as logos and writing style. Figure out your niche and the audience that is most interested in what you have to offer. The key is to develop a brand identity that will resonate with your customer base.
Try to keep these items in mind:
- Create a tagline representative of your brand for easy recall and recognition.
- Design your website with your target audience in mind.
- When choosing a domain name, make it memorable and relevant to your brand identity. For e-commerce sites, Shopify offers domain hosting as well.
Know Your Target Audience
Before delving into creating tons of content, do research on your target audience.
Google Analytics
helps you discover the demographic that visits your site most. See which pages garner the most interest. You can also find out which of your social media pages has been the most successful in leading customers to your site. Once you have basic information on your audience, you can build content based on their preferences and behavior.
Use What Works, Change What Doesn’t
Focus on social media platforms that seem to be resonating with customers and find ways to update areas of your site that are not bringing in as much traffic. Constantly monitor your efforts to ensure you are extending your reach as far as possible.
Aim for Consistency
Your goal should be to make your brand more recognizable. In order to do this, you have to stay consistent across all platforms. Adopt a style of writing and logo that can be implemented in print and online.
IBM: A Great Example
If you look at IBM’s Twitter page, you can see they translate their brand well on social media. The logo is featured as the profile image. All of the tweets are consistent with a professional tone and pertain to the brand’s industry of technology.
Gain Credibility on Social Media
Once you have identified your audience and determined what social media sites lead the most traffic to your site, you can figure out what platforms to focus on. Next, you’ll need to find ways to build credibility in your industry.
You want consumers to turn to you for their needs. Here are some ways to make that happen:
- Use a variety of content like articles, infographics, and videos.
- Make your content as visual and interactive as possible.
- Use tools such as DrumUp which allows you to curate and share quality content without having to scour the web for relevant posts to share.
- Try running a contest to get noticed fast.
- Offer incentives such as discounts or free products if an individual shares your content.
These methods can effectively spread your reach quickly and increase your number of followers.
Incorporate Keywords Throughout Your Pages
Increasing brand visibility and recognition online is key to the success of any business. In order to do this, you need to focus on improving your SEO value. One way to do this is by implementing keywords throughout your content. However, the competition is fierce in most industries so you will have to set yourself apart.
Google AdWords
is a great tool to use when compiling a list of keywords. You can view stats for certain phrasing which can help you discover terms that will bump you up on search engine sites.
Here are some keyword pro tips:
- Check in often. Monitor your keywords regularly to see how they are performing.
- Don’t switch too fast. Once you’ve chosen your keywords, give them some time to generate results before you change them. Making daily changes can do more harm than good.
- Get creative. If you don’t have the cash for the big ticket keywords, get creative to come up with terms people may search when looking for a business like yours.
- Be specific. The more precise your keywords are the less competition you have. If you’re selling a dark purple velour trench coat for petite women, you want to be the first thing people see when they search for that item.
Learn how to build strong online presence to achieve buisness success
Communicate With Your Audience
Your ability to engage with customers will strengthen your brand’s image and set you apart from the competition. Customers like to see that they can rely on businesses when they have questions and concerns.
Part of your success will be measured in how well you respond to your customers. Accessibility is key. Create a form on your site for potential clients to email you with their concerns. Respond promptly in order to show that you care about their needs.
Responding To Brand Mentions
There are ways you can exert some power over how your brand is received and talked about. Monitoring and listening to the conversations about your product on social media and other sites will enable you to better respond.
Hootsuite is a popular tool that notifies you whenever your brand is mentioned so you can immediately respond to customer concerns. Responding to customer comments quickly will help show that your brand is committed to the customer and delivers on its promises.
There’s a lot of competition out there, but customers tend to stick with companies they have had good experiences with. If you set yourself apart, provide consistency, and take care to listen to your audience, you’ll be on track for maximum success.
Sarah Saker is a business coach and freelance writer that specializes in helping SMBs setup processes for customer support and predictable growth. When not writing or coaching, Sarah can be found on her (small but growing!) family farm. Connect with Sarah on about.me for coaching or writing help.