24 tips for a good presence online
Key concepts
Importance of being online
24 tips for a good online presence
Being present online is highly important nowadays. We can even say that if you’re not online, you don’t exist in the world of business. A lot of the information and research about products or services companies offer happen online. It is faster, easier, much more convenient from the accessibility (anytime, not just when the store is open), freedom of place choice (you don’t need to visit 10 stores in different parts of the city, you have them all together), comparisons and much more.
We are not saying that you should not have a physical address where people to find you (real face to face interactions are important too), yet by not being present online, you make it much more difficult for potential clients to find out about you.
Here are 24 tips to create and maintain a good online presence:
Have a blog - by having a blog and providing materials connected to your products (extra value, not just selling), you can reach more people.
NLP and Neuromarketing - understanding the human mind and how it works can help you create your marketing strategy to be suitable for your customers’ profile. How do people buy or how can you influence the prices are just some of the things you can find out through neuroscience.
Reward loyalty - establish loyalty programmes and encourage your clients to come back to buy more (points converted into money, sales etc.). You can even create special groups with access limited only to those that are your clients.
Use social media - the advantage of posting various offers on various platforms can bring you more people. The reach and targeted people are different on each so mind how you make your offer suitable for the platform (from the visibility and contents’ point of view). You can even use them as e-shops (FAcebook for example) or to create ads that redirect them to your page.
Fast charge of the web - make it easy for your user to see and consume you. Optimise the loading speed and heaviness of your website for a fast display (you can test with pingdom or PageSpeed Insights of Google).
Original descriptions - whatever you post on your blog or page itself, and more if you have an online store, make sure you have your own descriptions and well-written, to catch attention and encourage people to look it up or even buy.
Qualitative photos - make sure whatever you upload online has a good quality (size, pixel ratio) and you own them (or have the right to use them).
Web main look - the majority of books and written materials have white background for the texts. This was proven to be the easiest for the eye to read (with black text) and so you can make it easier for your readers online too - use white background!
Show what you do - make step to step tutorials, videos of your work to show people how things are done or how they function.
Use the power of influences - if you can manage to have influencers that recommend you or your products and services, you can easily increase your traffic and sales. See if you can offer them something free or make a bargain related to your promotion.
About you - this is a page that is a must on the web. People want to know who’s behind the screen so feel free to post photos of your team (or yourself if you’re alone), tell about who you are, short about your experience - make it friendly and sound approachable.
Online chat - use the chats to stay in contact with your viewers, respond as promptly as you can and direct them to the services or advice they need. Likewise, reply to comments. Create personalised auto-replies for the times outside the working hours. Make sure though you do answer them the following working day.
FAQ section - once you gain more and more viewers, it may happen that people send you various questions related to what you offer. If you get many similar ones, you can make a Frequently Asked Questions section or even include the answers in your posts (perhaps you were not clear enough).
Study your competence - look for the keywords and SEO marketing your competition has and see what you can incorporate as well in your texts. What is it that makes them higher positioned than you? Study it out and implement it in your project.
Categorise your web - make sure you use and structure well the categories of products you sell. It should be easy to find them in general categories and more specific subcategories.
Competitions and give-aways - every now and then make competitions for your viewers and offer them the possibility to have free products or services from you, or connected to your topics. This will bring you more viewers and traffic so with a small investment or even free, you can get more people to know about you.
Branding campaigns - invest in your visibility and “face” to the public: logo, web design, formats, anything that leads to creating an emotional bond with you.
Landline phones - although everyone has a mobile nowadays, have you noticed how the big companies still use landlines? A landline phone gives the impression of the actual existence of the business, where you can get answers between specific hours of functioning, while a mobile phone looks quite general and seems more personal.
Create packages - if you sell something, you can as well already group some of your products or services with similar thematic and help the viewer buy easier. Even if you don’t sell and want to offer freely, grouping materials together is helpful for the viewer to find and navigate easier through your content.
Other languages - if you plan to expand your business and get more internationally, or even nationally to other ethnic groups, translate your main pages, and even blog articles, to the targeted language. Bear in mind to use actual translators and have them verified (not just Google) and that they sound good in the targeted language. If you don’t speak it and you don’t have someone who does, better skip that language - you must offer the same quality content in another language (no grammar errors, spelling mistakes, an actual meaning).
Testimonials and reviews - ask your viewers to give you feedback and reviews so you can improve your offer and let the others know real opinions about your services.
Desktop vs. Mobile - make sure your pages are optimised for mobile visualisation. Don’t just count on the web platform that will do so, check it out and correct whatever seems not right. Make sure it’s easy to go through, fast access to menus and categories and fast to charge.
Search bar - hello your viewers find easier your contents through the presence of a search bar, which equally important, is SEO optimised.
Newsletters - create valuable newsletters and give the possibility to the viewer to subscribe to them from every page (at the bottom of the page for example).