Enhancing your business’s online presence in 2024

It’s no secret that a strong online presence is essential for businesses, whether big or small, local or global. It’s made clear by the fact that 97% of consumers go online to research local businesses before making contact.

The answers may seem intuitive or obvious, but it’s worth breaking down why a digital presence is so important. Doing so helps us get more specific about how our business shows up online, improving our interactions with potential and existing customers and, ultimately, our conversions.

So, what exactly does your digital presence do for your business?

• It creates brand awareness: You might have heard of “The Marketing Rule of 7,” which states that it takes an average of seven encounters with a business before a purchase occurs. While this may not be a hard and fast rule, and the exact number of exposures required is up for debate, it’s true that, generally, repeat exposure is what pushes people to take the next step toward a purchase. A strong online presence through multiple channels puts you in front of your target market and clarifies how you can help them.

• It builds credibility: 83% of users visit a store based on the information they have found online, and they tend to leverage several resources before moving forward with a purchase or checking out your shop in person. This could mean perusing your Instagram and then heading to your website. Having a professional presence builds trust, and you can deepen it in countless ways (more on that below). 

• It improves your customer journey: 63% of shopping journeys start online. Whether you’re hoping they eventually walk into your physical store or click through your digital checkout, your customers’ experience is something you can curate. Engaging them through content that solves a problem, entertains or inspires, and presents them with a website that’s helpful and easy to navigate helps build a positive customer experience. 
  
  
• Creates enduring customer relationships: This is kind of the culmination of the three points above. It doesn’t matter if you’re a ceramic artist selling your works at local craft fairs or SMB selling essential goods to a global market; people tend to remember how they feel about your brand or business. Your digital presence is a means to build rapport and trust with your audience, drawing new customers in and keeping existing ones coming back and keen to refer you.
  

So, how do you create a successful digital presence? And if you, like many others, have limited time and resources for this project, how should you spend them? 

Here’s what we think is essential:

Optimize your website

Build a professional website

We’ve grown accustomed to smooth user experiences, sleek designs, and finding the information we need with a few clicks. Customers have high expectations for your website. In fact, 75% of consumers assess a company’s credibility based on website design. 

The good news is that creating and maintaining a professional website is easier than ever before. Tons of no-code website builders make the process incredibly simple and affordable. Some of them even offer free versions of their product.

Whether you decide to use a site-builder or build a custom website, your objective is to create a site that looks great, is easy for your customers to navigate, and showcases all the relevant information in a digestible, relatable and enticing way. This ensures visitors can find relevant information and absorb your messaging and benefits. Ultimately, this increases the likelihood that those who are ready to buy will take action and those who are still considering will keep you in mind for the future. 

In addition to a modern, mobile-friendly design, you’ll also want to:

• Keep your copy clear, concise, and customer-centric. Always lead with and look for opportunities to emphasize your benefits from their perspective. What result will they get from using your product or service?
  
  If you have the budget to hire an experienced copywriter, amazing. If you don’t, fear not. Tools like ChatGPT and Grammarly are a huge help.
  
  
• Show off your product. People love to see what they are getting. Studies have shown that high-quality images increase conversions by up to 60%. 

Perform SEO and do keyword research

Search engine optimization (SEO) increases the odds that Google will display your website when someone searches for a relevant term. Investing some time into improving your SEO is one of the best ways to increase traffic to your website and generate brand awareness. 

Diving into the world of SEO can be daunting, so here are some basics to get you started.

• Keyword Research: Start by identifying the words and phrases that potential customers use to search for similar products or services. Many tools can help you with this, including Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs, to name just a few. They provide valuable insights into search volumes and competition for specific keywords. Generally, you’re looking for keywords with high search volumes and lower competition to optimize your website effectively. What’s considered “high volume” and “low competition” will vary a bit depending on your niche or industry.
  
  Once you have identified your target keywords, you’ll want to incorporate them into your content. It’s important to do this in a way that’s natural. Google’s algorithms are really good at detecting if you’re “keyword stuffing,” and they will penalize you for it. Plus, people don’t respond well to content that sounds overly salesy or awkward. Generally, you’ll want to:
  
  
  • Include each webpage’s primary keyword in the page’s title
    
    
  • Include it again in a heading on the page
    
    
  • Include it 2-3 times in the body content, though this will depend on the size of the page. There are no strict rules, but generally, a keyword density of 1-2% will serve you well.
    
    
  • Craft a compelling meta description. This is the short bit of text that appears under your page’s title in search results. Google doesn’t factor keywords in your meta description into their rankings, so the primary focus of this copy should be to entice the reader to click on your page. It’s effectively ad copy. Having said that, in many cases, including a keyword makes sense as it often signals to the user that the content is relevant.
    
    
  • If you’re just getting started with SEO, Moz has a great article on how much keyword repetition is optimal and where to place your keywords, which we’ve pulled from here. Their Beginner’s Guide to SEO series is awesome too.
    

• Invest some time in local SEO: Local SEO improves a business’s online visibility within a specific geographic area. It’s hugely helpful if you have a physical presence in specific communities. Still, even if you’re online-only, sharing your location can help build trust and increase sales; people generally love supporting local businesses. 

You can increase your chances of appearing in relevant local search results by using location-based keywords, localized content, and optimizing Google My Business listings. 

Create a sustainable social media presence 

Social media is a powerful and cost-effective way to engage with your target audience. It not only helps you get discovered by new customers but also helps you build and sustain a relationship with them. Customers can become fans. This can translate into sales, referrals, and word-of-mouth recommendations.

Creating a social media presence can feel intimidating, but targeting your efforts and having a sustainable strategy really helps. Here are some of the most important things to remember, whether you’re just getting started or revamping your current presence. Here, we’re focusing on organic rather than paid social media.

1. Identify your target audience and choose the appropriate social media platform(s) accordingly. A lot of brands are active across all the major players, but for many small businesses, this isn’t realistic. There’s nothing wrong with focusing on one or two platforms. Ask yourself where you are most likely to find your target audience and where your competitors are finding success. It may even be helpful to rank your top 3 in order of priority.
   
   
2. Create content that educates, inspires, or entertains. This is the type of stuff that gets shared, establishes trust and really piques people’s interest, encouraging them to follow you.  
   
   
3. Share content consistently and interact with your followers to build relationships and grow your online community. How active you want to be will depend on the platform, but generally, posting more frequently can garner more engagement.
   
   
4. Create content in batches. It’s easy for the workday to get away from you, and it can be challenging to carve out time to create and post content daily. Instead, consider finding a large chunk of time to plan out and create your content at the start of each month. Or maybe you find that a bi-weekly cadence works best for you. The main thing is setting aside time to plan and create so you know you have a variety of solid content ready to go.
   
   
5. Use a content calendar and have a system for scheduling to maximize productivity. Many tools will help you do this, including Buffer, Sprout Social, and Later, to name a few. Many offer a free version, which may be sufficient for small companies. It’s important to research and do some testing to find the tool that works best for you.
   
   
6. Analyze your performance and adapt. Carve out time each week or month to review your social media analytics and adjust your strategy based on the data. Which types of content and topics seem to do well with your audience and which did not? 

Email marketing 

Email marketing can be an incredibly powerful tool because it allows for direct communication with your audience. It’s also highly cost-effective, which is always nice. 

Whether you’re just beginning to build a list or looking to boost engagement with your existing subscribers, here are some best practices to help improve the performance of your email marketing efforts.

1. Actively grow your list
   This applies to any and all businesses. Mailing lists get stale over time, and you can future-proof this very important marketing channel by making it easy and inviting for new subscribers to sign up. Many businesses do this by offering a discount for website visitors who subscribe to their newsletter or offering a free resource or another benefit in exchange for their email.
   
   Another simple way to organically grow your list is to include a “share this email with a friend” prompt in each communication you send out.
   
   
2. Get inspired by others
   Do you subscribe to any newsletters you genuinely look forward to? Are there others that you haven’t opened in months? It’s helpful to make notes about what you like about your favorite newsletters. Maybe it’s the writing style, the imagery, or the practical advice provided. Pulling elements from communications you find engaging can help you create better content.
   
   
3. Get the subject line right
   Most of us are overwhelmed by emails. We ignore a lot of relevant content simply because it doesn’t cut through the clutter right away. Attention-grabbing subject lines can help your content stand out in your subscribers’ mailboxes, so it’s worth spending some time on your subject lines. If you have a large enough sample size in your subscriber base, A/B testing subject lines can be a huge help. And if you’re feeling stuck, seek inspiration online or through tools like ChatGPT.
   
   
4. Segment and personalize your content
   You can vary the content of your emails to different persona groups, serving them content you know they’re more likely to find relevant or interesting. This can have a substantial impact on conversions. Marketers have found a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns. Additionally, emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.
   
   
5. Be conscious of privacy practices and anti-spam laws
   Most of us have had the experience of making a one-time purchase and suddenly finding ourselves on the vendor’s promotional mailing list. Usually, it’s not an experience that inspires trust. It’s not just courteous to collect someone’s consent before sending them marketing emails; in many countries, it’s the law.
   
   This is a big part of building trust with your audience: only sending them the types of content they signed up for.

Build your web presence on a great domain name

Is this a shameless plug for Hover? Yes. But it’s also a very valid point. 

Your domain name is important. It has to support your brand today and for years to come. You want it to be short, relevant, memorable, easy to say, and easy to type.

Nowadays, you have many domain extension options, making finding a great domain name easier than ever. Many extensions are niche-specific, helping to communicate the nature of your business to your audience. Take .INC, for example. It was created with businesses in mind and empowers incorporations to turn their company name into their domain name: yourbrand.inc.

Want to find the perfect domain name for your business? Get started with Hover.

This post was written by our partners at Intercap Registry Inc.