6 Effective Ways to Establish Your Company's Online Presence

The world has greatly transformed to becoming digital. Nowadays, having an online presence as a business is not even an option; it has become necessary. It helps consumers find you, and interact with you, which increases leads. 

However, establishing an online presence is not a very easy task, and it does not happen overnight. It requires a well-planned strategy and may take some time. If you are wondering which is the best approach to do this, read on to find out. 

1. Create An Email List

Creating an email list is one of the easiest and most effective ways of establishing an online presence. Once you have created a list of a good number of subscribers, you'll be able to engage with them regularly, say weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. 

 Creating a substantial email list takes some time, and you need to be patient. To grow your list, you need to create content that users need to sign-up to receive. You can also create a call to action on your social media pages and website, then request users to sign-up.

2. Focus On SEO

Nowadays, when a consumer needs a particular product or service, they turn to the internet and search for it. Consumers are more likely to click on a page that ranks higher in search results. Businesses that have focused on SEO are the ones that benefit greatly since they show up on the first pages of search engines. 

You can achieve the same by mastering SEO skills and putting them into use. Also, you need to keep on updating your pages since SEO trends are ever-evolving. 

3. Create A Website

Every business that takes online presence seriously should have a website. A good website has great capabilities to promote your brand's personality, build credibility, and connect easily with the target audience. 

A good website should be properly optimized. It should also have an enticing and organized WordPress web design. Additionally, a website should be aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate, and provide value. 

4. Make Use Of Social Media

Using social media is one of the easiest ways of establishing your online presence. To be successful in social media, you need to create well-optimized profiles for your business, post valuable and engaging content, and interact with your followers. You can focus on the most popular platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 

You can also use social media tools to schedule posts and improve your efficiency if you are very busy. That helps you stay active and engaging with your followers without spending all your time on social sites.

5. Provide Valuable Content

Whether youtube, social media channels, or your website, you need to provide valuable content and do it consistently. Valuable content helps you gain authority and credibility from your followers. Wondering how to create valuable content? You first need to understand the needs of your target market. What are they looking for? Which kind of information will be of value to them? Get answers to these questions and provide content that provides solutions. Also, make the easy to read and comprehend, and don't forget to be consistent. 

6. Use Influencers

People tend to trust recommendations given by individuals. If you can get to work with an influencer to recommend your products, you can earn their followers' trust. To make this work, look for influencers with a large following and contact them.

Establishing your online presence doesn't have to be a daunting task. You only have to come up with a working strategy and implement it one step at a time. With the tips discussed above, you will create a strong online presence, increase your lead conversions, and have a competitive edge. Don't forget to analyze your results regularly and see where you need to improve. 

Why Your Brand Guidelines Are So Important

No matter how small your business is, you need people to know it's you. Your branding is key to the identity of your business and will also have a lot to do with its success. The idea of building a brand identity and creating brand guidelines can be daunting, though, but it doesn't need to be. There is plenty of information out there to help you and free tools too. 

Remember that consistency is the backbone of an authentic, trustworthy, and recognizable brand and customer experience, so this means having consistency in the way you look, speak to, and service your customers and target audience. Staying consistent takes effort, and it also means you have to have rules, and this is where you need to write yourself some brand guidelines.

Brand guidelines are a set of rules about how to represent your brand across channels and assets, helping your business build credibility and recognition as you grow. They can include visual guidelines such as logo usage, color palette, typography and they can also cover your company's mission, brand voice, and imagery.

You then need to use your brand guidelines when you are designing brand assets such as your website, invoice templates, brochure, social media accounts, and packaging. Make sure any new employees are aware of them, and of course, any designers you are working with are too. 

You can either create your brand guidelines yourself or outsource them to another company to do it for you. If you're not sure about it, you can search for other company's brand guidelines online as an example. You'll find some great ones and very detailed, but you can use these as a guide and adapt it to your company. This way, you'll make sure you don't miss anything, though, and you'll also learn from someone who has done it and shown that it works. Check these out as good examples:

Walmart Corporate Brand Guidelines cover just about everything you can imagine. It includes direction on the brand's editorial voice and how to use its logo in print, online, on promotional merchandise to name a few. It also covers appropriate fonts and how to use logos, icons, and taglines correctly.

Then there’s the Mozilla Style Guide which is another really useful one to look at. It has an online style guide to help its open source community understand how to use its logos and trademarks for Mozilla, the Firefox browser, and its other products.

It isn’t just about looking pretty, according to a study from The Verde Group and the Wharton School, two-thirds of all shoppers use more than one channel to make purchases so with all the online and offline opportunities to make an impression, it’s about consistency across all channels and touchpoints to make your business branding and identity familiar, pleasing to the eye and recognizable to your customers. 

Keep it simple by focusing on a small number of fundamental brand values; be consistent because every aspect of your business should make customers feel the same way about you. Additionally, communicate your brand. Make sure every advertisement, brochure, and letter helps reinforce the same message. If you have a logo, use it everywhere, but make sure the quality is consistent. 

Remember to be honest. If you don't believe in your brand, no one else will.