Tips for Improving Your Business’s Online Presence

In today’s digital-first world, having a strong online presence is essential for successfully defining and managing the reputation, credibility and visibility of your business. Salesforce reports that 72% of B2B buyers start their journey online. And as digital natives become B2B decision makers, their online research clearly directs their paths to purchase.

Here are some of my favorite tips for creating a robust online presence to reach new and existing customers, build brand equity, and ultimately drive sales:

Optimize your website and its performance

As the anchor of your digital presence, your website is a critical point of contact between your business and potential buyers. It should be well-designed, user-centric, and intuitively easy to navigate. Areas of focus to consider in order to improve the customer experience and drive increased conversion include:

•  Know your buyers. Think carefully about your buyer personas including their relevant topics of interest, pain points, challenges, and needs; who they trust, engage with, or follow online; which sites/platforms they frequent most often, how they search and what they’re searching for; and how they buy. Leverage data from tools like Google Analytics (GA4) to truly understand your website visitors’ behaviors. Use this research to inform your online content and build your strategies for reaching, engaging, and converting new and existing buyers.
• Optimize content to increase ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). Demandsage reports that 93% of web experiences begin on a search engine – mainly Google. Begin by identifying the keywords, phrases, and topics that your buyers use to search for content related to your business. Then create relevant, quality content that aligns with these search intentions. Consider strategies for driving links from other, credible sources to your content to further improve your authority. Focusing on organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) pays dividends long-term, as your success will bring the most meaningful traffic to your site, and you can then consider limiting spending on digital advertising as a traffic generation method.

• Make sure your business is listed consistently in online business directories and reviews – be sure to set up a Google Business Profile, which provides all the essential details of your business directly in the SERP for search and maps. Bing, Yahoo, Yelp and Facebook are also sources that potential customers will use in making purchase decisions, and businesses can often be listed for free. Also, be sure to set up Google Alerts to keep abreast of your own (and competitive) business mentions.

• Heed the need for speed. Nobody likes slow-loading websites. They’re bad for user experiences, brand perceptions, and search engine rankings. Check out your page loading time via Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool, which also includes suggestions on how to improve it.

• Make it mobile-friendly. Your website design should be responsive per device and screen size. You might be surprised to learn how much of your website engagement is happening via mobile. In fact, according to Google, 76% of buyers who search for a local business on their smartphone end up visiting the business within a day, and 28% of them make a purchase.

Engage on social media

Based on your buyer research, be hyper-focused on optimizing one or two accounts with solid engagement activity and targeted content to build relationships. Encourage employees to share your posts with their networks. Connect with customers, relevant influencers, reporters and associates. And tap into social media listening and monitoring tools like Sprout Social, Buffer and Hootsuite to gather valuable insights. Start small, but invest in paid social (and search) ads, and use their real-time analytics to adjust your strategies accordingly.

Be thoughtful about your thought leadership

When optimized for SEO, blogs can act as a magnet to attract and nurture relationships, while also growing your network and influence. Explore guest blogging opportunities to build credibility, authority, and trust in your knowledge of our industry. Also, earn more earned media moments by taking advantage of speaking engagements, hosting webinars, issuing press releases, and contributing articles to trade publications, bylines, and op-eds in targeted media publications.

Build your own digital strategy!

Having a stellar online presence is all about understanding your customers and delivering an optimal digital experience with compelling messaging at the right time in the buying journey. Most of today’s buyers are doing online research before engaging with you, so having a high-functioning website, appearing in search engine results, and engaging with customers on social media and other industry related sites and publications is critical. While your own digital marketing approach will vary depending on your individual business goals, these tips can help place you in control of better understanding, presenting and monitoring your reputation as a trusted, legitimate, and valuable solutions provider in the commercial printing industry.

For more information about the digital transformation possibilities in label and package printing and our production printing equipment, please visit Konica Minolta online.