Online businesses have many advantages over brick and mortar enterprises. Among them is the possibility of attracting customers from anywhere around the world, thus eliminating geographical limitations. But it is difficult, especially in developed countries like the United States, to find a company that isn’t conducting business online. Therefore, the internet is also a competitive space that’s governed by the same rules as any other arena.
While the exact tactics may change because of the context of the internet, the premise is the same. If a customer does not know about the organization and cannot see or find it, doing business with said company is practically impossible. Furthermore, with so much competition online, a visibility strategy is a necessity. Read on for more details.
Control your visibility or someone else will
Some businesses believe that they are exempt from needing the internet. These companies may feel that the nature of their organization and their core competencies require human contact, and that an online presence may diminish their identity. Others may even feel that their competitive advantage and differentiating factor is their lack of an online presence. But while some facets of these ideas might be true, most customers are online.
Therefore, the customers will control this company’s narrative online by posting reviews about the organization, commenting on services, or creating tutorials on how to use their products. While this may still happen in cases where a company has an online presence, businesses that do not use the web cannot join the conversation and share thoughts or points of view. They are not able to control the message or respond to feedback. In other words, their online presence still exists, but it’s entirely dictated by others.
Visibility as a direct consequence of online marketing
The fact is that online marketing influences how a company is found on the internet. Making a sale, however, is a whole different concept. Visibility on the internet is difficult and requires investment, but it is not impossible. As with traditional marketing, a strategy must be clear and synergetic, and it should align with the goals of the organization. An online marketing strategy which lacks clear goals, defined strategies to reach those goals, and ways to measure success is a recipe for failure.
Being found online is not just about putting up a website, creating a Facebook (News - Alert) page, and waiting for web orders to come in. Companies are increasingly investing money in new advertising avenues without understanding how to succeed with the new technologies. Businesses need to learn how their customer base is reacting to these innovative sales avenues, and develop strategies which incite a reaction from their client base.
Strategic content
Search engine optimization (SEO), the process of improving a website’s visibility to search engines like Google (News - Alert), has gained popularity over the last few years. Mainly, this rise in popularity is because SEO works. When a page ranks high on Google, it receives more traffic. Yet, many businesses fail to adopt, maintain, and execute an SEO strategy. Once again, the main problems arise out of a lack of knowledge and understanding on how to achieve success with the approach. But if there is no quality content to optimize, how is SEO expected to work?
When businesses consistently create high-quality white papers, blogs entries, videos, and other long-form information, SEO is not only easier, but organic non-paid traffic will also improve. However, before doing this, organizations must understand what to improve and how. This is where companies like Link Laboratory thrive. By providing businesses with information on developing scalable link building campaigns, helping create content, and providing a technical site analysis which provides visibility to what search engines see, organizations which need to develop an online presence do not need to guess what to do. Instead, they can focus on execution and reap the results of success.
