What is a Total Online Presence and Why You Need One Now

When was the last time you gave any thought to your total online presence?

Did you mean my website?

Did you mean my Facebook Page?

If you answered one of the two above or maybe even, “what’s an online presence?” then it’s time to learn more about this crucial metric and what you can do to increase and ultimately leverage it for your business.

Understanding Your Total Online Presence

When you perform a specific Google search of any business, the chances are that a number of hits will come up on the search engine results page (SERP).

The results could include things like the business’s official website, Google My Business listing, Facebook page, Twitter account, Better Business Bureau listing, Yelp and other directory listings.

All of these elements together make up the business’s online presence.

Your online presence, therefore, is a collection of all the identities you cultivate online for your business, and together they give prospects and clients a fuller picture of your organization and your brand.

Moreover, when executed properly, your online presence can make it easier for prospects to find you, and this gives you more opportunities to reach new clients.

However, building an online presence isn’t something that happens overnight, but is instead something that you cultivate over the course of months and years.

Some of the most important places to focus your efforts include on your website, social media, and online directories, and you’ll then use search engine optimization (SEO) best practices to tie it all together.

Do I Need a Presence Online?

In the earlier years of the internet, it was a choice for businesses to have a website or not.

These days, however, that choice has been eliminated by the fact that 97 percent of consumers use the internet to find local businesses. Moreover, nearly 80 percent of small businesses reach new clients through social media.

In other words, no business can survive in the modern world without an online presence. If potential customers can’t find you online, then chances are high they won’t find you at all.

Here’s a rundown of what your online presence can do for you:

• Increase traffic to your website by ensuring you turn up in SERPs
• Improve visibility and brand awareness
• Create trust
• Highlight your services and the solutions you can provide
• Forge stronger bonds with your audience
• Drive conversions

Your Website is the Face of Your Brand Online

Your website isn’t the only element that constitutes your online presence, but it is the cornerstone of it.

That is because your site doesn’t just provide information about your services, but it also showcases your brand, tells prospects what they need to know about your organization, provides vital information, and otherwise engages visitors.

To ensure that your website is pulling its weight in terms of attracting, converting, and retaining prospects, here are some elements it must include and functions it must perform:

• It has to be mobile-friendly
• It must include contact information for your business
• The content has to be interesting, engaging, relevant, and high quality
• You must use calls to action (CTAs) to guide and convert prospects
• The site must be easy to navigate, well-designed, and user-friendly

Social Media Profiles Will Increase Your Reach and Expand Your Audience 

Having a presence on social media is becoming just as crucial for businesses as having a website.

Today, the average person spends about 116 minutes on social media every day. That’s nearly two hours per day, or one-eighth of the time we spend awake, or a quarter of our free time when we’re not sleeping or working!

Social media is a key networking tool for every modern business.

It’s also an excellent opportunity for you to engage your audience, create trust and stronger relationships, provide clients with value beyond the services you offer, share relevant information, increase your visibility, and reach out to new markets.

Online Directories Are Crucial for Driving Local Traffic

Online directories like Yelp, Google My Business, Judy’s Book, and BBB are becoming increasingly important tools for local SEO, and that’s because more and more online searches have a local intent.

These online directory listings, therefore, can both increase your total online presence and bolster the local SEO efforts for your business.

Here’s a very brief rundown of what you need to do: find your business in all the local and online directories, make sure all your contact information is accurate, add photos and information when possible, and encourage happy clients to share good reviews about their experiences.

SEO Will Allow You to Build a Visible Online Presence   

SEO is the glue that holds your online presence together because it’s what will help your business identity come up in search results.

Whether it’s a Yelp review or a blog you’ve posted or a link to one of your pages, SEO will ensure that prospects are exposed to your online presence when they go looking.

The most important SEO element here is keywords because these are the words that people will use when they want to know more about services like the ones you perform.

As long as you’ve taken steps to optimize your online presence, then you’ll be visible to potential clients by showing up on the first page of a SERP and ranking high for relevant keywords.

Find Out How You Stack Up

If you’re unsure of how your business measures up against the competition concerning showing up on SERPs, ranking with Google, and being visible to prospects, then you can find out with a Total Online Presence Audit.

You’ll learn valuable information about your online presence, including a review of your website and your SEO strategy, how you rank for relevant keywords, the reach of your social media profiles, and more, plus you’ll get an action plan that will give you concrete steps to improve your online presence.

Your total online presence is the collection of everything that exists on the web about your business, and it includes elements like your website, blog, social media profiles, and more.

Without an online presence, customers in the modern world may never be able to find you, which is why it’s so important to make your online presence more visible to prospects. Sign up for a Total Online Presence Audit today to get started.