Marcus RichardsSometimes, people judge you on more than just your content. Sometimes, they’ll enter your site and see that your design is amateurish, your responsiveness is poor, and your site is not optimized for their device. They might dismiss you outright at that moment, no matter how good of an argument you’re making.
At other times, they’ll associate your low ranking (being on the second page of SERPs) with a lack of knowledge or authority, which is not always true. That is if they manage to find you, to begin with.
In other words, regardless of whether you’re trying to sell, educate, or convince, your online presence will determine your efficiency. Here are nine simple tricks to drastically improve your online presence.
Start with a marketing budget
Having a marketing budget is the basis of any marketing strategy that you’ll attempt in the future. One of the weirdest myths online is that you can promote your business without spending money. While no one is sure where this idea came from, there are a lot of people out there who genuinely believe it.
- Can you promote your business without spending money? Sure!
- Can you do it successfully? No, not even close!
The thing is that most businesses set aside between 10% and 50% of their average annual revenue for digital marketing. So, assuming that you could just wing it by posting that you’re having a sale on Instagram is simply preposterous.
Use both SEO and PPC
There are two ways to boost your visibility online:
- SEO: This digital marketing strategy involves boosting your rank by placating to the algorithm. You optimize your pages to make them appealing to human and robot audiences and patiently wait for your position to rise.
- PPC: This is paid advertising, which gives you an immediate traffic boost for as long as you pay to have your content sponsored. Because you pay per click (as the name suggests), cost control is incredibly easy.
The most important thing to remember is that, while you need both, if you had to choose, PPC gives you immediate results, but SEO is far better in the long run.
Find a better hosting service
The responsiveness of your site, its uptime, and overall performance greatly depend on your host. This is why, if you’re discontent with your current hosting service, you might want to consider finding someone better.
While there are some objective metrics on what makes a good hosting service (99.99% uptime, a specific speed, bandwidth, RAM, etc.), you’ll have to develop your reference point. One of the ways to do so is to look up reviews of the best VPS providers and see what’s the industry standard for yourself.
Also, bear in mind that the cost of unmanaged hosting can be as low as $3 per month, and when it goes high, it goes to $45 per month. In other words, it’s not a serious expense for anyone, and it’s not a field where you want to try and save money.
Leverage influencer marketing
Brand mentions are sometimes just as important as links. At one point, there was talk about brand mentions completely replacing links. Now, while this never came to be (and probably never will), it’s still worth mentioning that a brand mention can easily turn into a link. On social media, a tag or a hashtag is just as good.
Still, to mention you, people need to hear about you. One of the sources of renown lies in influencer marketing.
An influencer (even a micro-influencer) already has some persuasion power among your target audience. This way, they’re vouching for you, thus lending you a part of their credibility.
Recycle old content
It takes so much time to write new content, which is why it’s so ineffective to let it go to waste. So, when its time is up, find a way to recycle your old content. You can do so by changing the format. For instance, you can take the script of an old video or blog post and turn it into a podcast episode.
What’s wrong with taking an old piece of content and updating information, then republishing it for this year? After all, statistics age like milk, but their worth for a historical comparison cannot be disputed. Also, constantly updating your content will generate more backlinks for a lot longer.
Adjust to all screen sizes
You must address that your audience uses various devices to access your website. Still, even in 2023, many website developers make desktop-based sites when going mobile-first (or, at least, focusing a bit on mobile) would make much more sense.
Remember that it takes a lot of skill to make a responsive site, but the payoff is always worth it. The frustration from a layout that’s not touch-friendly or content that’s not readable on smaller screen sizes can make a huge wedge between you and your audience.
Focus on the most relevant KPIs
Sometimes, it’s so hard to understand what matters. Sure, traffic is important, but what else? What happens when it comes to social media? Likes are great, but how important are they?
You must learn the difference between KPIs and vanity metrics.
Regarding the website, the number of total visitors, page views, and bounce rate are the three most important KPIs. Regarding your search engine visibility, you’re looking at the organic search traffic and keyword ranking. On social media, shares, comments, followers, and clicks on your website are the most important KPIs to track.
Improve cybersecurity
The cybersecurity of your site is always a huge issue and something that you have to address sooner rather than later. Ideally, you would outsource your cybersecurity and avoid skimping on software. A premium antivirus and antimalware package can make a business-saving difference.
Regardless of what methods you try to introduce to your cybersecurity arsenal, the fact remains that about 88% of all data breaches are caused by human error. This is a real number, even though most of your employees will never admit to making this error. So, you need a passive boost that will make them better prepared for these situations, whether they want to try them or not. One of the ways to get there is through innovative cybersecurity training.
Just improving your cybersecurity is not enough. You also need to use it as a USP. So, go for all the trust markers, certificates, and badges you can.
Include more payment options
If people want your products, but you don’t support their payment methods/gateways, they’re more likely to go someplace else than open a new account. To avoid this unnecessary loss of clients, include more payment options.
By this, we don’t mean just adding more random options. It’s already implied that you should have all the major ones. For instance, in 2023, PayPal had about 435 million active users. Naturally, every online business will support PayPal, direct bank transfers, and credit card payments, but what about crypto? Some of your customers, especially international customers, may find this method the most convenient.
Moreover, this is a huge optical win. Even people who don’t intend to use many of these options will notice that you have much broader support. This will make you seem more professional and inclusive, both of which are positive traits in a business.
If you aren’t online, you don’t exist; if people can’t find you online, you barely exist
Imagine this as if it were a game of Risk. Establishing a strong online presence is the stage where you’re setting your troops on the territories you own, and it will determine the future success of your efforts. Make sure to dedicate as much thought and effort to this stage as possible.
