So you want to increase online visibility, but you are lost on where to begin. Are you interested in positioning your business for online growth?

Our in-depth guide will answer the following:

1: What is online visibility?

2: What is brand visibility?

3: Why is online visibility important?

4: How do you increase online visibility?

Let’s get started!

1. What is online visibility? 

Online visibility is the measure of how well your website, online presence, and online brand are seen by potential customers.

Many businesses often make the mistake of not acknowledging the importance of an online presence. However, today’s consumer is purchasing and researching online more than ever before and you’ll be missing out if you neglect to get more visible online.

2. What is brand visibility?

Brand might sound like a big word, and make you think of companies like Pepsi or FedEx. But every business has a brand, whether you’ve consciously chosen it or not.

Your brand is your promise to your customer. It’s the promise you make to them every time you interact with them. It’s how you portray yourself online and offline. An online brand includes all the various elements of your business, including your name, logo, messaging, tone, fonts, color palette, touchpoints, the way you position your products or services, the way you talk about them online, and offline. It’s all part of your brand. 

Brand visibility focuses on making sure that your brand is clearly visible to your customers in the places where they are looking, in the places where they are most likely to see it. It’s about maximizing your online presence because that’s where people are searching for businesses like yours.

3. Why is online visibility important?

Online visibility is crucial for reaching new customers.  In fact, according to a recent study from the Small Business Association, 80% of small business owners report that they have found new customers through their website.

In addition, online visibility assists in building your reputation. In the same study, 84% of small businesses said that their website has helped increase their credibility in the eyes of customers.

If your website isn’t being found easily, 

4. How do I increase my online visibility?

There are so many ways to increase our online visibility.  We’ll cover the major ones here.

Know your audience

Knowing your customers is a crucial piece of the online visibility puzzle, which is why I’ve listed it first.

Who are they?

How old are they?

What problems are they struggling with and how does your product or service help them?

What do they need to believe in order to buy from you?

Knowing your audience will help you learn how they search for your products and services online. 

You’ll also be able to know what social networks they’re likely to use. 

To find out what your customers are looking for, ask them. Surveys, questionnaires, and polls will help you know what your customers want and need. 

You can also use a website like Answer The Public, which allows you to enter a keyword and then find what people are searching related to that keyword.  

I’ve used this on several occasions to find out more about my target audience. Remember, your customer is the only one who can tell you what they need and want, so it’s important to understand who they are,  what emotions drive them, and what problem or issue they are struggling with. 

Once you dial this in, every part of your marketing becomes easier.

Ads

Ads can be a great way to get immediate results, however (and that’s a BIG however) if your website is not optimized for sales and/or it’s not clear to your audience what you are selling or the value of it, ads can be an expensive waste of time.

Let’s say you are ready to do ads though and you’re in the home improvement space, you might create ads that appear when people search for “home improvement” or “how to redo kitchen cabinets”.

When you create a Google ad, you can select the keywords you want to bid on so that your ad appears when someone searches for those words.

You can also pay to promote ads on social media. 

Create content that shows your authority

Another great way to increase your online visibility is to create content your customer is actively searching for and that you can help them with. 

For example, if you’re in the business of helping people find new homes, you could post content about how to find the right home, how to find the right mortgage, or how to work with real estate agents.

Targeting your content to your customer’s needs is a great way to increase your online presence and influence.

Social media

There are a lot of ways to use social media to increase your online visibility. 

The key is to be active, engaged, and authentic.

Be active on your own social media accounts.

You can’t expect people to find you if you’re not active on your own social media accounts. It’s also important to be consistent. If you plan on showing up on Instagram, then show up consistently and when you say you’re going to. 

Be engaged.

Engagement is the key to social media. You can’t just rant and post pictures of your food all day without engaging with your followers. You need to be social. And you need to respond. Don’t just promote.

Be authentic.

Be a human! Talk to people the way you would in real life. Share stories, your experience, and offer help. You don’t need to be fake or do things you wouldn’t do in the real world. Be yourself!

Take advantage of hashtags.

Hashtags are good for more than just Twitter. They allow you to connect with people who are interested in your topic, people who share the same interest, and you can use it to promote yourself, your product/service/brand.  Think of them like mini searches that dial directly into the people who are interested in that topic.

Online directories

This might feel a little old school, like yellow pages, but hear me out.

Every time you add your information to an online directory, you create a backlink to your website. A backlink helps increase your search engine ranking.  These directories are a good place to start building your online presence. 

Besides the backlink, they can also send traffic to your site.

Some directories, like DMOZ, are read by millions of people every day.  A few links to your site on these directories can drive a lot of traffic.

There are also some directories that focus on specific industries.  These directories will help you get in front of your target audience faster and inexpensively. 

You can do this by finding industry-specific directories and adding your information to them. 

SEO

This might also seem like a scary word but SEO isn’t that difficult and yet it is so often overlooked. 

In order to rank for certain keywords on Google, you need to optimize your site so that Google will rank it. 

You can also use SEO to drive traffic to your site. 

To do this, write keyword-specific content that your customer would be searching for.

For example, perhaps you found this article by searching for “ways to increase my online visibility”. That was intentional on my part because that is something a lot of my clients struggle with. And in order to get in front of more of those same types of clients, I wrote this guide. 

By writing content that is specific to the search term that brought your website visitors to your website, you can increase your traffic and sales. 

Check out our in-depth guide on SEO.

If you are new to the online visibility marketing world, don’t get overwhelmed.  Just follow the steps in this guide and you will be well on your way to getting more traffic and sales.

And if you’re not sure where to start or what you need, we can help. Contact us today to get started.

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