Five Ways to Help Boost Your Online Presence

1) Press
One great way to be seen online is to generate some press. That’s right, get in the news! This does not mean you have to go out and save baby animals (although that might be helpful for getting news stories) or make headline news with an outrageous act (please keep your clothes on). Another more feasible option is to create a press release. This should be done by someone who has a knack for writing. You want the article to be compelling (make it something people want to read) and to flow well. Once written, the article can be released to a number of online portals, many of which are paid, and a solid handful that are free. You can pick and choose your press sites to release based on preference & budget

2) Use your social outlet to communicate
Do you remember that twitter account you created last year that you haven’t used since then? Well, now’s the time to put it to use! The beauty of a social account like twitter is that there is a character limit to your posts, so no worries on chipping that nail polish with this social outlet. Twitter is more focused on links- sharing links to interesting sites/blogs/news (i.e. your press release that just went out) or just a short statement that has punch or value.

With so many emerging and current social networking sites, it’s becoming harder and harder to maintain them all. You find yourself in situations where you’ve neglected or simply forgot about many sites you have created or told yourself you’d like to be part of. There are simple options to help you keep this all on track. You could use a program that has access to all of your social sites and posts all of your content to each of them. Or, you could keep track of your sites and choose your content to post manually. Each way has it’s own benefits, you choose what works best for you. The big goal to keep in mind is to use each social site you are part of to share your content. Let everyone know what it is you do (who, what, when, where, why, how) and build a routine around it. Whether it’s every day, every other day, once a week even- commit to posting to each of your social sites on a schedule and start to practice it. Over time, this will pay off for helping build your online presence.

3) Put the word out there (keywords in content naturally)
Hopefully you have a website if you’re trying to build your online presence. If not, that should be one of your first steps before focusing on other ways to boost online presence. Once you do have a website, it’s time to put the energy into your content. Content is king when it comes to the web. Search engines (like Google, Yahoo & Bing) read your sites and they’re getting smarter. i.e. the old trick once used where you enter an abundance of your target keywords into your websites pages, regardless of what makes logical sense no longer works with search engines. Those Google Bots are smart enough to know what’s “spammy” and what’s not.

What does this mean for you? It’s time to a) get that noggin’ in gear and get creative in writing your website content or b) hire someone to write content for your website. This is a must have for your online presence.

4) Blog
So, you’ve got your website with great quality content that should stay up. How do you keep it flowing with great new content without erasing the heart of what your site is representing? Answer: Blog! Add a blog to your website and share all current news or other interesting information related to your site there. This is a great way to keep feeding the hungry internet searchers with up to date, quality info and also to give your customers a reason to re-visit your site.

5) Online directories
If you want to be found online, make a presence where people go looking for you! Online directories like yellow pages, yelp, & maps are great sources to create complete business profiles for the consumers who are looking for you. This is particularly important for companies with a bricks and mortar location. Many mobile consumers use their devices while on the road to search for local businesses and if you’re not listed on their preferred search platform, you will lose out on that business. So get to building on the hundreds of online directories and allow your business to be found online.

And a pinch to grow an inch….

6) Create Video Content and post it
Ever notice many of the top search results are videos? Video content is gaining more and more power in SERP’s and should not go unnoticed. Here are some amazing stats on video and why it can help your online presence (source: http://royal.pingdom.com/2013/01/16/internet-2012-in-numbers/)
Online video now accounts for 50 percent of all mobile traffic and up to 69 percent of traffic on certain networks. (Bytemobile Mobile Analytics Report)
Users sharing video on retail and brand sites chose Facebook 46 percent of the time, with email accounting for 40 percent and Twitter capturing 14 percent of shares. (Invodo)
52 percent of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions. (Invodo)
More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month, spending more than 4 billion hours watching videos (YouTube).