Everyone needs an online presence. In this day and age, one cannot afford to be slacking on their foothold in the economy of view and clicks. It’s complex, it’s ever-changing, and it’s completely essential these days. If you have a website and have had it for years, chances are you need to update it. There are a few classic forums and a few 2000’s-format blogs that emanate that kind of old-school charm. But if you’re a business or you manage a business, you don’t have the luxury to be that kind of charming. You need to update it. Updating your presence can be a matter of sales or no-sales. When it comes down to that, you best get on the ball.
Here are a few reasons why you need to update your online presence.
We All Search
There’s a strange phenomenon that people are barely aware of, yet engage in it every single day. We search for everything. Say what you will about the human experience, we now turn to search engines and “rate” websites to form an opinion. If you ask the good folks from AdInfusion.com, the number of times a person searches a particular item is a great predictor of if they will eventually purchase. It’s in their head. People no longer go down to Main Street to see if there is an item available. Modern people cannot be bothered with that kind of uncertainty. They’ll search on their phone whether something across the street is available before getting up out of their couch. This is neither a good nor a bad thing. This is an opportunity to capitalize on that behavior. If you get to the top of the search engine lists at a local level, people will see it immediately.
Main Street Support
For local businesses, the enemy is always going to be the monopolistic giants of retail. Their only aim is to put you out of business and sell the same product at a loss, just to secure the foothold. So how does one combat this? You do this by beefing up your online presence. A good local marketing campaign can be made great by establishing an enemy like the online monopolies. “Support local” has a ring to it but “Save Main Street” has some pop. You put the good feelings of support against a massive behemoth into the minds of your customers. But none of them will know it if you don’t update and push your online presence to local online buyers. This means getting put in front of their plane of view when they search for an item. It entails being a part of the things they see when they scroll through social media. It’s going to mean some pretty aggressive online pushing.
Online Presence and Funnels
So what happened after you’ve beefed up your online presence? What is the follow-through? The formula is not simply: “increase online presence = make a ton of cash”. You have to take care of your customers. Give them an experience with the product or the service that they’ll want to tell people about. So depending on the SEO guidelines, if you follow the line down, you go from updating your online presence, to having customers continue into the funnel up until you’re in a position to give good follow up. Your goal is to create a repeat customer base. Once you’ve got that, word of mouth can spread organically within the local community.
Updating Your Customers
Reasons for updating your online presence don’t have to fall into the realm of increasing sales. Sure, that’s the primary goal, but giving your customers updates about the product or service is just as important. So if you’re changing your hours of operation or discontinuing stock, you won’t be stuck with a bunch of customers at your door upset that they spent the time to go to you just to be told: “we’re out of stock”. It’s important not to waste a customer’s time like that. They will go elsewhere. Another way to update your customers through online means is to send emails or direct messages to your repeat and loyal customers. That way, the onus is on them. But overall, having increased visibility and a good SEO means of getting to people is the most efficient way.
The best and most effective SEO practices are always changing. The rules change on search engines and the way people target their audience also changes. Even if you’ve had a good run with your optimization in the past, you’re going to need to update. People are gunning for the number one position every single minute. If you find yourself lower on the list or you see the engagement dwindle, that’s a sure sign that you need to update your online presence.