Полное руководство по оптимизации онлайн-присутствия: от теории к практике

Your business’ survival could depend on how often you leverage your online presence. 

But it’s not just about posting funny videos of cats. In fact, 64% of consumers want to connect with their favourite brands online and 70% trust a company more when the CEO is active on social media. So, you need to establish a trustworthy and consistent online presence that turns clicks into paying customers. 

Optimising your online presence can be a big task, especially for a small marketing team. This guide will teach you all you need to know about boosting your business’ online presence.

Define goals and objectives

Stop! We know we said to put a pause on the cat videos, but don’t jump straight into rewriting your whole marketing strategy without defining achievable goals and objectives. 

First, ask yourself, do you want to… 

• …boost brand visibility? 
• …increase store visits? 
• …get more phone calls? 
• …generate more leads? 
• …maximise customer engagement? 
• …grow a community?

Analyse, evaluate, and audit

Step 1: Analyse the competition

Comprehensive competitor analysis is important in order to get ahead and find your gap in the market, enhancing your own strategy. Here’s a four-step approach that we recommend:

1. Identify direct and indirect competitors – Select 5-10 competitors to look at. 

2. Review competitor online activity – What social platforms are they on? What is their tone of voice like? How does their web copy support the customer journey? 

3. Analyse their user engagement – It’s not just about followers, engagement matters. Identify the activities getting the most interaction for your own content inspiration.

4. Conduct a SWOT analysis – Identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in your competitor’s online presence.

Not sure where to begin? Our Marketing Radar is on hand to make things simple.

Step 2: Evaluate website performance

Your website will influence potential customers’ purchasing decisions. 

If it takes too long to load, doesn’t have the right information accessible, or isn’t visually appealing, you’re likely to turn visitors away. Here are a few things to consider to create a seamless user experience:

• Is your contact information easily accessible and up-to-date?
• Are your plugins set up correctly and working?
• Is your website visually appealing?
• Are branding and messaging consistent across your website? 
• Is your website optimised for mobile users?
• Does it load quickly? 
• Is your website easy to navigate?

If any of your answers is ‘no’, you need to address the gaps. Stay on top of performance metrics and analytics with tools like:

• Fasthosts Online Marketing Suite
• Fasthosts Website Builder
• Google Analytics 
• Google Search Console 
• Hotjar 
• SEMrush

Step 3: Audit your content

Content creation is a high priority for marketers for good reason. Consistent, quality content inspires brand loyalty, improves customer retention, increases social media impressions, and gets you closer to Google’s top spot.

But more isn’t always better. Churning out content for content’s sake will only complicate the customer journey. 

Instead, a content audit will help you understand the content you already have, its performance, and how you might reuse it on other platforms. 

Step 4: Research keywords

There are plenty of tools on hand to help you identify the most effective keywords for your site – from Google Ads to Ahrefs and SEMRush to Ubersuggest. But nothing is stopping you from using the search engine itself to get started. 

Type a few relevant keywords into Google to see where your site (and your competitors’) ranks on the SERP. Remember, bigger companies have bigger budgets, so focus on optimising for local SEO before anything else.

Step 5: Focus on relevant channels

While you might have dreams of making it big across all social and advertising platforms, each one takes a lot of time and energy to get right. So, it’s best to start small. Build your presence with a few relevant channels – most businesses focus on SEO, Facebook, Instagram, and email marketing. As you grow, develop your online presence elsewhere.

Optimise, maximise, and boost

You’ve identified your business goals and understood your current business performance, competitors, and content capabilities. Now, you can use this information to boost your online presence. 

6 steps to maximise your online branding:

1. Define your brand identity 

• Identify a gap in the market with your competitor analysis
• Understand your customers and the problems you’re solving 
• Think about how you want people to describe your brand
• Create brand guidelines that outline your tone of voice, brand style, and where you want your brand to be visible

2. Create a consistent brand experience across all digital touchpoints 

• Update your messaging and tone of voice across all platforms
• Have a consistent and identifiable visual brand
• Make sure all touch points link to your website

3. Create engaging content

• Audit your content to repurpose content 
• Use Google Trends to identify relevant topics 
• Decide where to display your content, e.g. a blog or social media platform
• Create a content calendar to schedule and track your content
• Plan regular brainstorming sessions to keep your content fresh

4. Social media presence

• Decide which social media platforms are most relevant to your brand
• Create a comprehensive social media content strategy
• Stay on top of trends, research, and the latest industry news 

5. Email marketing 

• Direct website visitors to leave their contact information for further marketing opportunities
• Create an engaging and valuable newsletter to regularly send to potential customers 

6. Measure and refine

• Use website, email, and social media metric tools to make sure your output is boosting your business
• Identify what works and adjust your content accordingly

We can’t guarantee you’ll go viral overnight, but keeping a constant eye on your online branding could be the difference between standing out from the crowd and blending in.

Connect, engage, and manage

Build a community

If you’re trying to connect with your audience without first building a community, you might need to take a step back…

• Group your audience by age and other demographics. The more you understand them, the better you can connect.
• Consider your language in targeted advertising to engage your audience. 
• Create a targeted email campaign – a personal subject line is far more likely to catch attention.
• 75% of consumers are more likely to purchase based on personalised recommendations, so tailor products, services, or offers.
• Stay on top of community management by replying to comments, DMs, and manual outreach.
• Personalise your products – think of Coca-Cola’s successful “Share A Coke With…” campaign.

How to incorporate customer feedback

Customer advocacy is another powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. In 2022, 93% of shoppers were influenced by customer reviews, positive and negative. Including what others think could help to make your brand seem more trustworthy.

1. Encourage reviews

Incentivise customer reviews by offering a discount code, special offer, or competition entry. Customers are more likely to take the time out of their day to shout about how much they love your products if you reward them for the effort.

2. Conduct surveys

Опросы — это не только отличный способ стимулировать вовлечение клиентов, но и возможность получить полезную информацию для вашего маркетингового или торгового отдела. Начните с малого — создайте опрос в Instagram или LinkedIn. Когда появится время и бюджет, рассмотрите возможность проведения комплексного исследовательского отчета о потребительских привычках, который впоследствии можно превратить в брендированный контент.

3. Собирайте отзывы

Если вам нужен более детальный взгляд на репутацию или деятельность вашей компании, попробуйте собирать отзывы клиентов. При наличии разрешения их можно разместить на вашем сайте, в материалах блога или в социальных сетях, чтобы повысить доверие к бренду.

Как Fasthosts может вам помочь начать

Поддержание и оптимизация онлайн-присутствия вашего бренда требует значительных усилий, но вам не обязательно делать это в одиночку. Мы предлагаем множество инструментов, которые помогут сделать процессы более эффективными, не требуя огромных затрат.

• SEO Manager – Определяйте лучшие ключевые слова, отслеживайте позиции в поисковой выдаче в реальном времени и анализируйте конкурентов.
• Listings Manager – Синхронизируйте списки в более чем 34 каталогах, отслеживайте отзывы из единого личного кабинета и увеличивайте количество обратных ссылок для улучшения SEO.
• Marketing Radar – Сканируйте сеть, чтобы получать актуальную информацию о вашем бренде, отслеживайте возможности по ключевым словам и получайте email-оповещения с важными новостями отрасли.
• Ads Manager – Генерируйте идеи для рекламы вашего бренда, проверяйте эффективность кампаний и при необходимости корректируйте объявления.