Why online presence

The other page has a couple of likes and no comments on most of the posts. Which business are you more likely to trust?

The answer is obvious. An active social media profile looks trustworthy and, more importantly, it feels human and real. And the better your social media presence, the more engaged your audience will be. It is the basis of all your digital marketing efforts and working on improving it every day should be part of your to-do list. Think about it this way: you cannot completely control your online presence, so you need to be a step ahead of your audience. Everything customers learn about your business online, you need to know first.

The only way to achieve that is by understanding, monitoring, and improving your online presence. This post originally appeared in The Economic Times. It has been updated with more information. Productivity , Communication , Collaboration. Productivity , Communication. Try Flock today! Here is everything you need to know about online presence for your business and how to make it work to your advantage: What does online presence mean for businesses?

Why should your business care about online presence today? It makes your business more accessible One night last summer, I stumbled upon a gorgeous little bar in a corner of the city that I don't frequent. It does marketing and branding for you An online presence is a passive marketing stream for your business. It can make your business more credible Online presence is key to establishing your company as a legitimate business.

It helps you better understand your audience Having an online presence means having a two-way communication channel with your audience to gather insightful feedback or reviews. How to assess and improve online presence for your business?

Use an incognito session in your browser for unbiased results and look for these elements: Your website Your contact information Your address Work hours In addition to your business information, make sure to skim through the other results. Google Analytics is the best web analytics tool. It is free and easy to use. Install google analytics on your website and it will provide you with data and statistics regarding the visits to your website. The tool helps in tracking the demographics of the visitors, the pages viewed by them, the amount of time they spent on the website, the keywords used by them etc.

Tracking these results help in improving the online presence of the business. If an individual is looking for some product or service or they are looking for information about a company, they can find the required information by searching online. Having an online presence will let you have an edge over your competition. When potential customers will search online, thanks to your online presence your company website or social media account will be displayed in the search results.

Potential clients should not be forced to put in efforts to search you or find information about your company. They should be able to easily contact you or locate you through an online search. Potential customers will not put a lot of effort into finding you, and they should not have to. An effective online presence of business gives it a valuable platform to showcase their products and services. With just a few clicks the prospective clients can see online what you have to offer and what your company stands for.

They can do it anytime of the day; there are no restrictions on the hours. In simple words an online presence is like a shadow of your brand which never sleeps. Right from your product portfolio to customer testimonials, everyone can view what you have to offer.

Social media helps in giving voice to your brand. It helps in building relations not only with your customers but also with your prospective clients. When you interact through your social media account, it adds a human touch to your brand and business.

Customers and potential clients can relate with the brand and can interact on a more personal level. Online presence through Social media is the simplest and most effective way to generate interest and liking in the minds of people about your company and brand. All businesses, no matter how small, should have a website.

It can be extremely basic, but it should contain the fundamental information customers — both existing and potential — need. A basic website is pretty easy to set up using an application like WordPress. WordPress is a free blogging tool and content management system that gives users the option to pay a little more for the premium version.

After all, 89 percent of consumers use search engines to research a product, service or business before making a decision. To take advantage of this, you need to make sure to look at search engine optimization SEO for your website. Social media is an important part of your online presence that improves your chances of generating additional revenue and building customer loyalty. It allows customers, potential customers and other interested parties to engage easily via a channel that plays an important role in their everyday lives.

Similarly, creating a Google Business Listing can quickly display your contact information and encourage people to head to your website when searching online. Beyond this, you can also use online tools to create digital spaces. This can boost virtual connections with your customers, and even help to facilitate online service delivery. Owners of companies quickly adapted to build new revenue streams, as fitness studios ran their classes online and restaurants switched to home delivery via social media.

By , Experian Economics predicts that online sales will have reached levels not previously expected until — a full decade of digital acceleration which will have a lasting impact on our economy.

Historically the brand has made a stance against selling its goods online and has no e-commerce contingency in place, though is very active with its audience on social media.

With physical shops now open, the store expects to make its profits back quickly — but for a smaller business with less infrastructure to fall back on, this scale of loss would be crippling. For many retailers, that will mean offering customers a choice of ways to browse, buy and return products, and connect and communicate with the brand — merging e-commerce, mobile commerce and social channels, potentially alongside a physical store experience.

Optimise your website for search engines and mobile. Also, create a Google Business Listings page and fill in every information field as accurately as possible — phone number, address, website, location on maps, images and reviews. This can showcase your legitimacy and boost your chances of customers seeing, and clicking through to your website. Make sure your website is optimised for mobile.

More and more people are using their smartphones to complete everyday activities, including mobile searches and mobile payments. Content is a great way for any business to boost its online profile, interact with customers and build trust.

By hosting them on a series of digital channels, each one also highly boosts your chances of being discovered online. The type of content and where you post it will be unique to your business and audience. This could also be a way to monetise your expertise and enhance your core product or service offering, as many businesses have done during lockdown.