No matter how fantastic your product, service or company is if you can’t be found on the web by your prospective client, it’s like you don’t exist.
As you know, anyone who has access to the Internet (there were 1.8 billion people at last count) uses it to find answers to their problems.
To get you started to build a noticeable presence on the web, here is a three-step formula, resulting in more opportunities for your business: leads, prospects, sales, media requests, speaking gigs and joint projects.
- Use your blog
A blog is your base and starting point for getting your message out to the world strategically, Ben Givon points out.
It’s also a money-saving opportunity to use your blog as your hub, or home base, not just to have a web presence where you can go deep and personal with your prospects and customers. Building, creating and maintaining a blog is much less costly than a conventional static website that can cost thousands of dollars.
Your blog is where you have the opportunity to show your skills, reveal your personality, and give your audience the opportunity to get to know you, like you and eventually trust you as you share interesting, useful content that enhances their lives.
Bear in mind that a blog is a lure for a search engine. The search engines prefer to index your content more often if you post regularly and continuously. The use of keywords important to what your target audience is searching for offers a fair chance for your content to be among the top search results. On the web, you become visible and can be searched.
Publish a series of posts specifically relevant to the subject you are promoting in order to target your message and/or initiative. If it’s your latest book, a service or a commodity, post content for several weeks before your promotion’s launch date.
2. Use Facebook Strategically
With almost half a billion people, you’ve got to have a Facebook presence. As a company, that implies that you must have a page. This is important from the perspective of exposure, since the content you post on your website is indexed by the search engines.
Facebook’s true value is the relationships you develop that generate your “fans”‘ willingness to take the move and click through to your content.
Make sure your page is continually growing by reminding individuals to join. With your keywords, ask and answer questions, send notifications and let individuals know what you’re up to between promotions. The more popular your page is the more noticeable it is because any action a member of your page takes is shared with a link back to your page on his or her own profile.
3. Do Not Forget Twitter
With 40 million regular updates to Twitter, you want to ensure that your message is also on the famous microblogging site.
Use plug-ins (Twitter Tools on WordPress) or automation services such as Twitterfeed and SocialOomph to ensure that your blog posts and program updates are continuously fed to your Twitter stream.
According to Ben Givon, every week you need to spend some time on Twitter, reacting, replying and sharing great resources in real time (that support your goals). Following your own keywords in a dedicated search column is a clever practice so that you can respond quickly to feedback and queries relevant to your products and services.
