If you are like most small business owners, you just want to grow your business doing what you do best. But you hear all these marketing terms thrown around, and you may not know what they mean.

One of those marketing terms that can be confusing goes something like this, “you need to start developing your online presence.”

But what in the world is that supposed to mean for you, the savvy small business owner?

Does that mean putting videos on Youtube, or posting daily on social media? Does that mean having a website with an email marketing sales funnel all setup? Does that mean paying big money for SEO, or hiring someone to manage your Pay Per Click campaigns?

NO. That is not what it means. And in this post I will show you what I mean by developing a Solid Online Presence, and how it will benefit you in the long run.

Here’s my definition of a solid online presence.

I’ll break it down into three parts for you.

1. Have a Mobile-Responsive Website that You Own.

There’s nothing wrong with free website or blog platforms that you can use for your business. However, in order to develop a real online presence you need to have your own mobile-responsive website that you control. That doesn’t mean that you can’t hire someone to host and maintain it for you. It means that you are not basing the heart and soul of your business on a free website platform that could be gone tomorrow.

Also, make sure that your website is built on purpose. You need to lead your viewers to take specific action when they land on your site. Some people just put up a nice looking site with no clear call-to-action. In order to develop a solid online presence, you must first develop a mobile-responsive website that leads your audience to take clear decisive action.

2. Build a Solid Online Reputation.

Sure you can hope that people will leave you a nice review online. However, most people don’t do it out of their own free will. You need to ask them to do it.

Better yet, you need to have a plan for how you are going to ask them to leave you a review.

Here’s my recommendation for building your online reputation. Develop a review site that you own and control. Much like your website, your reputation should be under your control as well. There are trolls out there who want to harm you, and they will take advantage of the free platforms like Google, Bing, & Yelp. With your own review site, you can have a little more control over it, and only feature those reviews that are real and legitimate.

I also recommend that you incorporate Google, Bing, and the other review sites into your overall online reputation marketing strategy. This will insure that you are truly developing a powerful online presence.

3. Distribute and Optimize Your Brand Across the Web.

It’s vitally important that your (NAP), your business name, address and phone number, is consistent across the web. It is detrimental to your business to have duplicate listings, and mis-matched information about your company across the web.

To build a solid online presence, you need to distribute your (NAP) across the 4 main data aggregators, and maintain those listings on monthly basis. The four main data aggregators are: Acxiom, Infogroup, Localeze, and Factual. If you can submit your brand to these four aggregators, your brand will be spread throughout the web to over 300+ directories. It’s important that you do this.

To finish up this 3d point, I want to add this. You also need to claim, verify and optimize your search engine listings such as Google Local, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local. This will insure that you are showing up in the maps for your local area, and people are getting the correct info when searching for your business.

My Online Presence Definition Recap…

“To Develop A Solid Online Presence means that you have a mobile-responsive website, an honorable online reputation, and consistent business information across the web.”

So, How does a Solid Online Presence Benefit You?

1. More Trust.

Let’s say I am searching for you and your company.  I do a few searches and I find your brand all over the web. You have a professional looking mobile-friendly website, and a 5 star reputation. Your brand is consistent in all the directories I look into. My trust in you and your company begins to go way up.

2. More Leads.

The more you work on developing a solid online presence like I’m describing, the more your brand will appear when people are searching for what you offer. As this happens, more and more people will follow your funnel and end up as leads in your sales pipeline.

3. More Sales.

As more and more people find you online, and they begin to like you more and more, and they become leads in your sales pipeline, guess what. You will begin to have more and more sales. See how that works?

Those are the benefits of developing a solid online presence.

Now, imagine that you don’t do any of those things. Let’s say you sporadically post on Facebook, or throw up a few videos on Youtube, but have no online presence to funnel people to. What could the repercussions be? Well, it’s pretty simple. Less trust, Fewer leads, and less sales.

My goal for this post is to not only help you understand what we mean by, “solid online presence.” But also, to inspire you to take action and begin implementing these things in your business today.

Take action today – And stand out from the crowd tomorrow. 

to your success,
Martin