As 2020 draws to a close, now is the perfect time to put focus on your business’s digital footprint. What’s showing up in Google searches for your company? Are you using keywords and consistent verbiage on your website and social media platforms?
Taking control of your digital footprint is one the best strategies to getting new customers.
These six tips below will help you improve your digital footprint to close out the year and start 2021 strong:
Create and Optimize Your Google My Business Account
If you’re not familiar with Google My Business, think of it as a modern-day Yellow Pages. It’s also FREE to create an account, but you must have a physical location to set one up. A P.O. Box will not work.
Earlier this year, we detailed why Google My Business should be a top priority in your social media strategy.
If you’ve put off creating an account, now’s the time to get started! If you have one, use the last few weeks of the year to do some checking in and planning.
Google recommends posting at least once a week to GMB. This can include:
- General information such as a new product or highlighting your areas of expertise or service
- Upcoming events
- Offers
- Business Updates
To optimize your account, make sure you also add current images, your logo, and short videos. Now is a good time to create a plan to post to GMB at least once a week.
If you think this feels like “just one more thing” you have to do, studies show that customers are 70% more likely to visit businesses that have GMB listings.
Capture Reviews From Happy Customers
If your customers and clients are happy with your business, ask them to leave you a review on Google. It could make a major impact on drawing new customers. And statistics show that people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
- 90% of consumers find local businesses through internet searches
- 33% of those people say they are looking for businesses every day
- 82% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses
- An average consumer reads about 10 reviews before they trust a business
If you have only a couple of reviews, use the final moments of this year to ask your loyal customers to leave a positive review! If you receive any negative reviews, address them. Research shows that responding to a negative review correctly will actually boost consumers’ confidence in a business.
Blog Often and Create a Schedule
Blogging is one of the quickest ways to establish trust with your consumers. It’s the place to show off your personality and set yourself aside from your competitors.
Research also shows that companies who regularly blog receive 67% more leads every month. More than 50% of marketers believe that they have gained customers through a blog.
Blogging will also help you rank higher in Google searches when you utilize keywords throughout.
“Your blog is an evolving collection of articles, keywords, and expertise that any reliable search engine optimization (SEO) campaign demands,” Hubspot says, also noting that 75% of users NEVER scroll past the first page of search results.
When you start blogging, create a schedule and stick to it. Whether that means once a week, a couple of times a month, or even just once a month, consistency is key.
If you’re stuck on ideas, a Google search on “blog ideas” will give you hundreds of ideas!
Complete Online Business Directories
If a Google search for your business shows information that is missing or incorrect, you can easily lose a customer. Your “digital footprint” may also include your information being on sites you didn’t even know existed. While you know about your social media profiles, do you know about BizJournals, Manta or Angie’s List?
Using a site such as Moz Local will help you with those issues.
Moz will sync your location data across its partners websites, update that information instantly, and delete any duplicate information.
You can look up your business for free to see how you’re performing. Prices start at $129 a year for Moz.
Post Regularly to Social Media Profiles
Consistency is key for ALL digital content. Posting regularly on social media creates brand awareness, brand loyalty, improved customer satisfaction, and more website traffic.
Creating a social media calendar and planning ahead will certainly make things easier for you and help you develop consistency.
Hubspot offers a free social media template that you can use for multiple social media platforms, as well as a guide on how to best use it and plan out content.
When you start planning your content, be sure to keep a good mix of your posts. This can range from sales, humor (such as memes), tips, testimonials, links to your blog, and videos.
> RELATED: How to Effectively Post Video Content to Your Social Media Platforms
There are several sites that offer social media scheduling, including Agorapulse. This tool also makes it easy to post evergreen content – posts that you’d use again – more than one time.
Agorapulse also includes robust social media reporting so you can see you’re performing month-to-month or quarter-to-quarter. You can even explore data as far back as two years.
Optimize Your Website
Last, but certainly not least, is making sure your website will show up when people search for items related to your business. SEO (search engine optimization) makes your website more discoverable.
This means that you must focus on certain keywords for your business and include them throughout your site. This is important for every page on your site, as well as “alt-text” sections and meta descriptions on images and videos.
A few additional tips for optimizing your website:
- Make it mobile-friendly. Keep in mind that most of your web traffic is coming from mobile.
- Have dedicated website pages for each product or service
- Include your business address and location for “near me” searches
- Include links to your social media pages
- Blog regularly (see above!)
- Find reputable backlinks and use referral links in your copy
Download the Tips to Improve Your Business’s Digital Footprint
Keep all of this information close by! CLICK HERE to download the six tips to improve your business digital footprint.
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Want help improving your business’s digital footprint to close out 2020 or to start 2021? Contact us at The Social Ginger to see how we can partner with you.
