Whether we like it or not, we live in a digital world. More than ever, consumers are dominating the online space and this is why a strong online presence is important for brand awareness. Therefore, as small businesses, you need to be present and visible online in order to be able to compete. Of course, there are methods to gain a solid online presence, so let’s dive into that.
Firstly, what is brand awareness? In essence, brand awareness highlights the level of familiarity consumers have with your brand as a whole. So you need to take into account how recognisable and memorable your brand is, especially to your target audience. You want to be the first business or brand that comes to a consumer’s mind when thinking of your particular product, service or industry. That is where brand awareness comes into play.
Predominantly there are three different types of brand awareness that you should know as a small business. These are: brand recall, brand recognition, and brand dominance.
Just because your business exists online, it doesn’t mean your business will have a strong online presence. Online presence refers to the visibility your brand or business has online. It can almost be completely defined by how easy it is to locate your business online, or how easily you can be found when searching for keywords relevant to that business. It’s also important to remember that the amount of virtual touchpoints a consumer comes into contact and interacts with is an instrumental indicator of your online presence. Think of it as a rich tapestry of all your businesses online actions and digital marketing efforts – how distinct and detailed does your tapestry need to be and which areas could you improve on?
Examples of an online or digital presence, include:
It can definitely be argued that brand awareness and online presence are directly linked. The broader your online presence, the higher your brand awareness, simply because you will be being seen more.
Put yourself in the shoes of the consumer: one Instagram post targeted at them on a random Tuesday may not be memorable for them. But if they see: an Instagram post, a different but still related post on LinkedIn or Facebook, along with seeing that the business ranks highly on Google – by which we mean the search results show lots of landing pages to be directed to, including relevant blogs and articles – as well as a high volume of positive customer reviews, then perhaps the consumer is much more likely to remember you.
By now, you should have an idea as to why a strong digital presence is so important when building a brand. But let’s dive even deeper into this. If you apply these handy tips to establishing online presence, you will be able to see huge advantages such as:
Unfortunately, just because you’re posting regularly or have a lot of blogs on your website, this doesn’t guarantee a strong digital presence. The content matters as it directly affects SEO, which in turn affects how good your organic ranking is on Google. Each piece of content relating to your business – such as social media posts, blogs, landing pages etc – must be carefully curated to include relevant headings, topics and keywords to enhance your chances of being noticed by the algorithm. Your business’s social media can do three posts a day, every day of the week, but if the posts have no relevance to what your business does, it will make little difference to Google and how highly your business is ranked.
If you’re producing video content, ensure it is not only based on an appropriate topic, but also that it is of a high quality to maximise its appeal to your target audience. Video content is considered very engaging and can be a great way to produce a variety of content and attract potential new customers at the same time as tempting back past customers.
Having a strong online presence requires a lot of hard work and commitment, which is usually why businesses fall short in this area. That’s where we come in. At Cariad, our purpose is to help small businesses outperform their online competitors. When we provide you with a loud digital voice, you will have the time to focus on other aspects of the business. We will give you the confidence that your online presence is being managed and built stronger thanks to our award winning knowledge and experience. But don’t just take our word for it, discover how you can benefit from growing your business online and get in contact today!