Introduction

How visible is your business online? Do you rank on the first page or Google? No? What strategies should you implement to rank higher? Read on to find out.
Online presence is the new norm in the world of business. It is everything that a business needs to enhance brand awareness and increase its return on investment.
While searching for products and services online, customers today will mostly go with the most relevant results that rank higher on search engines. 
With most customers having a short attention span, it is essential to ensure that your brand’s online presence is strong, that is, triumphs over your competitor’s.
But to implement a sound strategy, you should first determine your web presence. This will help you make adjustments, enhance your landing pages, build links, and create better content that constitutes a robust search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.
The importance of conducting an online presence analysis cannot be overlooked, especially now that online marketing has taken over from offline advertising, such as traditional newspaper ads and billboards. 
According to Masterful Blog Marketing research, knowing what your business looks like for those searching for products and services is an excellent way to understand how their needs work and allow you to develop the most effective marketing strategies.
Since you will have a first-hand impression of what your potential clients experience when they click on one of your links, you will be able to focus on essential things, such as taste preferences, that attract your ideal client.
That said, here is everything you need to know about conducting a web presence analysis for better marketing strategies. But first, let’s define what it means.

What Is Web Presence Analysis?

A web presence analysis is a comprehensive review of your business’s digital footprint. It is an exercise that enables you to determine how your business appears when a potential client searches for your products and service on the internet.
A  study by Wordstream Blog on the 25 Best Ways to Increase Your Online Presence suggests that no matter how someone finds out about your business—whether through social media, an ad, a listing, direct mail, or even a friend, their first inclination is to go to your website. 

It further establishes that 97% of consumers go online to find and research local businesses. An online presence should be a top priority since it is tied to your visibility, credibility, and reputation.
When carrying out a web presence analysis, you should strive to answer certain specific questions, such as; 
1. Can your businesses be easily found when one searches?
2. How similar or different is your business from your competitors?
3. What do your customers say or think about your business?
4. Is the content you produce relevant to your target audience?
5. How easy is it to find, connect and contact you?
These, among other evaluation questions, will help you to focus on areas that need immediate attention. 
This will help you create better marketing strategies, such as direct responses to customer queries about the product and services offered.

How to Carry Out a Web Presence Analysis

For a business to attain a good web presence, it must have either an easy-to-navigate website that has user-friendly content, active social media accounts such as Facebook or LinkedIn, and marketing channels such as blogs or podcasts, etc.
A well-established web presence analysis takes into consideration several key factors such as keyword analysis, social media analysis, content review, website structure analysis, and search engine visibility, among others.
 

1. Keyword Analysis

Keyword Analysis is the systematic process of identifying keywords that are ideal for your specific SEO goals.
The keywords people use to find your business determines your content structure; your social media profiles your directory listings and the rest of all your marketing activities.
People use different keywords to find solutions for different problems. So, depending on what you offer, your content should be one that gets in front of the customers as they strive to discover what they are looking for.
Carry out research and find out the search queries used to access your site. Next, discover more long-tail keywords that customers key in. Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.
For instance, if you are running a business that sells insurance and your main goal with SEO right now is to drive traffic to your new blog, you might come up with a long list of keywords such as; 
– Insurance
– Insurance companies
– Auto insurance
– Life insurance
– Insurance quotes
– Home Insurance
– Liability insurance etc.
Carefully analyzing these keywords can help you figure out which keywords you should target first.
The results that you can get from these actual search terms will help improve your content strategy as well as your overall marketing strategy.
You can look at things such as the difficulty level of the keywords, search volume, profitability, and trend status to guide you in selecting the best SEO-certified keywords.
You will not only get a list of keywords to work from but you will also be able to have some more content ideas.
 

2. Website Search Engine Visibility

Search engine visibility is the ratio of the actual number of clicks your website is getting as compared to all the clicks it has the potential to earn. In other words, it is the share of clicks you get in the organic search results.
After finding out the exact keywords used to find your website, it’s essential to check how your website ranks for your top keywords. 
Ranking and visibility are the two most important interconnected metrics that work hand in hand. If your ranking drops then so does your visibility on the search engine.
Now that you know the connection, here are a few tricks to improve your search engine visibility.
– Build backlinks from relevant sites
– Optimize title tags and meta descriptions
– Use Long Tail Keywords
– Optimize the anchor text for your internal links
– Check your website’s mobile friendliness 
– Maintain the relevance of your content 
 

3. Social Media Analysis

It’s essential to check and analyze your presence on social media to ensure consistency in how you deliver your message.
For your business to have a strong social media presence, you must ensure you use the same message for the same audience, complete your social media profiles with consistent information, and link your website to all your profiles for easy visibility.
One thing you should know as far as social media analysis is concerned is the fact that the quality of content you offer matters more than the quantity.
Creating posts that will get you engagement is a sure way of pushing up your social algorithms to display your posts in users’ feeds.  This coupled with the use of emotional words and phrases, emojis and evocative images has the potential of increasing your stats.
The degree to which your content is visible on social media can be measured by the number of social media reach indicated on the platforms. 
However, limiting the number of social media platforms to use would be wise. You can create just two or three accounts and ensure they have a solid engagement. This is better than having several accounts that have weak activity.
In fact, a very good idea is to cultivate a quality niche audience of individuals who are interested in your brand and will benefit from your products and services.
Managing your presence on social media is a full-time job. Daily posts, reviews, and online clientele support among other daunting tasks can sometimes make it seem demanding, but the positive result is enormous.
When you polish and give your social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram a current and fresh look throughout the week, you have a chance of connecting with your target customers who are probably waiting for an update on your products and services.
Many businesses now prefer social media marketing because it’s efficient and reliable and most importantly communicates the brand’s image and reputation in a way that resonates with the needs of most potential customers.
 

4. Content Review, Organization, and Optimization

Since content is the foundation of your inbound marketing strategy, it’s important to ensure that you are writing content relevant to the target audience. In addition, your customers should be able to easily access, and consume it.
Most customers normally search for content that provides value, educates and informs, solves a problem, or satisfies a need. Your content must therefore pick either one, two, or all these angles.

Also very important is how you structure your internal site. Put it in such a way that it leads the customers from one piece of content to another in an engaging manner. 
This way, visitors will be retained for longer hours on your website, thus ranking your content as more relevant on Google.
 

5. Understanding Your Competitors

Now that you have a clue about how people see you online, you should take advantage and find out how you compare with your competitors.
You can do this by reviewing their website and social media profiles. Check out how they design their messages, their brand consistency, and what keywords they tend to use. In the process, try to seek answers to questions such as; 
1. Which point are you stronger or weaker than them?
2. How relevant is their content to your target audience? 
3. What is the tone of their brand?
4. How consistent are their social profiles?
Now that you know where you lie with your competitors, you can channel your marketing efforts on things that will set you apart from them, and help you to maintain regular and attract new customers.

Why You Need a Strong Online Presence Analysis

Potential customers expect to see you online even if your business is not conducted online. Most of them lose interest once they notice you don’t exist in the online space thus, cutting you off from the many opportunities that could increase your customer base and sales.
Web presence analysis also helps to review the effectiveness of your business’s online presence in communicating and maintaining the company’s brand. 
But most importantly, you need a web presence analysis to create the best digital marketing strategies which will drive quality inbound leads.
 

Developing a Sound Digital Marketing Strategy

To develop a successful digital marketing strategy, you must first find out what your business does well and the weak points that require improvements. 
You must do a comprehensive web presence analysis through research to build a solid foundation and put your digital marketing strategy on the right track!
Then measure the results. Maintain or increase the use of metrics producing positive results and look for better ways to manage the loopholes still blocking your progress.  

How Visible Is Your Business?

As the Entrepreneur puts it, making your business visible is about investing in your target market’s success and happiness. It is about knowing the benefits that they will get from your products or services and setting a unique path that your competitors cannot ruin.
If you have been in business and tried this, you must have realized maintaining your visibility is all about using words to leverage your opportunities. You can’t control other people’s words or actions, but you can control the magnitude you give to those words.
So, if you have never thought of checking how your business is known on the internet to see how well your marketing activities are working, it’s time to try one.