In today’s contemporary world, having an online presence has become an essential requirement for a business to thrive in its respective industry. This is not only relevant to the commercial business but also to industrial business. With rapid globalization in the past two decades, organizations are now more devoted to developing a strong digital footprint—since a stronger digital footprint is to ensure a larger customer base.
The millennial generation spends more time on their smartphones than anywhere else, the third industrial revolution (digital age) has transformed the marketplace and regardless if you are a startup working from a garage or an already established business to remain competitive it is imperative to create a strong commercial digital footprint.
Also read: Is combining online and offline marketing still relevant in 2019?
Companies nowadays spend millions to increase their digital footprint as each tends to have the biggest presence on the digital stage. For those organizations that do not have substantial resources to compete with the giants, it becomes almost impossible to maintain their digital presence — let alone increase it.
A gloomy picture for sure but luckily there are ways through which this could be done without incurring a million-dollar expense.
Below are the ways through which one can increase their commercial digital footprint.
Video Pictures and Social Media — The Love Triangle
One of the best ways to achieve a strong digital footprint is through videos. Customers today are more into video-based content when looking for information regarding anything, “YouTube it” is a common expression amongst people when they are stuck at almost anything.
Uploading videos on the company’s website and sharing on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can prove to be a highly effective method.
Inbound Marketing
It is not only about creating a vast digital footprint, but also about creating something that is meaningful, without meaningful content it is highly unlikely that you would add any value to the readers. Hence it diminishes the chances of gaining potential new customers.
Inbound marketing strategy is all about creating content that the reader will want to read and making that content readily available. It is a customer-centric strategy, which allows you to adequately cater our target market, link building can also be applied to increase the footprint.
Research Articles
A well-written research article can do wonders for your digital footprint, but there are certain prerequisites for it. You need to make sure that the topic you are researching on has received enough links to make it worth writing, then use internal data to write such articles.
If written properly these articles would not only increase your brand image but would also increase the traffic and shares to your website.
Also read: How To Promote B2B With The Help Of Internet Marketing
Emulate but Don’t Imitate Me
When emulating, one is only focused on replicating the positive aspects of someone they admire without considering any negatives. This rule can be applied to increase your digital footprint as well.
It’s not sexy but it works.
Not as sophisticated or sexy as the others but this tool has proven to be highly effective, what I am talking about is Quora. It has proven to be an effective and viable method to establish domain expertise and is highly recommended.
External Publishing
Developing blogs and creating high-quality content daily allows brands to increase their digital footprint. This practice is not limited to a company’s own website, publishing on external forums allows a brand to reach a broader customer base while increasing their own value. Google’s Andrey Lippatsev recently revealed that links, content, and RankBrain are the top three factor in search ranking algorithms. So it is imperative that you streamline your backlinking strategies if you want to improve your businesses’ digital footprint.
Google Alerts
It’s surprising that even in today’s age of technological prowess, many are still unaware of a simple yet powerful tool — Google Alerts. What this beautiful invention allows you to do is that when your brand is mentioned in a search you receive a notification. Being able to know when the site is being mentioned allows you to check the functionality of the site ensuring the best possible reflection. This tool can allow one to monitor its competitors and identify the sites where your site is being mentioned so that you can develop a healthy relationship with them.
Change or Become Obsolete
The younger generation is quite different from its predecessors. It is a surprise that many intend to create a strong digital footprint and are unable to identify Instagram and Snapchat as a platform to do so. It is cheap and effective.
Words Matter Everywhere
Almost all marketers optimize their website using SEO keywords but for some reason, they are not doing the same with their social media pages.
In these platforms there are search boxes too, these search boxes like the ones on Facebook or YouTube are used more often than many of Google’s search engine competitors. This is enough to highlight the importance of using SEO keywords in these platforms and to show that the said notion has its limitations.
Also read: Choosing the Best Digital Marketing Strategy for your Business Type
When using these platforms, marketers often pay an adequate amount of attention to the usage of keywords. Ensuring that these words appear in spaces available such as the “URL’s”, “About Us” section” and other places where it is possible to do so.
Also read: Search Engine Marketing – Choose Best SEM Services for your Online Business
All in all, it is vital for every business and organization to expand its digital footprint. In today’s day and age, traditional brick and mortar businesses are struggling to compete due to the availability of different marketing and advertising channels. For any company to remain ahead of its competitors, it is vital that it utilizes the digital medium to its fullest. Businesses can be expanded and the company’s product range can be introduced to the general public through different social media platforms.
| About the Guest Author:
Sohail R. Rupani
