16 key actions to boost your online visibility
Internet visibility involves promoting a business through a web presence, with marketing objectives in mind: increasing a company's visibility in the eyes of Internet users to attract more prospects, win new customers, and improve its reputation by enhancing its brand image.
What strategy should you adopt to win over Google and Internet users alike? What tools should you use for your social networks, newsletter and blog? How do you measure visibility? Don't play hide-and-seek with your customers: Appvizer shares 16 tips to boost your webmarketing and digital communication.
1. Understanding Google and the challenges of visibility
Being visible on the Internet means being easily found and clearly identified on search engines and on sites where your company's presence enables it to meet its audience, such as social networks.
It's no secret that the famous search engine Google occupies a dominant position, and its near-monopoly means it can set the rules, and make them evolve, year after year.
Webmarketing and digital communication specialists agree that Google prioritizes the quality of content and the relevance of information delivered to Internet readers.
It's not all black and white: in this article, we explain the nuances, and how you can increase your company's visibility by exploiting a whole palette of brighter colors.
2. A website: the basis of communication
The website is the company's showcase: it presents the business and its commercial offers, but it must also be educational in order to inform prospects and guide them towards the act of buying.
In digital marketing jargon, this is known as the conversion funnel. A landing page is dedicated to converting visitors into leads.
Website visibility begins with the choice of a good website creation tool. You can call on the services of a web agency or install a CMS (Content Management System).
Here are a few tools that can help you increase the visibility of your website:
- the best-known CMS are Wordpress (the most famous), Joomla, Drupal, and Plone, - Active Trail helps you create your landing pages and automates your marketing.
- The Banana Content platform also lets you capture emails by creating forms and surveys.
3. Optimize your website's natural referencing
This step, often neglected by neophytes, is the most important, even before your website is created and put online. Quite simply, because your readers and potential customers are looking for specific keywords in search engines.
To be found by your potential customers in the search engine results, it's essential to :
- Identify the keywords that are relevant to your business,
- write web-optimized text content that describes these topics.
Search engine optimization ( SEO) is the key to success on the Internet , and it involves writing text content that is optimized for search engines.
Tools for finding keywords in your industry: Google Adwords, Ranxplorer.
Handy tools to spy on your competitors' websites and steal keyword ideas: Ranxplorer, SEObserver.
The most visited websites in France are Google and Facebook.
Whether on desktop or mobile, web users visit Google (40 million unique visitors in France per month) and Facebook (27 million unique visitors in France per month): these 2 websites are therefore essential, and you need to take action to improve your online visibility.
4. Publish regular articles on your blog
Companies that are found on the 1st page of Google, i.e. in the top 10 results displayed on the search engine, regularly publish blog articles, with information that is relevant and useful to their readers.
If Google likes content that's optimized for the web, it also favors websites that regularly publish content, and that brings value to the reader. The fresher the content, the more value it brings to the reader, the better it ranks in the results.
Tools for creating your professional blog: Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, Plone.
The market reference for analyzing the quality and optimizing the semantic quality of your texts: Visiblis.
5. Send a weekly or monthly newsletter
Offering your readers the chance to subscribe to your newsletter is an excellent way of enriching your contact base and forging a regular , privileged relationship with your audience.
It's all the more judicious if your content is remarkable: your readers won't want to miss a thing, and will subscribe instantly! If you're taking part in a trade show, creating your own event, launching a new product or offering, the newsletter is the ideal medium to complement your press relations.
Free newsletter management tool : Mailchimp
Professional emailing management solutions :
- Digitaleo, highly appreciated for its sales operation templates,
- Banana Content, a platform dedicated to content enhancement.
Please note: Banana Content (a digital communications platform with a wide range of possibilities, and therefore difficult to classify in this article!) offers the unique feature of being able to leverage emailing by "pooling content".
In practice, this means that your company and business partners can mutually make content available on the platform. This content can easily be inserted into each entity's respective newsletters. What's more, each company has access to statistics on shared content.
6. Monitor your e-reputation with intelligence
There are two main reasons why companies need to monitor their e-reputation:
- to monitor what is being said about them on the web,
- to keep an eye on competitors.
To maintain a good reputation on the web, a company needs to keep a constant watch so as to be able to react: to monitor plagiarism, to deny a false rumor, to claim a right of reply, to avoid a bad buzz, and so on.
Free tool: Google Alerts
Free (limited version), easy-to-use tools: Alerti, Mention
Comprehensive and powerful monitoring tool: Digimind (more on this below).
7. Share your content curation
Displaying your expertise on the web also means sharing relevant content about your industry. This is what we call content curation.
It's a 2-step process:
- Monitor content by topic: with the leading Feedly tool, you can keep up to date with sites and blogs publishing content on your topic, and classify them by subject.
- Select the articles that are most relevant to you and collect them on a dedicated tool like Scoop.it, which also lets you share your curation on 2 social network accounts, free of charge.
8. Develop your presence on social networks
The famous community manager shares content on social networks, manages the community, encourages engagement, responds to comments, etc.
There are 2 main performance levers you can use to improve your company's visibility on social networks:
- regular sharing of content (maximum one promotional news item in every 12 publications),
- social network advertising, such as Facebook Ads.
Free tools: take advantage of social networks' native functionalities
Tools to automate tasks: IFTTT and Zappier automate actions such as creating a Twitter to Facebook share.
Professional tools to make your job easier: Hootsuite, Buffer, Agorapulse, Banana Content, which lets you publish to 3 social networks (Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin), and track related statistics... all within the same newsletter platform.
9. Write guest articles on blogs in your field
There are several advantages to publishing content on other people's sites:
- you gain exposure on high-audience and/or well-known sites,
- you promote your expertise,
- you publish on another site and reach a complementary audience,
- you can obtain a backlink to your own site (negotiable).
Readers who want to find out more about you or read other publications will search for you on Google: if they find you, your efforts to increase your visibility win you points!
We call this "guest blogging". To be effective, you should only guest blog on blogs that focus on your industry, and preferably on recognized, high-quality sites that stand out in Google results.
Popular tool for identifying blogs in a given field: BuzzSumo
10. Gaining notoriety with influencers
Distributing a press release is the basis of public relations work. But with the rise of new technologies and changing habits, it's becoming less effective! Influencer marketing is on the rise: today we speak of e-visibility, or E-RP.
An influencer is a person who regularly publishes or shares relevant content on a specific theme, and who is followed by a significant number of people (this number varies according to each field).
Followers are called "fans" on Facebook, "followers" on Twitter. The advantage of having an influencer "in your pocket" or among your professional network is that they can highlight your publication by sharing it on professional social networks.
Your visibility, notoriety and influence on the web can grow rapidly if you use influencers who are relevant to your business.
How do you identify influencers? Digimind does it for you!
Want to work directly with journalists? Use Babbler.
11. Mutualize visibility actions (all for one...)
This idea is still underestimated and under-exploited... but it deserves your full attention. Already mentioned above for its newsletter and social network management capabilities, the Banana Content digital communications platform offers an opportunity like no other: within the tool, you can effectively make the most of your partner network.
In short, you and your business partners, your professional network, can use the platform to:
- make content available, - share this content on social networks,
- manage your newsletter,
- share third-party content on your newsletter, and vice-versa.
The tool increases your visibility potential tenfold: there's strength in numbers. You can create a larger community with a bigger audience than you could on your own. To date, we know of no equivalent to Banana Content.
Tip: If you're just starting out in SEO, Banana Content will help you boost your brand awareness by avoiding time-consuming tasks.
12. Exploiting paid search
Paid search is known as SEA (Search Engine Advertising) or search-engine-optimized advertising. The principle is to pay for advertising to position a keyword in search engine results. It's a complementary traffic-acquisition lever for generating visitors to your website.
Paid search platforms are linked to search engines: Google Adwords, Bing Platform, Facebook for Facebook Ads, etc.
The Ranxplorer tool shows you the advertising competition on a keyword.
Zendesk (following its acquisition of Bime analytics) gives you the possibility of managing a global dashboard on your ads.
13. Choose tools to measure visibility
Every marketing manager wants to evaluate the performance of their marketing actions, don't they? We've compiled a non-exhaustive list of the main tools for measuring visibility .
Measure traffic, the number of visitors to your website, with Google Analytics. It's free, just a simple code to insert into your site, and off you go to measure the actions taken on your website: number of unique visitors per month, popular pages, demographic data, etc. Opinion: why deprive yourself?
Monitor the keywords on which your website is positioned, and evaluate the traffic generated by your SEO optimizations, estimate the volume of searches on a keyword with Yooda Insight. Nothing to do with Star Wars, but the tool is also a master of its genre. Green you will be.
Exploit the native functions of social networks. They're free and give you valuable information. Problem: it takes time to spend on each social network to collect data one by one. You need to hire a community manager... or not.
Or don't you?!? There is an alternative solution!
The all-in-one Banana Content tool has the advantage of centralizing all communication channels, while offering the possibility of analyzing statistics within a single platform:
- Editorial publication calendar,
- Analysis of your actions on social networks, who has liked and shared your content, etc.
- Mailing list updates,
- Social media performance measurement, emailing, etc.
The icing on the cake: you can link your CRM to the platform via the API. Import your contact lists (Excel import possible), your statistics... and take care of your customer relations.
14. Vary your communication media
Podcasts
Podcasts have been very much in vogue in recent years. In fact, they've become indispensable for improving your online visibility. The reason why podcasts are so popular is that they offer a great deal of freedom. Indeed, consumers can listen to them whenever they like, on the way to work, in the car, while walking and even while doing sports or before going to bed. 🎧
Because they cover a wide range of subjects, podcasts are suitable for multiple business sectors. They offer a quick and easy way to connect with your audience. By implementing podcasts, you improve the user experience and boost not only your credibility, but also your brand awareness.
Keep in mind that podcasts will help you to engage your audience. With this in mind
- ask relevant questions,
- invite experts,
- and don't hesitate to share personal tips or anecdotes!
The aim of this channel is to create an authentic connection with users. Talk to them as if you knew them, while remaining aligned with your brand's image.
Of course, for your podcast to be listened to, it needs to be promoted. Promote it on your sites and share your episodes on social networks or in your newsletters. You might even consider inviting other podcasters to extend your reach. And don't forget to optimize your content to improve your SEO.
Finally, to turn your listeners into potential customers, include calls to action in your episodes. Encourage them to visit your site, your social networks or subscribe to your newsletter.
Webinars
Webinars are another interesting strategy for increasing your visibility on the Internet. They allow you to
- interact with your audience in real time,
- share knowledge,
- and demonstrate your expertise.
They are widely used in certain sectors, such as training, or to launch a new product or service within your company. Webinars are a great way to stay in touch with your community.
Start by choosing a topic that meets your customers' needs and concerns. As with podcasts, don't forget to include interactive elements such as polls or question-and-answer sessions to encourage participant involvement. Be sure to greet participants and thank them at the end for attending and listening. 🤝
Webinars are free and easy to set up. All you need to do is find a topic to talk about and express yourself on it. Then you need to advertise it on your social networks and your various content media, not forgetting SEO to boost your visability. The more registrations you attract to your webinar, the greater your chances of converting participants into customers.
Registrations should be followed up personally. To do this, opt for mailing. If people have come to your webinar, they've shown a real interest in what you have to offer. It would be a shame not to follow them up.
Remember, too, to always record your webinar: this will enable you to re-share it later or use it as a communication medium. This is particularly useful as some interested parties may not be available on the day.
15. Define a strategy to get results!
Are you aware of all the levers you can use to increase your visibility on the Internet?
Are you sure?
If not, read this article again.
If the answer is yes, you're ready to start defining your digital strategy.
Our advice: rather than trying to exploit all actions simultaneously, prioritize! Rome wasn't built in a day... and neither was this article.
Your choices will depend on the degree of your company's digital transition: take stock internally, of usage, available resources, budget... and time! To be visible, tools are essential.
We've also provided you with a fairly extensive list of tools: some solutions are expensive, but are perfectly suited to the needs of national companies. Other solutions, such as Banana Content, Ranxplorer, Visiblis and Babbler for example, offer value for money, functionality and time savings.
In any case, you've got no choice: you've got to choose your weapons.
Ready to take center stage?
Tip: to consult this article at your leisure, add it to your favorites. You never know, a tool name is so quickly forgotten when you're managing a marketing department...
16. Harness the power of AI
It's impossible to ignore artificial intelligence, whatever your business or sector. AI offers incredible tools for marketing yourself. It even opens up possibilities that were previously unimaginable. Whether you're an entrepreneur, marketer, communications manager or freelancer, AI can transform your approach to visibility. It can help you deploy your online presence, particularly on the various social networks.
Take content creation tools, for example. These allow you to create blog posts or content for your site or networks in a matter of minutes. All you need to do is learn how to use them to align the tone with your editorial style and needs.
By saving time on all this content production, you'll be able to concentrate more easily on other tasks. Note also that AI is now capable of generating images and audio. Free tools exist, so don't hesitate to use them to animate your networks and your site.
AI-based SEO tools can also help you identify the most interesting keywords for your field. By integrating them into your content, you increase your chances of appearing at the top of Google search results.
Think too of chatbots, those virtual assistants who work for you. They enhance the user experience on your site by answering your customers' and visitors' regular questions in real time. They are even capable of differentiating between the most complicated questions and requesting the intervention of your teams.
Conclusion
An effective online strategy always relies on several levers, never on a single channel. By varying the communication media and the type of communication, the company puts all the chances on its side to make itself known.
This method also allows us to see what works well with customers. Very quickly, you can see which actions bring in extra traffic and a truly engaged community. Good online visibility requires a global approach that's carefully thought through. SEO, SEA, social networks, webinars and newsletters all need to be combined. You'll see that by using them together, you'll quickly see your online reputation take off.