how to kickstart your brand online
TRANSCRIPT
HOW TO KICKSTART
YOUR BRANDONLINE
Exclusive Top Tips Guide From ReputationDefender® On How To Build & Manage Your Online Reputation To
Help Kickstart Your Brand Online
So advised Benjamin Franklin. He also said:
“Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”
01
When it comes to online reputation though, many brands still wait until they have a problem before they take action. Ask any boxer whether being on
the back-foot is really the best strategy.
“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation and only one bad one to lose it.”
BUYING BEHAVIOUR HAS CHANGED. FOREVER.
Thanks to Google, social media and the internet as a whole - your customers are no longer passive. They have ready access to more decision making information
than ever before. They have the power.
“If I tell my facebook friends about your brand it’s not because I like your brand but rather because I like my friends"- Mike Arauz, August
“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is, it’s what consumers tell each
other it is"- Sam Cook, Intuit
02
A Step-By-Step Guide To The Four Basics
Your online reputation is a journey and not a destination. If you’re ahead of the curve already then you may have many (or even all) of these basics in place but it’s at least useful to benchmark where you currently are.
If you’re serious about kickstarting your online reputation and you’re not all over these areas then you should certainly consider getting yourself to a position where you are...
03
04
Lockdown Your Name/Brand & Take Control Of Your Digital Assets
Own what is already rightfully yours because the threat of cyber squatting
is very real.
STEP ONE
“If you take care of your character your
reputation will take care of itself.”
- Lord Alan Sugar
“When you pay attention to detail the big picture will
take care of itself.” - Georges St-Pierre,
Athlete
Make Sure That Your Website Is Fit For Purpose
Having fresh, live content and information on your website helps encourage people to look around and come back. It gives you an edge over your competitors and you are also a lot more
likely to get links.
(1) OUT OF DATE CONTENTDonotunderestimate the
growing importance of having a mobile optimised website.
Google now intentionally prioritizes mobile friendly websites to those using a mobile device so, while you may be found on page 1 on desktop, you may be nowhere
to be seen on mobile.
(3) NO MOBILE OPTIMISATION
(2) BAD LAYOUT / DESIGNIf a user cannot easily find what they are looking for they will be inclined to go
elsewhere. Why spend money building your online shop, getting people to walk
in the door and then not ensuring they find what
they’re looking for?
05
STEP TWO
It’s important to at least have a website! Next is ensuring your website is not hindered by a poor first impression. Common problems we find in this area:
(4) POOR INFRASTRUCTURE40% of people will abandon a web page
if it takes more than three seconds to load, so get your website hosting right and
make sure that all your images and content are optimized for rapid loading.
Be Found Online
06
STEP THREE
While you may be top on Google today, you could easily be usurped by them tomorrow. Don’t leave yourself vulnerable to your competitors.
MANAGE YOUR LOCAL SEARCH
SearchEngineLand produced an excellent article listing the six trends which will be shaping location based marketing in 2016 - trends that local search marketers should pay attention to. You can see it here. They also have a useful article on how you can now automate the management of your businesses ‘Google My Business’ listings via the new API for it and you can see that here.
CREATE BLOGS & RICH CONTENT
Carefully crafted content can give valuable site visitors the education they need, not just on your product or service but on you as a business. The trust you can build could be just the nudge they needed to purchase from you. Blogging on your website is an excellent way of populating it with powerful keywords and Google’s algorithms are likely to reward you for showcasing rich content.
ENGAGE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media improves your chances of generating additional revenue and building customer loyalty. It allows
customers, potential customers and other interested parties to engage easily via a channel that plays an
important role in their everyday lives.
ONLINE BUSINESS DIRECTORIES
You want your business to appear when someone uses a local online business directory. Getting your business listed
in as many business directories as possible is important for knowing how
to rank a Google Places page (see here) and it also helps with local SEO.
STEP THREEBe Found Online
07
“The brands that perform well will wrap their hands around
the notion that it’s not just the advertising business they’re in,
but the contentbusiness full-stop. ”
- Kevin Kells, Google
08
STEP FOURUpdate & Promote Your Content
09
Getting found in search engines is critical but promoting valuable and relevant content, especially via email, blogs and
social media, is key to driving web traffic and increasing demand for your content - and your products/services.
• One of the primary focuses of your content strategy should be promoting customer-centric content and not promoting your company or products.
• Don’t be a spammer and just post links to your website.
• Make sure that 80% of your Tweets, Facebook updates, LinkedIn posts etc. are relevant to your industry and your target customers and that only 20% are about self-promotion.
- Henry Ford, Industrialist
www.reputationdefender.com
10
“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do”
Copyright © ReputationDefender LLC 2016
Call to learn more about how we can help you:
888-851-9609
ReputationDefender LLC 1001 Marshall
Street 2nd Floor Redwood City, CA 94063