Businesses Must Keep Digital Presence Productive

By Blake Herzog

If you own any kind of business today you know how much of an effect your digital presence has on your bottom line — and how it can push it into either the black or the red.

If your own website and all of your listings and posts across the web have correct information and effective placement and branding, they can be huge drivers of profits and growth. If not, they drain customers away and can even spell its doom.

Here are three aspects of digital presence management you need to keep a close eye on, either on your own or with help from a digital marketing firm.

LOCATION AND CONTACT INFO

These are probably the most important facts about any local business, and one of the most frequently mangled due to the constant updating process Google and other major search engines do. They do this not just to verify but judge a business’ consistency and reliability. Physical addresses are particularly vulnerable to misspellings, dropped words or directions or other issues that spur confusion.

Some automated services can help stamp out misinformation.

TRACK AND RESPOND TO REVIEWS

Most search engines and social media platforms solicit reviews for local businesses, which creates endless opportunities for bad ones to override your hard work, whether or not they’re justified. It’s not generally a good idea to flood Yelp or Google with inorganic good reviews to try to boost your rating, but you can gain more control by responding effectively to negative and positive ones.

Several apps are available to help you find them but may not include niche platforms for your industry.

SEARCH RESULTS

Get yourself toward the top of search engine results, either through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or search engine optimization (SEO). Each approach has its own pros and cons — SEO is free when you DIY, but requires a lot of knowledge and time, while the ad spend required for PPC reduces but doesn’t eliminate those pressures.

Whatever it takes, keeping yourself visible on those platforms can make or break you in a competitive environment.