In the competitive online world of digital marketing, it’s usually the industry giants that enjoy the constant attention of the media and the public, while the smaller players in the field have to fight tooth and nail to gain brand exposure and awareness. That said, this doesn’t mean that you are destined to always live in the shadow of the behemoths that occupy your industry and niche, as digital marketing allows any brand with a solid strategy and a set of clear and attainable goals to elevate its standing in the online market, expand its brand reach, and build an authoritative and trustworthy image.
To achieve any of this, though, you first have to improve your brand awareness through a set of key digital marketing tactics specifically geared towards getting your website and your online presence in front of the right audience, at the right time. Let’s take a look at the tactics that all business owners and experienced entrepreneurs should employ.
Start with search engine optimization
To improve your brand awareness in the online realm, you naturally have to improve your brand’s visibility on all relevant digital channels, as the latter typically helps you achieve the former more efficiently and effectively. Search engine optimization can not only help you elevate your standing in the SERPs (search engine results pages), but it will automatically make your brand more trustworthy, authoritative, and consumer-friendly at the same time. In a nutshell, SEO allows you to hit two birds with one stone, so be sure to start optimizing your website for a higher ranking in the organic search results.
Assuming that you already have an optimized, branded domain name, that you have chosen a reliable hosting provider, and that you have chosen an SEO-friendly theme for your site, you can start with on-page and off-page optimization. Integrating the right keywords into the copy across your website will be imperative in an attempt to climb the SERP ladder while adding technical SEO elements like an XML sitemap and accelerated mobile pages will further help you reach the top of every relevant organic search result.
Leverage social media channels
Nowadays, it seems that everyone and their dog have a social media account or several. This is why one of the best ways to improve brand awareness is to focus on building up your brand through storytelling on social media, in order to engage a vast global audience, build your following, and establish a meaningful connection with your audience. This is a recipe for stellar word-of-mouth digital marketing, as having a social media presence on numerous relevant networks will inspire and incentivize people to share, like, and comment on your posts.
You should also take things a step further by actively engaging your social media audience in meaningful conversations by asking relevant questions, posting frequently and responding to comments on your every post, and of course, by responding to every direct message you get. Posting quality content regularly will slowly improve your visibility on social media, which will help drive traffic to your website.
Capitalize on visual content
Speaking of publishing quality content, keep in mind that while written content is still king, other types of digital content are quickly rising to prominence as well. This is because the modern audience wants and needs to experience more engaging content forms that not only convey valuable information, but they do so in a fun and efficient way. After all, not everyone has the time or the willpower to read a lengthy article.
One of the best examples of the impact of well-optimized visual content is seen through the work of the Infostarters team and their collection of branded infographics that condense lengthy content formats into easily-digestible yet highly-entertaining visuals that tell a story, promote the brand, and fit perfectly into any online platform, including emails, websites, and social media. Be sure to focus heavily on creating optimized infographics, videos, and images yourself to capitalize on the new trend.
Elevate your standing with paid ads
In an attempt to improve your brand visibility in the search results and thus improve brand awareness across the digital realm, you should also invest in strategic paid advertising. Now, paid ads can drain your marketing budget quite quickly if you’re not careful, so be sure to craft ads by using relevant consumer data and analytics, and optimize them with the right keywords, quality images, well-structured URLs, as well as all relevant information and features that the customer is looking for. Combined with your SEO efforts, these ads will help you consistency appear at the top of the search results.
Build social proof
Lastly, always strive to build more social proof around your brand. Customers nowadays will only put their trust in brands that other people trust, which is what social proof basically is. This is the delicate task of incentivizing new visitors to follow in the footsteps of your existing customers. You can achieve this goal by using a social proof tool to show people that others are regularly interacting with your website and that they trust you. Pretty soon, news of your trustworthiness will spread across the web, and people will start flocking to your website.
Wrapping up
Building brand awareness should be your top priority if your goal is to get more website traffic and optimize your conversions in the months and years to come. Use these tips to elevate your standing in the industry and build a trustworthy and authoritative brand.
Authored by guest contributor Jolene Rutheford, who is a marketing specialist - turned blogger, currently writing for technivorz.com.