Your digital footprint is your digital identity on the Internet. And your Internet properties will help grow this digital footprint.
What does this mean? It means that when the Internet first started you needed to create a website to be part of the Internet. However it was not always easy to find your or your business, your products or services. That is when Search Engine Optimization (SEO) began, where technical marketing people would optimize your website so that the search engines would list your site for various relevant search criteria. One technique used in SEO is to have other websites that are relevant or complimentary to your business refer business to you via a website link. This technique was quickly taken advantage of by black hat SEO practices and has lost much of it’s value in the search engine algorithms.
Many business owners were slow to jump on the Social Media band wagon. It was essentially free, but it took a lot of time and didn’t seem to be generating much business. However, Social Media has proved to be valuable to businesses to help grow their digital footprint for two very good reasons; it creates another valuable Internet property and it simplifies the tell-a-friend referral process.
The first is that once you create a business profile on a social media account, you are creating another Internet property, a place where people can look, find, stumble upon your business, products, and services. This Internet property gives the search engines another vital link to your business.
The second reason why social media helps with your digital footprint is because of the social sharing aspect that all social media sites are built around. People want to share things they are interested in, good experiences they had (as well as bad), and provide referrals, opinions or testimonials to their friends, families and colleagues.
Tips on Growing Your Digital Footprint
- Be consistent with your company name or your domain name – make it easy for the search engines to recognize that you are the same company.
- Implement some basic branding with the profile image and the banner art to appeal to people and make it easy for them to recognize your business.
- At an absolute minimum you should have at least two business social media page:
- If you are a B2C or a B2B business … create a LinkedIn business page!
- If you want to help Google further find your business … then create a G+ business page, which is linked to the Google Maps and Google My Business!
If you need help with creating or enhancing your digital footprint contact us.