What to be Aware of When Launching your Digital Presence
In this day and age, every business must have a digital presence to survive. Do you need a cleaner? A dog walker? A plumber? A quick Google search will bring up hundreds of thousands of options. However, search algorithms are unforgiving, and to get to the top of the page can be a feat. Couple this with short attention spans and picky users, crafting the perfect digital presence becomes a hefty task. Soumya Dinesh is the managing director of Atula Technologies and is a specialist in e-commerce platforms and bespoke software. Soumya knows the importance of having software that not only works for the user but also for the internal needs of the business. She discusses the pitfalls and things to be aware of when launching a business’s digital presence. From planning to picking the right brand assets, it is important to make your website pop in the oversaturated digital space.
According to Internet Live Stats, there are 1.5 billion websites on the World Wide Web today. To stand out from the crowd you must have a digital presence that fits with your brand and target audience – and this begins in the set-up stages. One key consideration is search engine optimisation (SEO), which is easily influenced by the content. Once your target audience has reached your site, is it doing what it is meant to effectively and will the audience want to return? Here are several tips to effectively crafting your online appearance.
Careful Planning
Before jumping into the creation stage, a business needs to consider taking on a comprehensive approach and invest sufficiently in planning. Whether the website will be engaging and the information presented well are just two factors a company ought to think about. And will it be visually appealing and focused on the user experience? Often, you can draw inspiration from other platforms. You must not make the user work too hard to find what they are looking for – and in some cases, the simpler, the better.
At the same time, consider the back-office systems. If you are looking at selling through your website, have you got an effective ecommerce plan? This should include a payment gateway integration and integration to shipping partners, warehousing or inventory management.
Choosing The Right Digital Assets
Bearing the above point in mind, having the right assets has the potential to make or break an organisation. The logo and branding must fit into the bigger picture. Clashing colours or low-resolution icons can look dated. Meanwhile ensuring the pages look good on a mobile phone is more important than ever before. In 2024 56.86% of online traffic in the UK came from mobile devices, according to Digital Silk. This is coupled with the importance of investing resources in the right social media platforms. Setting up profiles on the channels your target audience is likely to use increases your exposure.
Content
Consistency builds brand awareness. This can be done by setting a tone of voice and language to be used online. From blogs to LinkedIn content, discrepancies can be obvious as the client base grows. When launching a platform, it is always ideal to have a bank of content ready to use in the initial weeks.
SEO
Keyword strategy is crucial to drive traffic. SEO can be broken down into on-page and technical. It can also be boosted by off-page. On-page SEO includes titles, headings, content and meta descriptions. Technical SEO considers whether the website is technically sound for search engines, including speed and proper crawling. Your rank in search engines can also be influenced by off-page SEO such as building backlinks from other reputable sites to your own, which signals authority to search engines.
Collating Customer Testimonials
Setting up mechanisms to collect feedback and reviews from customers is a great way to build your reputation. Not only does this increase trust but it can influence the buying habits of customers. Research by Dixa found that 79% of people put as much weight on customer reviews as they do personal recommendations. In the same study, it was found that on average, reviews produce an 18% uplift in sales.
Analytics
Finally – setting up analytics to ensure that all the digital assets are performing well is essential to shaping the future of the site. Adapting to trends and seeing changes in traffic can mean challenges are dealt with quickly and head-on.
Having a website that works for the business and its clients is the foundation of a healthy digital presence. Knowing who your target audience is and focusing on their user experience is pivotal to the planning and execution of any site. Whether you are starting small or creating a multi-faceted platform, always remember to take a step back and assess to avoid chopping and changing in the later stages of website creation.