Recent research makes clear that, for high-value consumer purchases as well as b2b procurement, being as 'findable' as possible online is critical to winning the business.
Of course that means it's imperative to produce relevant, compelling, optimized content for your company's website and blog, but online visibility goes beyond that. It also requires an active presence and network of relationships in social media, coverage in industry press, and carefully targeted online advertising to be where your prospective buyers are looking, when they are looking.
Optimizing online visibility then requires the coordination of public relations (PR), content development, social networking, SEO, digital advertising and marketing communications efforts. Without coordination, the efforts of these different individuals or groups are like the blind men and the elephant; none of the experts are wrong, but none get the big picture either.
We refer to this maximization of online visibility as web presence optimization (WPO): the combination of PR, content, SEO, SEM, marcom and social media efforts to make a company as ubiquitous as possible, with relevant content, everywhere online that prospective customers are looking when they are searching for what the company offers.
As a practical matter, the WPO process includes:
Research: a number of questions need to be answered before a tactical WPO plan can be roughed out, such as: where are your prospective customers congregating online? (e.g., are they more likely to use Facebook or a specialized discussion forum? What online publications do they read? What groups do they belong to?) What topics are they most interested in exploring or discussing? How are your competitors approaching the market?
Execution: this includes multiple avenues of content creation, distribution and follow-up. For example, a news release may be written, search-optimized and then distributed through wire service like Marketwire or PRWeb. But it may also be sent to specific journalists and bloggers, who need to be followed up with, shared socially, and have any questions or comments responded to.
Measurement: What was the result'how much online visibility was achieved with a particular piece of content? How much website traffic did it drive? How many conversions? How does this compare to other activities? Lessons learned and intelligence gleaned from these metrics feed back into the execution phase, driving and refining additional projects.
(This is the essence of the web presence optimization strategy and approach we've been using at KC Associates for the past year. We research a client's current competitive and digital landscape, develop a WPO and content strategy, execute, measure and refine.)
The WPO framework has evolved over the past 34 months from the spaghetti-ish original WPO model to the refined definition of web presence optimization a year ago to today's streamlined version focused on the five broad areas of presence:
Content strategy is developed based on market interests, competitor moves and company or product differentiation then shared through one (or more often a combination) of channels. Content creation, optimization, distribution and sharing results in five types of measurable online presence:
Press Presence (news release pickups, news articles, product reviews, publication-sponsored directories, etc.)
Social Presence (tweets, Facebook posts, LinkedIn updates, social bookmarks, videos on YouTube, presentations on SlideShare, etc.)
Website Presence (content published on a company's own website, blog or microsite which ranks highly and attracts organic search traffic)
Industry Presence (trade association articles, association membership lists or directories, trade show exhibitor lists, industry analyst coverage, etc.)
Paid Presence (search engine ads, banner ads on trade or publication sites, social network ads)
To learn more about the WPO framework, check out this free whitepaper.
The coordination of the various specialties'PR, social, SEO, SEM, content marketing'depends upon having a clear, unified view of actionable metrics. This single, comprehensive (but not overwhelming) view of results keeps a team in alignment about next steps, what to do more of, what to drop, and what to do differently.
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