Did you hit it and quit it?
Every organization has to realize the importance of having an online presence. After doing some quick research different versions of the same checklist begin to appear.
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Create Social Media Account (Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc…)
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Create Website
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Submit site to search engines
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Look into SEO
After your team’s checklist is created typically a team member is assigned to make “It” happen. Many times this winds up being the owner him or herself creating the accounts, setting up the profile pages, and finding someone to throw up a cheap but effective website.
NOW What?
You simply wait, right? I mean there are billions of people online and surely it’s just a matter of time until they start to find your site and sales pickup. This is a great theory but as with most theories there is a bit of reality that can only be learned by following the motions and comparing the expected results. In this case the results have been and are confirmed millions of times every day. People spend tons of effort setting everything up and nothing happens or if any activity is noticed it is minimal.
WHAT Happened?
It’s really simple; for each and every one of the billions of people constantly searching the World Wide Web there are billions of things for them to look at. Someone has to sort through all of these websites and decide which ones are the most Relevant. This is why Google is one of the fastest growing companies in the world. Now notice Relevant is capitalized in the previous paragraph, I know it’s grammatically incorrect but let me explain. Sites are rated primarily by relevance and when someone searches for a term like “HandyMan in Tulsa” the sites that seem to be the most Relevant (To The Search Engine) are the ones shown first.
What Do I Do?
This is not as complicated to answer as you might have initially thought. In Fact it is only a two-step process.
Step #1
Keep adding content to your website! Content can be blog posts, comments, or pages about what you do, what products you sell or services you offer. Perhaps even your theories or understanding of the industry you work in. As long as it is text on your site talking about things that you want your users to know about then it will be automatically logged and ranked by search engines such as Google.
Step #2
Listen up because this is where most websites fail. The second step is to keep creating and updating content. Why? Because companies who regularly talk about their business and/or industry and its constant evolution seem to be much more knowledgeable and thus relevant.
What Does This Mean?
This means that the best thing you can do is tell people about how great your company’s products and services are, as often as possible, online. Or another avenue would be to express your knowledge and interest through posts to your organizations blog. While the “Hit it and Quit it Approach” may work great for some things, your online identity is most definitely not one of them.