This is an article “Auditing Your Presence Online” by Marc Primo Warren
No good businessman would want to invest on something he can’t measure and that is especially true when it comes to your online presence performance. Knowing how much impact you get from the cumulative efforts you have undertaken online either lets you know if you are doing the right thing or whether you are putting a significant slice of your budget on the wrong investment buckets.
Your total digital presence consists of various aspects and requires a thorough understanding of how each one works. Work shouldn’t stop once you have reviewed monthly website reports and social media profiles or your SEO performance. While all of these are important, there are more facets you should set your focus on in order to have full control of where your digital presence is heading.
Here are a number of important auditing steps you should consider taking on a regular basis:
Make a thorough review of all your marketing efforts
In a nutshell, the following areas are the ones you should really look into when making an online audit of your digital presence:
On and off-page SEO
Content management
Analytics
Digital marketing strategies
Social media performance
Search rankings
Finding the right tracking tools for each one of these areas will help you gauge your online presence’s true standing. There are a few cloud-based tools you could check out but be sure to let other digital marketing experts review your findings for good measure too.
Focus on your website performance
Most of the traffic you’d want to set your sights on will be from your website as it usually serves as the landing page for most of your online marketing efforts. Start your audit from your home page and address the issues you’ll discover (e.g. search intent of your audience, most clicked links, most preferred landing pages, etc.) and make the necessary adjustments to improve them.
Your website holds a treasure trove of data waiting to be reviewed meticulously which can help you come up with a more polished marketing funnel for your target audiences.
Audit your marketing campaigns
Your marketing strategy is another important aspect when auditing your online presence. Review each of your campaigns and see if they are still aligned with your long-term goals or if there are little tweaks you should make for your SEO or other marketing efforts.
It would help to keep your campaigns specific, measurable and realistic from the onset as it keeps it on-brand and consistent with your goals. Auditing your marketing efforts will also enable you to come up with adaptive measures that can streamline your workflows and make things easier in the long run. Analyze your marketing performance regularly and spot those areas where you can really create significant improvements on.
Audit online feedback
Lastly, searching for insights from your online reviews is also a good way to improve your auditing practices. Read what your followers or customers have to say about you on Yelp or Facebook and pinpoint specific issues they want you to address specifically. Make a chart to determine which issues you should prioritize immediately and those that can wait awhile then draft statements or mailers that will manage their expectations and give them a sense of your transparency and sincerity when it comes to their pain points.
Of course, don’t forget to give them gratitude replies for every positive feedback you get and promise that you are doing your best to improve things just the same.
If it happens that your brand doesn’t get too much feedback online, then maybe it’s time to kick your branding efforts into overdrive. Zero reviews could mean netizens may not care much about your brand or not know you at all. Try to resolve things by putting more premium on your branding strategies so you can gather more feedback online and get more useful insights for your auditing efforts. If you want to find out more about Marc Primo Warren our services or just say hi, please reach out here.