Not surprisingly, when clients sign on to mentor with me, they’re often looking for a fast path to building online visibility. I understand the desire to see results fast, yet consistency over time is what leads to success overall. That means, creating content consistently week in and week out, will build a solid presence over the long run, leading traffic and activity back you day in and day out.
Keep in mind too that content isn’t just restricted to blog posts. Content also includes:
- Video
- Audio
- Images
- Status updates on social networks
- Slide shows
- Live chats
- Google+ hangouts
- Teleseminars and webinars
- Sharing content on social sites
That being said, there are actions you can take to accelerate your visibility, especially if you want to build some buzz for a book, product or webinar, for example. To go the accelerated route, you’ll have to ignore my previous advice on building visibility and go all in for a little while.
Here are 5 ways to accelerate your visibility on the Web:
1. Post more frequently on your blog. Yep, you read that right. When you have more blog posts, you have more opportunities to share them on your social networks and so do your visitors. More visibility on social networks can create more traffic. More traffic means more readers. More readers means more amplification of your posts and more subscribers, more visibility, etc.
2. Find and follow influencers and ideal prospects in your niche. This particularly applies to Twitter and Google+. Often those you follow will follow you back and you increase your exposure to new people. Make sure you’re sharing great content so your new followers notice and get value from you.
3. If you don’t have a Google+ Profile, set one up now (it’s also important for seo). Post your content on Google+, find cool, interesting people to add to your Circles, then start doing Google Hangouts. Hosting a weekly live Q&A session for your fans and friends will raise your profile quickly. If you set it up as a live Hangout on Air, the Hangout is recorded and automatically posted on YouTube, thus building out your video channel at the same time.
4. If you’re not comfortable with video, then host live teleseminars on a regular basis. When I first started The Blog Squad in 2005, we hosted free weekly teleseminars called Conversations with Experts, interviewing experts in a variety of marketing-related industries. The first Conversation had about 20 people on the line. One year and 54 shows later, we were getting hundreds of participants every week. Consistency built awareness and awareness built the audience.
5. Are you willing to spend a few dollars? A sure fire way to get more visibility on Facebook is to use Promoted Posts. Be strategic about what you promote. Consider the path you want to lead your new fans. If your goal is to increase engagement, ask a question or create a poll and promote it.
I was very successful using a Promoted Post to give away a product I usually sell (link goes to the promoted post). My goal was to build a highly targeted list of people who were interested in a specific niche. I spent $10 and built a list of more than 350 people interested in digital publishing. I don’t consider giving away the $57 product a loss. It was an investment to uncover a select group who may be interested in attending my digital publishing event.
You may be looking at this list and thinking, “No way, this is not a fast way to build online visibility.” And, you’re right. These are generally long term strategies, AND, if you apply your time and energy to two or three of the tactics over the course of a couple of weeks, you will see more activity which is a direct result of more visibility.
Pick the tactics you know you can sustain over time and implement them over and over. One hangout or teleseminar or promoted post isn’t going to get you very far. On the other hand, one hangout every week for a month will get you more attention. A weekly promoted post with a poll question related to your book, product or event, will attract a lot more people to your Facebook page. You get the point, right? [If you need some help putting your plan together, contact me.]
OK, now it’s your turn…
What is one action you would advise an entrepreneur to take in order to boost their online visibility? Please post your tip in the comments!
So it all about content because more content means more posts and more posts mean more visitors and readers opportunities. Your post is very helpful to understand the technicalities that how we can increase our online visibility presence on web. Everyone wants to increase his/her blogs or website visibility on web.
Hi Denise,
You have crafted a nice set of information. In past I have never used Google Hangouts for my blog promotion, will definitely use it in future. However, you have pointed about Facebook’s “Promoted Posts”. Such promotion was not very effective for me as it send more spammy i.e bots to my blog. It has increased the bounce rate of my blog analytic. May be I am wrong….. Thanks anyways.
Love your article Denise. Couldn’t agree more with your points here! One of the objectives of boosting your online visibility is to become recognizable by your target audience, peers and clients. To that end you want to build image recognition as well as name recognition. That means including a picture on every site site/profile that lets you. Great share!!!
Hey Denise! First time I’ve set foot here and I’ll definitely be coming back. These are excellent tips especially the reference to google hangouts as I wasn’t aware that the recording would be uploaded to YouTube. I recently ran a giveaway and you’re right – the level of traction you get is incredible.. Definitely a hot tip for increasing your online presence.
Thanks for stopping by, Kapil. Glad to hear you’ve also had success with give aways. If you have the right gift for the right audience, it works wonders. Blog on!
Great post, Denise! It can be very challenging, working in all these different formats, to keep creating content consistently. I’m just now putting that plan in place, based on statistics I’m gathering about what works. And I think that once you find something that gets a better response rate, repeat it and repurpose it and relay it across platforms.
Hi Katherine, you’re right on to find what works and repeat. Once you’ve got one tactic mastered, layer on another one. The thing to remember is that if you’ve got a short time frame – 1-3 months, for example – then you need to step it up and concentrate most of your time on getting the word out. So, think about how you can create one piece of content and then slice and dice it 5 to 10 ways to spread it throughout your social world.
1. Post photos of people and places on Facebook with snippets of useful/interesting info. People will check back to see what you have to say or post, and this makes your website available to them.
2. Promoted posts do get your FB profile photo and link to places it would not normally go. This leads to new likes and a link to your website.
Thanks for the tips! Photos are a sure-fire way to boost visibility. And, as you say, include snippets of info. That will further engage the viewer. Appreciate you stopping by!
Love these ideas Denise and also how you point out it’s consistency over time that gets the job done! Picking something you can sustain is so important.
One quick way to get more online visibility is to go to offline events in your niche. For example, I’ll be at the NAMS9 conference in Atlanta later this week. You can be sure that I’ll be taking plenty of pics of influencers in my market (or better yet, having a 3rd party snap a photo of me with that influencer!) and then posting the pics on Facebook and tagging them, thereby increasing both their exposure and mine.
Beautiful tip, Ellen. Helping others increase their visibility is a great way to build relationships and paves the way for possible reciprocal activity that boosts your visibility in the long run too.
Denise, Thank You This is a great post. Lots of sensible & true advice 🙂
The one thing I would advice I would give entrepreneurs to boost their online visibility/brand is: First and foremost have a plan. I have found have a specific [but not a no-room-to -change-specific] goal gives direction and focus.
Namaste
Josie, I couldn’t agree more. As with any marketing strategy, create a plan, then implement. For building visibility fast, pick one or two tactics, map out a short term plan and then make it happen. Thanks for stopping by and adding this important first step!
Great post, Denise ! Totally agree with your points and confirm that the success is in consistency. When I first started blogging I felt like I was talking to myself, but I kept going and now have a wide audience who keeps coming back. You mentioned teleseminars and I’d like to add webinars, same idea, different platform 😉
Hi Sarah, yes, I put webinars and teleseminars in the same category. I usually recommend teleseminars as a place to start for people dipping their toes into the virtual presentation waters for the first time. Faster to set up and produce with a lower learning curve. Blog on!