How can you improve your online visibility? The online space is extremely competitive and it’s hard to stand out. No matter what type of business you run or the product you’re trying to sell, you can bet a thousand other people are attempting the same. And often, they will try to follow the same generic advice you can find everywhere online.
You know what we’re talking about – acquire an organic social media following, have a high-quality website, make others share your content, etc. While these statements are both correct and true, they are too general. How do you get a following? What is a high-quality website? How do you get people to share your content?
These are the questions that will be answered in this text, with practical steps you can take. So let’s get to the techniques that improve your online visibility in 2024.
Techniques to improve your online visibility
Have You Heard of HARO?
One of the main ways in which Google determines your website’s or your personal credibility is by how many other websites link to your website. These are called backlinks and we’ll explain them further in the next section. For now, it’s enough to know that if websites with high credibility link to your website, it will increase your overall performance.
And that’s where HARO comes in. HARO, or Help A Reporter Out, is a platform that helps journalists find expert sources for their articles. If you are an expert in your field, you can hire a marketing agency to promote you as a source and get a referral in an article. Here is where you can find such services.
On the other hand, you can contact journalists yourself over the HARO platform. However, you should understand that that would entail finding suitable articles, contacting a lot of journalists, writing and sifting through a lot of emails, and presenting yourself, in writing, as credible. In short, it’s not simply sending out a few emails and waiting for a journalist to contact you.
But why is HARO so important? Because HARO can get you featured in publications such as Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, TIME, etc. These are reputable magazines that significantly improve your personal brand and increase your online visibility. There are 3 main ways in which this helps you:
- You get a link to your website, which indicates to Google that your website is also highly credible, increasing your domain authority.
- You are named, improving your personal E-A-T (another of Google’s criteria for estimating the credibility of a person and/or website).
- Your website gets direct traffic from people that click on the link in the article.
In total, utilizing HARO is one of the best methods to increase your overall visibility and build your brand identity.
Put Some Effort into Getting Backlinks
Above, we’ve mentioned that Google uses backlinks to determine your or your website’s credibility. While credibility isn’t the technical term Google uses, you can think of it like that in practice. You can also think of backlinks as Google’s equivalent to word-of-mouth.
The more people that mention you, the better known you are. And the more reputable people that mention you (i.e. websites with high domain authority), the more reputable you become. So how do you get people to talk about you?
HARO is one way and it is separate because it can get you featured on the most authoritative websites. Other than that, you need to do some work. The most common advice you’ll get is to create unique, engaging, high-quality content that provides value. While this piece of advice is on-point as to how you should create content, it will rarely get you backlinks.
Why? Let’s say you own a website that sells fishing equipment and write a superb blog on fly-fishing techniques. Who are the most likely people that will be interested in reading it?
- Regular people interested in fly fishing.
- Your direct competitors.
Regular people likely don’t run a website that can link back to yours, while your competitors won’t want to promote you. Now you can see the problem. So what’s the solution? Network with people adjacent to your industry. In this example, it can be people that purely sell hunting equipment.
Contact them and pitch them your blog. They may see the value of it and link back to it. Some may ask you to pay a commission for posting. On the other hand, you can contact the site admins and tell them that you would like to write a blog for their website, while they do the same and you post it on yours (while linking back to their website, naturally).
This last tactic is called guest posting and is a common tactic, so don’t be afraid to reach out. It’s you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours type of thing.
Build Your Brand on Social Media Platforms
Finally, we get to social media. It’s no big secret that you need a social media following to promote your brand. A guide on promoting yourself on social media would require (at least) a full blog, so we won’t get into too much detail here. Plus, you can easily find good advice that can get you started.
Instead, we will focus on the very foundation you should build your online brand presence and discuss the two most common pitfalls.
So first things first, create a brand identity and stick to it. What is the tone of voice you use? Are you casual and engaging or authoritative and informative? Will you post only industry-specific content or will you try to engage with a wider audience?
Think of a scale where Wendy’s (the fast food chain, check out their tweets if you don’t know what we’re referring to) is on one end of the spectrum and government entities on the other. Find your place on the scale and be consistent.
Now, to the pitfalls:
- Focus on your audience, not your follower count. In other words, try to target people that might be interested in your brand. They are the ones that will engage with your content, share it further, and ultimately lead to conversions. That also means there’s no need to buy followers, you get nothing from it.
- Use the platforms you can handle. Managing social media accounts might seem simple, but it truly isn’t. Consequently, focus on the big platforms first (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, depending on your niche), before you get to the smaller ones. If you spread yourself too thin, you won’t be able to create engaging social media content and won’t see any benefits. Even one good social media account is better than 5 poorly run ones. At the end of the day, you can always scale up.
Use the Techniques One-By-One or Simultaneously
You now know the actionable steps you can take that will improve your brand visibility. We’ve intentionally provided both options where you do everything yourself or invest some money. But just like with social media, don’t spread yourself too thin. Think big, start small, and scale up. Just don’t get discouraged if you don’t succeed right away. By following these techniques you can improve your online visibility for sure.
I’m a tech enthusiast, entrepreneur, digital marketer and professional blogger equipped with skills in Digital Marketing, SEO, SEM, SMM, and lead generation. My objective is to simplify technology for you through detailed guides and reviews. I discovered WordPress while setting up my first business site and instantly became enamored. When not crafting websites, making content, or helping clients enhance their online ventures, I usually take care of my health and spend time with family, and explore the world. Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or read my complete biography.