Most companies today use their websites as a centralized business card or brochure. Their never-ending task once the site is launched is to try to optimize the site for search engines and use various paid search schemes to drive traffic to the site. Without the sought after traffic, the site would never achieve the goals that any seasoned marketer would set.
Websites range from straightforward and informational to dynamic, interactive, and sticky. Some websites people need to check every day. A website is in one place. It is stationary like a house; a space to return to, where one can find all the necessary elements to function.
But one must leave the house and go out into the world. That’s where you start to develop your presence in the community where you interact, whether it’s physical or virtual. Here you have an opportunity to let the world get to know you on a personal and professional level. Whether you are commenting on a blog post, adding to a discussion in a forum, tweeting, speaking to a group, posting articles on your favorite subject, or helping a non-profit, just to name a few vehicles, you are creating a web presence for yourself and your company, which is separate from, but still referring back to your website.
Your web presence becomes like a soaring bird that can’t be caught. One is never sure where it will land but your audience can’t take their eyes off of it.
You are everywhere and people notice. While you are out there, you are adding value to your marketplace with your special talents, personality, expertise, and hard work, showing the world, “this is who I am and this is the company/entity I represent.” You evolve into an expert, sought after to be quoted. With every new endeavor you partake in, you raise awareness and people are forming an impression about you. All your efforts feed back to your website which continues to build the brand of the company.
Consider the neighborhood plumber, a real bricks-and-mortar business. Even the plumber can take advantage of an online presence which is dynamic. Our “Plumber 2.0″ blogs at night about water saving techniques, thereby establishing himself as an expert in both plumbing and in conserving water and the planet!
Both online and off, it pays to have a dynamic web presence because it is viral, it’s effective, and it builds on itself.
Do you have any great web presence success stories to share with us?
