When was the last time you searched for your business online and analyzed what you found?

Conducting an online visibility audit for your business is the first step in developing a strategy to help prospects find you. Search for your business as if you were a potential client looking to buy a product or service. Then experience the first impression others get when they click on one of your links.

Since first impressions matter both online and offline, having this important information can help shape your digital marketing strategy. Otherwise, if you don’t know how others see your business in the search results, you are marketing your business blindfolded.

All businesses should develop an extensive digital footprint as part of their online marketing activities. The bigger the footprint, the more likely your business can be found when someone is searching. If your business isn’t visible in the search engine results, you lose a potential sales opportunity.

What is a Visibility Audit?

A visibility audit is an exercise that helps you determine how your business is viewed when someone searches for your products and services. It answers questions such as:

Can your business be found when someone searches?

Is your brand consistent across all your online properties?

How does your business compare to your competition?

What is your reputation among your customers?

Is your content resonating with your target audience?

Is it easy to find and contact you?

This evaluation will help you pinpoint areas that need attention. You will be able to develop a better marketing plan that focuses on the right things to attract your ideal customer.

A visibility audit should include these 7 items:

• Keyword analysis and research
• Website search engine visibility
• Website structure and performance analysis
• Content review, organization and optimization
• Social media analysis
• Reputation management
• Competitive understanding

Step 1: Keyword Analysis and Research

For your top keyword phrases, where do you rank if at all?

It is important to know what keyword phrases people use to find your business. Keyword research sets the stage for your content, your social media profiles, your directory listings and all your marketing activities.

One place to start is Google Search Console. Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor and maintain your site’s presence in Google search results. It gives you access to the search queries that are actually being used when users access your site. You need to verify your website in Google Search Console to start collecting this information. You can then export the data into a spreadsheet and use that to start building your list of relevant keywords.

Step 2: Website Search Engine Visibility

How well can I find you and what is missing?

Now that you have your keywords, check to see how your website ranks for your top keywords.  Combine keywords and use Google and Bing to search using these keywords and see where you show up and what pages are showing up. This will answer what you need to add and where you need to add these keywords both in your site coding and within your content.

Step 3:  Website Structure Analysis

Does your website lack the proper items to help your business be visible?

How your website is structured has a lot to do with how well you will be indexed in the search engines.

Things to look for:

• Do you have an SSL certificate?
• Is your site mobile-friendly?
• Are you using your keywords on the page and post URLs?
• Do you only have one version of the website (either www or non-www) with the one you don’t use redirecting to the other? (Google sees these as different sites with duplicate content.)
• Is your site loading quickly and providing a quality user experience?

And there are more things to consider. But usually you will need to get your website developer involved in this process.

Step 4: Content Review, Organization and Optimization

Are you writing content that is relevant to your target audience, easy to find, and optimized for proper indexing by search engines?

Content is the foundation of your inbound marketing strategy. In order to attract the right audience to your business, you have to write content that:

• Provides value
• Is what your target audience is looking for
• Educates and informs
• Solves a problem
• Satisfies a need

Each piece of content needs to have all the proper on-page SEO elements that can ensure your content gets indexed properly.

Step 5: Social Media Analysis

Is your social presence consistent, projecting the same brand and messages?

Analyzing your presence on social media sites is about brand consistency, message communication and participation across all sites. Take a hard look at your profiles and make sure you:

• Send the same message to the same audience
• Complete your profiles with consistent information
• Link to all your profiles and your website for maximum visibility

You don’t have to be on all social media platforms, but the ones you are on should project a consistent image.

Step 6: Reputation Management

What do your customers say about you?

If you have all great reviews from your customers, that’s awesome. But you can’t please everyone all the time so you may have a negative review or two.

• Have you checked to see what reviews you have received?
• Are there negative reviews that you need to deal with?
• Do you have no customer feedback at all?

Once we know what is out there, we can create a plan to get more positive reviews, respond to the negative reviews and build a quality brand reputation.

Step 7: Competitive Understanding

How do you compare to your competitors?

Now that you know how you are seen online, compare your results with that of your competition. Review their website and social media profiles for their messages, brand consistency and keyword usage.

• Do you know where you are stronger or weaker than them?
• Are their social profiles more consistently branded?
• Do their messages seem more relevant to your target than yours?

This information helps you determine where you should be channeling your marketing efforts.

How Visible is Your Business?

The visibility of your business is a direct result of your marketing activities. By monitoring your web presence and tracking your progress, you can better understand whether your marketing is working. As you increase your visibility, great things can happen for your business.

About Maria Novak Dugan

Maria L. Novak Dugan is president of Marketing Solutions & Business Development, a firm serving Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, offering creative marketing services and goal implementation for small businesses. She has more than 30 years’ experience in the Marketing & Sales Industry ... 13 of those as the sole sales representative for a Pennsylvania payroll company growing their client base by over 500%. Maria Novak Dugan is also the former Managing Director of the Delaware Chapter of eWomenNetwork. Creating, developing, and conducting this division of a national organization strengthened her knowledge of networking, event planning, fundraising, and small-business development. For more information, contact Maria at 610-405-0633 or [email protected] or visit www.Maria-L-Novak.com

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