3 Must-Have Brand Profiles for SEO
Today’s consumers likely turn to the Web to research products and services before making purchasing decisions. It is critical that businesses leverage the power of the Internet to reach customers, and by using brand-building strategies, companies have a better chance of attracting potential new customers. Brand building can also boost engagement with existing customers by expanding the online presence of a given company. Companies can control their own brand’s search while managing the company’s online reputation; it is easier than ever to build brand awareness on the Web. Let’s explore three great online profiles that professional digital marketers use to build brands, engage readers, and reach more customers than ever before.
Online Profile #1: LinkedIn
For online business profiles, few sites beat the competitive advantage of LinkedIn. The platform is both social media outlet and business directory, with millions of daily users around the globe. Creating a business or personal profile is relatively straightforward, and as LinkedIn has gained users and acceptance, search engines reward profiles with high rankings if optimized correctly.
LinkedIn offers a wide range of tools for users, including the ability to flesh out basic profiles with a lot of relevant information. The goal is to develop a valuable resource for potential visitors, providing details on the business, its goals, its history, and its products or services. Adding relevant details like names, contact information, logos, and physical location will help others find the profile, and will also help search engines like Google index the profile correctly. By using LinkedIn, businesses can maximize their brand exposure while connecting with others in related industries as well as in new customers around the world.
Online Profile #2: Twitter
Twitter transformed social media, on both personal and professional levels. It is the ideal simple communication method for millions of users every day. The social media platform gets so much traffic that major search engines weigh these “social signals” heavily in their search algorithm. The more a Twitter profile is shared, interacted with, or posted to, the better.
And that’s the key to Twitter: a regular and steady stream of new activity, including fresh content. Businesses can optimize their exposure on this platform by including URLs pointing back to company websites or other information resources. Keeping the account active helps engage followers as well; by engaging those followers, they are more likely to share and retweet your company’s content, attracting new followers in the process.
Online Profile #3: Facebook
It’s no secret that Facebook is the current king of social media. Hundreds of millions of users flock to the site every day, and it is certainly one of the most influential online platforms out there. In fact, Facebook is so ubiquitous in everyday use that consumers EXPECT companies to have their own Facebook page, as do search engines.
Just like in Twitter, regular and steady updates are the key to unlocking Facebook’s brand-building horsepower. Followers of a given company appreciate regular engagement, whether that is in the form of text, images, or video content. As users engage with that content, either by liking, sharing, or commenting, the search engine picks up these social signals, then uses them in search algorithms. Facebook has what is called “citation value”; in other words, Google and the other major search providers tend to trust websites more when they are supported by robust social media presences (like Facebook).
Setting up a profile on Facebook is easy, regardless of the type of company in question. Professional digital marketing experts recommend including key information like contact telephone numbers, website URLs, and physical addresses (if applicable) to improve search indexing.
No matter which online profile you go with, the recipe for success is at your fingertips: with a few clicks of the mouse and some fresh content, your brand-building efforts will pay off in increased search engine placement, new customers, and improved revenue streams.
