Professional services business face variety of uncertainty& challenges from buyers because, they deal with offerings that can not be touched nor tried. What makes it more challenging is the fact that, they don’t have sales persons online to explain and reinforce their promises to motivate purchasing decisions. How then do they succeed online, cutting down cost as a professional services provider when worldwide, people have access to mobile phones and internet more than access to a tooth brush?

The answer although may sound simple, but warrants observing rules, sequences and principles for leveling the field of competition online. But that is what complicates the problem - getting techie. Let us look at this through the lens of the business owner who doesn’t have fore technical knowledge about how to build a successful website or online presence. Your best bet is outsourcing.  If you’ve already done that, did it prompt the kind of positive decision online, every business desire to meet? Can it be measured?

Well, that may sound harsh but truth needs to be told. Most small business owner leave that to the techies to deal with it without the analytical lens to measure the performance or success when completed. Its mostly considered a project funded with a small budget by a starting company, so it doesn’t require all those measurement. Others too would say, we are just starting so we don’t have much information or content so get us a simple presence online. To level the playing field requires, creating a strong online presence successfully even with a low budget, and secondly can be measured and monitored. 

How do you know the techies have done a good job? How do you measure the success without the technical know how?  Simple!

Get your  Brand position right first - Fundamentally, make sure you have a compelling tagline that is true and in tune with your target buyers. It should address specifically the needs of your target customers in terms of utility & price. This means your offerings must be affordable, easy to uses, solve problems and irresistible. In one sentence your compelling tagline must be able to communicate this to your target customers.

Brand development - Translate this position into something visual that target audience can easily identify with and note the difference between your brand and that of the competitors. At this phase of the online building process you need a logo (a sign), look (image, type, colors) and voice or tone that represents your company. Don’t be lied by techies you need an awarding winning logo to accomplish your objectives. Customers don’t care about award winning logo. They only care about the utility and prices, who is offering it and how credible are they. Get something simple with all the personality that truly say who you are and what you stand for.

Brand Awareness - Next is to communicate the brand consistently everywhere you think your target customers visit. listen, watch or search for offerings similar to yours. Techies call them channels but forget about that name. Echo this on all your stationery, invoices, cars, sign post, websites, Facebook & linkedIn. Don’t vary your message per channel, make sure they look and say the same thing across board. This consistency is what we term as strong brand management and it builds brands, trust me

High performance website - If possible design a single page site that talks about your tagline, who you are, what you stand for, services, work done, current customer, contact details & forms that can gather leads when target audience fills them even if you don’t have a CRM to mange it.  Add a small story to amplify and simplify your tagline. Add lots of claims mostly called projects to prove jobs done for client to establish trust and credibility. Don’t forget to publish these claims on other social platforms to create consistency and unity. Consistency is the key.

Measure what the techies say the have successfully built for your company. Don’t get scared its very simple

• Start google from you favorite web browser be it Safari, Mozilla, and type your company name to ascertain if google, yahoo, social media or other crawlers have identified your business presence online. What does the results say ? Is it exactly the message you want your target audience to see ?

• Follow the links to ascertain where it will take you. Does it displays your tagline and brand message. Do the same with the other links. Do they have the same look, voice, character across all platforms with no variations. Always remember consistency leads to a single, positive experience regardless of where or how customers reach you or seek them. If consistency doesn’t check out correctly hold techies by their nose. LOL

• Next, Search your business location & address online to ascertain your presence. Verify if information presented is correct and current. If not let your techie guys create one for you using google my business. This platform is best if you don’t have a website up and running. Using this platform to create ads and content as well to strengthen your visibility or online presence. 

• Next evaluate your website on both desktop and mobile phone and see for yourself if they look great on both screens. How fast does the home page or other page load. Don’t settle for slow loading pages. Is the home page communicating your tagline?. Let your customer have a look at it and tell you whether you’re communicating in clarity a strong utility message and price. Find out also whether your message is backed with enough evidence, Biographies, awards, testimonies to establish trust and credibility. If it doesn’t check well and correct, you know what to do with your techies nose.

• Finally, fill the forms to ascertain whether your email address assigned to the forms on your website is populating your clients details in the email inbox. Don’t forget you will fall on these contacts in your inbox for future communications and relationship nurturing using email marketing, so ensure its working perfectly. If its not, you know what to do, i want say it.

This the basic checklist for measuring your online presence success. For advance online presence contact us for a free audit. Its all about Studying how prominent and dominant your brand appears in the search results, links from other sites to your website, content that resonates with your target market, thought leadership, how many results show up for your brand and whether the results leads to current and positive image. These findings provide the bases for setting objectives for improving your online presence and strengthen your brand as a result. Now you know what it take to pull techies by the nose.

Always remember business introduction management ups the odds that the impression that buyers get is the one you want them to have. You online success hangs in there.

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