Founders Series: Your guide to building a stronger online presence

Welcome to our Founders Series, where we aim to give advice, answer questions and provide solutions for people starting their own businesses. If this sounds like you, read on! We've got plenty of content on a wide range of topics, all to help you grow and succeed as a founder.

A good online presence isn’t just a nice-to-have – it should be an essential part of your scaling strategy. From the content you produce to the hosting solution supporting your website behind the scenes, there are a number of ways in which your online presence can be enhanced to help you remain agile in line with your business trajectory.

To leverage this, rely heavily on your marketing support network for both advice and execution – with clear direction from you underlying the whole process. Read on to discover the five key areas to focus on when building your online presence.

Redefine your brand identity

Just as you would for your products and services, compare your business’ achievements so far with your long-term vision. Is your website and digital content still fit for purpose? The answer might well be no. This is natural, but as your business activities shift, so should your brand identity.

For starters, has your audience changed? If your services cater to a slightly different segment of your industry, then your online presence should move with that. Revisit your mission statement, tone of voice and key messaging, then collaborate with your team to adapt your core branding materials accordingly.

Upgrade your domain and hosting

Could your domain suffix be more specific to your purpose and perform better for you as a result? .com might have served you well in the early days, but choosing a more tailored TLD, such as .tech, .academy or .accountants, will not only improve your stature and credibility online, but also help you rank higher on search engines.

Now think about your hosting services. Although shared web hosting offers a great starting point, the long term needs of your business might be better suited to a Virtual Private Server (VPS), for example. If your website traffic or resource demands have grown and the need to protect business and client data has increased, then you’ll need secure, scalable hosting you can trust. A VPS is a dynamic and cost-effective middle ground between shared hosting and a dedicated server – but consulting a hosting provider you trust will help you make the right decision for your unique needs. 

Evolve your website

No website is perfect – engage your marketing team to help you find room for improvement that reflects your current journey. Think about colour palette, visual content, page copy, user experience and navigation. It might be that a few easy edits are needed, or you might want to make certain additions to be more impactful as you scale, such as:

• Creating a dedicated whitepaper section for thought leadership and authority.
• Altering posting schedule in line with new product launches or business developments.
• Creating new landing pages that target specific subsections of your audience.

Don’t forget about SEO. This should be consistently refined and adapted. Whether you call upon trained members of your in-house team or outsourced support, adapting your website to rank higher in line with new services or keywords is essential for reaching the right people through search engines.

Revisit social media activity

Think about your social channels. Ask yourself:

• Are you posting regular, relevant content across all of them?
• Are the right people engaging with your content?
• Does the content that you put out align with what that platform is for? 
• Are they right for your business now? 

For example, if you’re a B2B business using Instagram to promote your latest service development, then consider sticking to LinkedIn for a better chance of reaching your target audience. This doesn’t mean you need to ditch the likes of Instagram or TikTok entirely, as these platforms are ideal for showcasing your company culture and employer branding.

Engage your marketing support to refine your content calendar in line with key dates and business developments, and explore the potential of social media ads to reach new client bases. Then, consider doing the same with your own LinkedIn profile, building your personal brand to put a friendly face behind your business and win credibility, with 82% of people are more likely to trust a company whose senior executives are active online.

Build on your email marketing

Segment your email audience between current clients, genuine prospects and businesses you aspire to work with. That way, your communications can be more targeted to achieve measurable results in line with your objectives i.e. upsells, conversions, pipeline building. Consider a nurture outreach strategy here to drum up more income for your scaling journey, personalising content with pain and gain driven messaging, like:

• Gated content promotion
• Exclusive product development news
• Deals for new and/or loyal clients
• Newsletters with valuable insights

Just remember to analyse and adapt all the way, measuring campaign performance to make sure your methods are working against key variables, from open rates to conversions. 

Stay agile to scale successfully

Knowing your business inside out is essential for genuine digital growth. But don’t let that get in the way of staying open and agile to new trends or audience segments. Continuous adaptation for the right reasons is essential to help your business evolve from the ‘new arrival on the scene’ to the growing, reliable industry name you’re becoming. 

A final word to the wise – collaborate with your marketing team to keep checking in with industry trends, referring back to best practices and soliciting feedback from clients and peers. Your online presence is a weapon you should constantly upgrade to support your scaling journey.