o, you’d like to start or improve the online presence for your business? That’s great! But what do you need to do to pull it off the right way? By carefully crafting an online presence for your business, you’ll be able to create an excellent foundation on which to build your business.
Document your online presence
This is one of the most essential things to minimise wasted time and improve cyber-security. Of course, this needs to be done correctly.
Typically, local businesses will keep a diary or spreadsheet with account information across various niche-specific websites, citations and accounts. Stumble around to find the exact account and password before logging in. When hiring a contractor to do SEO, digital marketing or improving a website, they email this spreadsheet with user accounts and passwords. This is a BAD idea.
Carefully crafting your local businesses online presence means implementing some simple tools to manage your businesses accounts and information. At Local Business Accelerator, we use a combination of a spreadsheet and a password manager. The best part? It's free!
Spreadsheet
In the spreadsheet, we keep information on key services, curated short descriptions and long descriptions, keywords, address/s, phone number/s, email address/s and any contact points the local business wants public. It includes links to social accounts, tracking links and citation sites. We ensure information is kept clear and straightforward. No passwords are held in the spreadsheet, ever!
Password Manager
In the password manager, we keep all account passwords. These passwords are different for every account, and the password manager holds these, so we don't need to remember them. Our current solution is LastPass. LastPass's free version allows you to manage unlimited passwords on a single device. Paid versions start at $4.50 per user per month. The paid versions let you assign temporary passwords when working with contractors or digital experts.
With the spreadsheet and password manager, we only need to remember one username and one password. Once logged into LastPass it knows where you have accounts, and you can click the fill password button, and your account information is securely entered. It saves time, secures your businesses important assets, and simplifies online presence management.
Google your business
It isn't easy to carefully curate a digital presence when you don't know where your businesses footprint begins and ends. Every business has an online presence, whether they like it or not. Customers and clients review your businesses services on countless platforms. Knowing where these reviews and conversations are taking place allows business owners to control the narrative and manage their reputation.
Google your business name
Go through every website that mentions your business. Document these locations in the earlier mentioned spreadsheet. A lot of these citation sites will allow you as the business owner to claim the generated profile. Register and claim the account, saving the account information into your password manager. Sometimes businesses have common business names, and it can be difficult to find mentions across the internet. In this case, including the suburb or city your business is located in. This will ensure you find all places your local business is talked about.
Fill out profiles accurately
Because these online profiles exist, irrespective of whether you want them to or not. Filling out the profiles with accurate information is a massive win for curating your online presence. Remember how I mentioned having short and long descriptions of your local business? Copy and paste these along with your address, phone number and business name into these newly claimed profiles. It's critical to ensure the information is consistent. I.e. if your address is '123 Local Street'. Don't list it as '123 Local St'. Pick an address format and stick to it, Google cares.
Created by Benjamin on 31/03/21, last edited on 20/05/2021.
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