Why Should You Give Your Business a Digital Makeover (and how)

Stay relevant and engage your audience by investing in your business's strategies and digital appearance.

Image by alan9187 from Pixabay

Post the COVID-era, brands are looking for ways to boost their online presence but implementing strategies to stay relevant with their total addressable market (TAM).

Standing out among your competition in the digital world and winning over customers can be challenging and unsettling tasks.

If you are a business moving from an offsite to an onsite setup or if you want to identify ways to improve your existing setup, here are 6 steps to help you give your business a digital makeover.

Let's get started with the 6 steps!

1. Create and/or update your website. Your website is the face you show the world. The saying about first impressions being the last ones is never more true than for websites. People will leave your website as soon as they land on it for any number of reasons. For example, if it's poorly designed, if it takes too long to load, or it fails to tell your audience everything they need to know about you in three seconds. 

Getting customers to stay on your site and explore it is a challenging task but a very important one. Here are a few things to consider so that you're making the best impression the first time around.

2. Be possessive with your brand identity.

Actualize visual elements for your brand across customer touchpoints that instills a sense of professionalism for your business. Your digital touchpoints should be both aesthetically appealing as well as functional.

Take your time and co-create with a good web designer and UX professional to ensure that your website is appealing and intuitive. Make the important decisions up front like fonts, colors, etc, and then craft your brand elements around these elements.

If you're like me and cannot code or you cannot work with a professional/ freelancer for any reason, then a great option is to use a CMS (content management system) like Wix, WordPress, Shopify. I would suggest you to review all of them carefully and choose a partner who will help you achieve your business objective.

3. SEO! SEO! SEO! There is no need to create content without understanding what your audience is looking for. It's important to research and understand what your target audience is looking for. Understanding the intent for their "search" will help you create relevant content for them and will get picked up by search engines.

SEO is a long term strategy and consistency is key to generate traffic over time

4. Create (quality) content. Create content that helps the user with what they are looking for. Be a problem solver and create content that appeals to your audience.

- Structure your content (heading, bullets points, highlights, quotes)

- Keep sentences short, and use simple, easy-to-understand words.

- Use action words

These changes take time and effort but you will reap its benefits in the long run.

5. Business listings.

Today, a typical use looks up online directories for solution providers, very likely on their mobile devices. You need to be findable. Adding your brand to company listings is an easy way to tell people that you exist and also an important way to boost your SEO.

- Google My Business

- Company/ Business pages on social media

- Local online business listings

When creating your listings, add solutions and services that you offer along with your contact information.

6. Make your brand personable.

Create a persona by managing your brand elements and connect with your audience. The more consistent you are, the stronger the influence on how your audience perceives your brand. 

Stay approachable with your brand voice and ensure that it is consistent across platforms. A conversational tone makes your content easy to read and is perceived to be more human to the reader.

Use real people in your content. If you're the founder of the company, it would be great to have your content with your face and your voice. This will help users put a real person to your brand, adding a sense of trust. There are several aspects that go into building a brand persona, and when you look at it from the multiple angles to fleshed out and relatable. 

Conclusion There is a lot that goes into a digital makeover for a brand. So if you think it can be done in two weeks after a Christmas break, think again. Manier times, it can be as much work as creating a business and setting-up your operations.

Upgrading your digital makeup may (read as 'will') determine how your audience interacts with you. It needs to be crafter carefully as it is the foundation of your business success

And finally, be patient and stay relevant.

Thank you

Yogesh Babu

PS - Do share your thoughts on the article in the comments below. I will respond to you as soon as I can. PPS - If you choose to share the article, I would highly appreciate it if you could include the credits. :)