How Do I Develop My Firm’s Online Presence?
Having a presence online is no longer just a choice; here are the key elements you need to develop a digital footprint
In today’s world, one cannot deny the importance of digital marketing for businesses, including design and architecture firms. Word of mouth and referrals can only get you so far, but the world of online marketing opens up new gates and offers the kind of exposure to potential clients that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.
Developing and maintaining an online presence for your firm may seem like a daunting task, so the trick is to start slow, pick a few areas and focus on them before expanding your presence online. Before you do anything, set your goals and define what it is exactly that you are looking to get out of each online channel - leads, brand awareness, etc. This will help build a solid strategy before you get started and measure the performance of your online activity.
To start with, let’s look at the basic avenues you could cover:
Expert: Jinanda Sheth, Founder of Hustlebird Digital Marketing Consultancy
Developing and maintaining an online presence for your firm may seem like a daunting task, so the trick is to start slow, pick a few areas and focus on them before expanding your presence online. Before you do anything, set your goals and define what it is exactly that you are looking to get out of each online channel - leads, brand awareness, etc. This will help build a solid strategy before you get started and measure the performance of your online activity.
To start with, let’s look at the basic avenues you could cover:
Expert: Jinanda Sheth, Founder of Hustlebird Digital Marketing Consultancy
Don’t neglect Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
You could have the perfect website but if you aren’t adopting SEO best practices, then nobody will see it when they search for your services or your brand. Search Engine Optimisation simply means following the necessary steps to ensure that your website gains a higher ranking on relevant search results on search engines such as Google, preferably page one. Achieving a high ranking on Google takes months of consistent SEO best practice and needs constant effort to stay there.
Make sure your website is optimised for search when being built, and get an SEO audit every 3-6 months which will highlight the areas that need to be fixed. This will in the long run help your website climb up the page ranks in Google and consistent SEO efforts will help it stay there.
Tip: Don’t forget to create your free company profile on Google My Business for companies to be able to find you and read reviews on page one of Google itself.
Focus on advertising
Advertising on social media and Google can be a cost effective tool to spread the word about your business quickly, especially if you are going online for the first time (while architects are dissuaded from advertising by the Council of Architecture, interior designers and product designers are free to advertise). They offer hyper targeting options based on location, demographic, psychographic, digital behaviour, etc. to be able to reach the right audience. Learning about media buying or hiring an expert/agency would be advisable to ensure your budget is being spent wisely.
After you have the basics covered, or rather mastered, you could also engage in a few more activities to broaden your presence:
Here’s how to give your small business a boost
You could have the perfect website but if you aren’t adopting SEO best practices, then nobody will see it when they search for your services or your brand. Search Engine Optimisation simply means following the necessary steps to ensure that your website gains a higher ranking on relevant search results on search engines such as Google, preferably page one. Achieving a high ranking on Google takes months of consistent SEO best practice and needs constant effort to stay there.
Make sure your website is optimised for search when being built, and get an SEO audit every 3-6 months which will highlight the areas that need to be fixed. This will in the long run help your website climb up the page ranks in Google and consistent SEO efforts will help it stay there.
Tip: Don’t forget to create your free company profile on Google My Business for companies to be able to find you and read reviews on page one of Google itself.
Focus on advertising
Advertising on social media and Google can be a cost effective tool to spread the word about your business quickly, especially if you are going online for the first time (while architects are dissuaded from advertising by the Council of Architecture, interior designers and product designers are free to advertise). They offer hyper targeting options based on location, demographic, psychographic, digital behaviour, etc. to be able to reach the right audience. Learning about media buying or hiring an expert/agency would be advisable to ensure your budget is being spent wisely.
After you have the basics covered, or rather mastered, you could also engage in a few more activities to broaden your presence:
Here’s how to give your small business a boost
Create valuable content
Creating genuinely valuable content for your audience in the form of blogs, graphics, picture galleries and videos helps showcase your brand’s thought leadership. It also helps increase brand awareness and is an excellent tool for SEO. You need a solid content strategy to ensure that you get the best return on your efforts.
Emails
If you’ve generated a contact list of potential customers through your blog or otherwise, an email every fortnight or month would be a good touch point to keep your brand relevant to them. Emails shouldn’t be too long and must only contain information that is valuable or interesting for the reader.
Read home improvement articles, interviews, Houzz Tours and more
Creating genuinely valuable content for your audience in the form of blogs, graphics, picture galleries and videos helps showcase your brand’s thought leadership. It also helps increase brand awareness and is an excellent tool for SEO. You need a solid content strategy to ensure that you get the best return on your efforts.
Emails
If you’ve generated a contact list of potential customers through your blog or otherwise, an email every fortnight or month would be a good touch point to keep your brand relevant to them. Emails shouldn’t be too long and must only contain information that is valuable or interesting for the reader.
Read home improvement articles, interviews, Houzz Tours and more
Participate in forums
Being active on relevant online forums helps increase brand visibility, boosts your credibility and keeps you updated on industry concerns, ideas and trends. It’s a win-win all around!
Finally, the golden rule to remember – trying to be everywhere online may jeopardize your business more than helping it. How? Keeping up with all channels is a difficult task, and unless you are committed to nurturing and growing each channel, a lack of activity could promote a negative perception of your brand and business growth.
While going online is an absolute necessity today, it does in no way replace offline marketing and relationship building. It is simply a supplemental tool to showcase and boost your offline efforts.
Read more:
Why Digital Marketing Is Important for a Design Firm‘
Tell us:
Do you have any questions on how to develop your firm’s online presence? Post them in Comments below.
Being active on relevant online forums helps increase brand visibility, boosts your credibility and keeps you updated on industry concerns, ideas and trends. It’s a win-win all around!
Finally, the golden rule to remember – trying to be everywhere online may jeopardize your business more than helping it. How? Keeping up with all channels is a difficult task, and unless you are committed to nurturing and growing each channel, a lack of activity could promote a negative perception of your brand and business growth.
While going online is an absolute necessity today, it does in no way replace offline marketing and relationship building. It is simply a supplemental tool to showcase and boost your offline efforts.
Read more:
Why Digital Marketing Is Important for a Design Firm‘
Tell us:
Do you have any questions on how to develop your firm’s online presence? Post them in Comments below.
This is your detailed business card. Think of all the information you would like a potential client to know and view about your business, housed in one place. A website can be used as a tool to showcase your work, show thought leadership through written and visual content, information about your team to establish credibility, along with your contact information. This is your main online identity.
Be smart about social media
Social media today is a crowded space with an estimated nearly 260 million social network users in India by 2019. So if you are thinking of entering the space now, look at the various options and pick 1 or maximum 2 social media channels and focus on them. Jack of all trades here won’t work, and not all channels are suitable for all businesses. For design and architecture firms, I would recommend starting with Instagram and Facebook only, in that order. If you don’t have the resources in-house, you could outsource the management of these handles to an external agency or freelancer.
Learn how to connect your website and social media presence