Creating digital PR strategies to get your voice heard in the online world has become essential for companies, and it starts with having a strong digital shop window. 

By William Furney, content marketing manager, Reachology

Since the first website appeared 30 years ago, there are now almost 2 billion of them, and more are coming online by the second. Today no business can survive without a website of their own, and many are using innovative digital PR strategies so that they’re seen in the hugely crowded cyber-arena. 

If your company is not online in some form, you might as well not be in business, because it’s more than just a digital shop business; it’s also about trust and reliability.

If your current and future customers can’t see you have an online presence — and an active one at that, regularly updating your website with informative blog posts and new product pages — they might wonder if you’re still around, or even a genuine company. After all, one of the first things many of us do when we’re considering a purchase is to check out a company with a Google search: see if they have a website, what people are saying in reviews and any other information you may need. 

Rising above the competition a great online shop window

A strong digital shop window is your advertisement to the world — online as well as offline, and websites are evolving and becoming more sophisticated all the time. If your site isn’t well designed and has relevant content that’s optimised, as well as being easy to navigate and use, chances are you’re not going to get many visitors — and Google might not care much for it either, resulting in poor search engine results for your pages. 

So, for example, your website can’t just work on desktop or laptops; the best websites are designed to be mobile-first, because that’s where the vast majority of people on the internet are. Responsive design is a vital part of a good website, as is its speed — anything more than a couple of seconds for a page to load and you can basically forget about it: users will turn away and Google won’t be happy either. 

Sites have to meet essential requirements like Google’s Core Web Vitals, because, as the search giant says, “Optimising for quality of user experience is key to the long-term success of any site on the web.”

You’ll need to do lots of search engine optimisation on your website too, as well as earned link building, so that it’s visible to users, along with constantly updating your site’s content with fresh and compelling articles and blog posts. And then you need to ask your visitors to do something, by using clear and multiple calls to action — “contact us for more information”, “click here to download a free guide”, “use this code to get 20% off” and so on. 

A digital PR campaign to help your business online

Given the sheer size of the internet and how quickly it continues to grow, reaching out to audiences online is no simple or easy task. It’s certainly not a case of establishing a website, sitting back and hoping for the best — that traffic and new customers will come rolling in. Just because you’re on the web doesn’t mean anyone’s going to see you, and it’s a sad fact that the majority of websites perform poorly online. 

Even if companies put efforts into online content for their sites, like blogs, it doesn’t guarantee that anyone’s going to read them. We know all too well, from clients who come to us, because they’re not getting traction online, that many blog posts by companies get zero or just a few reads – after all, they’re competing with the millions of posts published every day. And so it can often amount to a massive waste of time, on everyone’s part, when internet efforts can be saved — and gigantically boosted — with the aid of creative and effective digital PR strategies. 

A good digital PR campaign is one that’s based on a firm understanding of a company’s business and what it wants to achieve online. It could be more traffic to their website, higher sales, greater social media visibility and interactions, mentions in the national and regional newspapers based on current events and just about anything else they want to do. 

Your strong shop window and a digital PR boost

With a digital PR strategy worked out, either in-house or by using the service of experts at a digital PR company, it’s time to get cracking and spread the corporate message all over the internet and get traffic for your site and new customers.. 

So, say, there’s a big news story that’s relevant to your business’ sector. Your PRs or your digital PR company can leap on it and get you online coverage with insightful comment that adds to the story and positions you as a thought leader in your industry. It can ripple out all across social media too, with comprehensive coverage that’s shared across platforms and brings new traffic to your website. 

You can even create news with a digital PR campaign, with surveys, for instance unearthing surprising and interesting facts that your target audience would be interested in. With digital PR, you also get to reach out to journalists and build mutually beneficial relationships, and you’ll have a virtual press office for your company’s needs. Your website will benefit, as you build credible links that Google will love.

Seeking help with your digital PR so your business thrives in the online economy and your website gets way more traffic? Book a free discovery call with the experts at Reachology now and find out how.