10 Web Properties Your Company Needs for Better Visibility (And How to Use Them)
How’s your company’s online visibility doing these days?
If you’re not sure, one very rough way to answer this question is to Google (or Bing) your company’s exact-match term — a fancy way of saying “your company’s name.”
Go on, we can wait.
Done? Good. You know more about how your company looks to outsiders seeking information on it now than you did a minute ago. This is a good thing.
And if the information this exercise has revealed is of concern to you? Well, that’s okay too, provided you’re willing to work to address those concerns.
Doing so might not be as difficult as you imagine. Your company has a ready-to-go reserve of high-visibility digital properties that it can quickly leverage to improve its quality and quantity of relevant search engine results. Under the right circumstances, these properties could even help suppress negative or neutral search results that actively harm (or do nothing to improve) your company’s digital image.
You already control some of these properties directly, whether you realize it or not. Others, you have less control over, but can nevertheless bend to your will.
Ready to learn more about each? Let’s dive in with a name that everyone reading knows by heart.
1. Facebook
Yeah, Facebook needs no introduction. Your company most likely has a Facebook page already, but that doesn’t mean it’s using Facebook the way Facebook is meant to be used. There’s much you can do to optimize your presence on the Western world’s most popular social media platform:
- Make sure your contact information is totally filled out and up to date
- Include a link to your company website
- Post multiple short updates and one longer update each week
- Optimize your company description with the top keywords you want to rank for in organic search
- Build out your Facebook media library with photos of your products, staff, media placements, and more
Because it attracts a disproportionate amount of your company’s organic web traffic, your Facebook profile deserves disproportionate attention. Don’t let it twist in the wind.
2. Wikipedia (Or One of Its Alternatives)
Facebook might be the highest-visibility website your company is likely to target, but Wikipedia is arguably the most authoritative. Visit the Wikipedia page for any blue-chip company and you’ll see the value of a well-produced spot on this website — the Wikipedia page for Asiaciti Trust, a fiduciary services firm in the Asia-Pacific region, is a great example. There’s nowhere better to tell your company’s story in credible, no-nonsense terms.
The catch: not every company is “notable” enough to earn its own Wikipedia page. If you’re not there yet, don’t despair. You have alternatives: Everybodywiki, Anywiki, and some others. Target those to start and keep working toward the Big Wiki.
3. LinkedIn
LinkedIn isn’t just a place to tell your company’s story in your own words. It’s also a powerful marketing platform that pulls extra duty as a double-wide sales funnel. In other ways: LinkedIn is really, really important to your company’s growth strategy. Treat it accordingly.
4. Twitter
Do you really need to spend time tweeting when you’ve got LinkedIn updates to write and Facebook videos to post?
Actually, yes. Twitter serves a smaller but still vital audience that’s unusually plugged-in. If your marketing strategy involves any earned media at all — and it should — then Twitter needs to be front and center.
5. Instagram
Instagram is the most visible web property where it’s perfectly acceptable for even the most buttoned-up company to show its softer, more casual side. Indeed, many storied companies devote their Instagram accounts entirely to the sorts of content at which a card-carrying influencer would nod in approval: expertly filtered sunsets, scrumptious spreads, out-and-about candids. Instagram Live is a fantastic tool for anywhere-anytime guerrilla marketing too.
6. Pinterest
Pinterest is another visual medium that helps brands show a softer side, if one that’s still filtered for public consumption. If your organization sells physical products, use Pinterest to serve up tailored recommendations to the sorts of consumers you want on your side early in the product lifecycle.
7. Medium
Medium is a ready-to-go blogging platform for publishers that can’t be bothered to maintain their own blogs. Plus, let’s be honest: Your blog is way less heavily trafficked than Medium’s main domain, which is one of the web’s busiest. Stop resisting; start writing.
8. YouTube
YouTube must be the epicenter of your video marketing strategy. Not because it’s the world’s most popular video platform (it is) or because it ranks exceptionally well in Google’s search results (not least because it’s owned by Google) but because YouTube inspires enviable loyalty. YouTube’s audience is broad and deep, and many of its members spend inordinate amounts of time on the platform, passively consuming videos directly and indirectly related to their affinities. You can’t afford not to add content to their feeds.
9. Crunchbase
Compared with YouTube, Crunchbase is a very different beast. It’s valuable in a different way: essentially, as a social encyclopedia entry that contains objective (but favorably presented) facts about your business. As with Wikipedia, a Crunchbase listing is an unambiguous sign that you’ve “arrived.” Don’t think your prospects won’t take note.
10. Better Business Bureau
You can’t directly control the content that appears on your Better Business Bureau listing, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it. On the contrary: You need to claim your BBB page (if it exists) as soon as possible and take measures to address any negative feedback that appears on it. Your prospects won’t give you the benefit of the doubt if you don’t.
Better Visibility Awaits
— If you do what’s needed to bring it about, that is. Online visibility isn’t a fundamental right, of course. It’s something that must be worked for and won, over and over again.
After reading this, you shouldn’t be daunted by what’s involved in that fight. On the contrary, you should be excited and energized, ready to do what’s necessary to improve your digital profile and muscle out the competition.
These 10 web properties all hold tremendous promise for your business. Now that you know how to leverage them to your advantage, there’s no excuse not to do so at your earliest convenience. As we’ve said, this is more like a marathon than a sprint, and those with a head start tend to finish ahead of schedule.
