Where Does Your Business Digital Footprint Lead?
The last post was on the importance of keeping your website well maintained. Once a repeatable schedule is set for maintaining the website, it should be expanded to maintaining your company’s digital footprint. A business digital footprint is all the content that you place on the internet about your company. It’s referred to as a footprint because it’s a sign of where you’ve been and forms an online trail of sorts to your business. Failing to maintain that digital footprint will often result in people wandering off on unintended paths that do not lead them to your business.
So how can you beat a clear path across all your channels so that people will reliably find what they need from you? It’s actually not complicated at all, just a consistent process of review and repair. The difficult aspect of the process is diligently organizing all that content to ensure it is consistently updated.
Your digital footprint can typically be split into three categories.
Directory
Many online directories have an automated process for crawling the internet and updating listings. That’s one reason that keeping information on your website current is important as it will feed updates and corrections to other channels.
But there are some important directories that rely on the owner proactively updating information. An important example of that is Google My Business. I’m surprised at how frequently I find a company’s contact info or address is incorrect on their Google listing. That’s usually a result of a move but the company either doesn’t know who to contact to update the listing or let it slip their mind completely.
Keep in mind that the listing appears for any user that searches their business directly on Google and this important digital channel is still sometimes neglected.
Ads
Search engine or social media ads sometimes get the “set it and forget it” treatment. Over time that becomes a disastrous scenario where a company is paying for ads that are either irrelevant or don’t lead users to a valid call to action.
If there is any time sensitivity to your ads, set an expiration for the campaign as soon as it gets implemented. Ongoing ads should be regularly reviewed to make sure they are productive and relevant.
Social
Company profiles are becoming increasingly important as social media information is shared across directories and search engines. Make sure that any contact information or company logistic changes get reflected in profiles across your social media channels.
Don’t misconstrue digital footprint maintenance with a censoring campaign. Often times trainers, consultants, or professional coaches focus on eliminating negative comments or references left by others. Digital footprint maintenance is a process of insuring YOUR content is accurate, not screening or filtering other people’s opinions.
Your digital footprint should help people quickly find your company, products, or services. Consistency is paramount in this process. No information does less damage than conflicting information. Keep an organized list of all your digital channels and systematically update all those channels when changes arise or content becomes outdated.