What does online visibility mean to a business?

E-commerce websites depend on new and organic Web traffic to survive. Unique visitors are the catalyst of a successful ecommerce platform, and new users cannot be attracted to a business's website if it's not visible online.

What is online visibility?

Visibility online is the overall presence of a brand or its products in the general consumer environment. A business can have a great website, but how are users expected to find it it's not visible? Search traffic can only direct so many unique visitors. Ecommerce platforms typically provide SEO tools, but business owners still share a slice of responsibility when it comes to improving online visibility.

Why is it important?

Traffic isn't a direct correlation to bottom-line revenue, but a unique and successful ecommerce website will do well in turning visitors to buyers. The absence of new visitors will lead to no sales and a decline in profits.

There are a handful of reasons why online visibility is important:

• It lets users find your site on their own

• Unique visitors, or new daily visitors, are customers supporting your business

• Online visibility helps with brand reputation, or how a business is perceived in the marketplace

• Brand reputation helps a website stand out from its competition

How to improve online visibility

There are a number of ways an online retail platform can improve upon its online visibility. They are as follows:

• Utilize SEO tools an ecommerce platform provides, such as keyword linking

• Include relevant long-tail and short-tail keywords

• Interact with followers on social media

• Use outbound and inbound links so Google can index cached pages

• Set up a Google account and monitor analytics

• Publish fresh, relevant content on a regular basis

• Gather and publish digital content, such as video, images or value-added materials

• Promote local websites

• Get involved in the coding of the website, including meta tags and header tags

• Take note of what any competition is doing; try and emulate their success

Search engines now look for websites that have meaningful information on them and are weeding out the websites that stuff keywords to get more clicks. Engaging content will help develop a better buyer relationship because visitors will find value in visiting your website.

Online visibility is not static. A business must take the aforementioned tips and continually reinforce its platform, otherwise the content and platform will become stale. Once that happens, credibility drops in the search engine algorithms, hence lowering visibility overall.