Within the food and beverage industry, the need to stand out from the crowd has never been more important. If you have been fortunate enough to remain open or partially remain open, you may have considered ways to further stay afloat with an increased online presence.
Fortunately, there are a number of ways to build an online presence for your food and beverage company, with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), paid search and paid & organic social media.
As organic traffic is responsible for 53% of all web traffic, according to SEO Tools Guru, devising your SEO strategy can be a great place to begin. This means that, if your audience is searching for a product they’re interested in buying, they may well find you at the top of the search engine results page (SERP).
Piecing together a strategic SEO plan is like making your favourite dish. There are a variety of ‘ingredients’ needed to make your SEO strategy a success, but having the right proportion of each component is crucial in making the campaign a roaring success while factoring in how much time to dedicate to each component.
The Evolution of Online Food Shopping
According to statistics from the Drum, 25% of UK shoppers purchase their groceries online. Although, online grocery shopping is continuing to grow each year. If your product or service is B2B, then you can expect this rate to be much higher.
Many food and beverage businesses have opted for both local and nationwide campaigns, offering food and drink subscriptions services to their customers. Digital Ethos specialise in a range of food subscription marketing tactics to boost your online presence and reach the right audience, from brand ambassador marketing to user-generated content on social media.
Building an Online Presence
More commonly, we think we know what needs to be done to market a brand, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good focus of our time or money.
Nowadays, it can be nearly impossible to make it into the competitive marketplace without having an online presence. Without an online presence, you’re solely relying on word of mouth as your strategy, which is not the most effective route to take.
A mobile-friendly website must have quick-loading pages with a secure online payment gateway that is simple and intuitive to use. After all, if your website isn’t made accessible and quick to use, buyers are likely to drop off before they get to the final stage. Google also ranks websites that provide value to customers, so if your mobile-friendly website does just that, there’ll be a higher chance of your website being noticed.
Another way to stand out with search is to encourage buyers to leave a review through Google My Business, a public dashboard where you can respond to reviews, publish posts, and answer questions asked by your audience on your Business Profile. Google My Business is a reliable source of information, and as such, Google will rank your website better if your loyal customers are regularly adding positive reviews of your products or service.
Combining Social Media With Your SEO Strategy
As well as leaving positive feedback on your Google My Business profile, your buyers will love to talk about a great dish or delicious drink over social media. We all love to tell others about customer experience, whether it be good or bad.
Social media makes it easier to strike up a conversation and makes it possible for others to find you. After all, if you run a fine-dining restaurant and a diner shares a photo of their meal on their Instagram stories, as an example, they are likely to tag the location of the restaurant, which will prompt their network to browse your social media profile. While this is likely to only be a small percentage of their following that view your profile, this can still direct numerous foodies over your way.
Having an active presence on social media is just as valuable as having an SEO strategy, and can really compliment your website.
Social media is treated like any other pages in Google’s web index, therefore having an active social media presence can make the world of difference with your website presence.
Use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even LinkedIn to strike up conversations with your audience about their favourite products from your range, and use your platforms to learn more about your audience. Running paid social media ads is another way of widening your reach and gaining user traction and visibility of your site. There may be people that aren’t searching for your brand on Google, but there’s a chance they won’t consider your brand unless they see a social ad on their feed.
Food and Beverage SEO
An online presence doesn’t help if you do not have the right SEO strategy in place. Food and beverage search engine optimisation (SEO) is the best way to bring consistent inbound leads to your website.
Food and beverage SEO is the best way to organically connect your product to your customers, having a social media presence would be an added benefit to help you exceed your goals.