Whether you’re marketing to government contractors, businesses or consumers, your online presence matters now more than ever. 

In fairness, the argument seems almost counterintuitive. At a time when search is being splayed and splintered and the 800-pound gorilla (aka Google) is losing weight, if not influence, how is it possible that an organic and optimized online presence is more important?

That’s a great question (thank you).

Here’s the thing you need to wrap your head around: whether you are relying on a traditional search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo), opting for a social platform browser (Facebook, Instagram, X) or using another source (Amazon, ChatGPT, Alexa), every search engine pretty much operates the same way, conducting searches through crawling, indexing and ranking. That is to say, they look for content on the internet, organize and store the data and then determine the relevance of results based on keywords, content quality, backlinks, etc.

Huh? Exactly.

So, I do not want to go down any rabbit holes here and offer my opinions on any aspect of search. I simply want to share that when anyone conducts a search through any search engine, there is a chance – if you do it right – that they will find your online content, then index and rank it.

Assuming you want to be found by a particular audience – or many particular audiences – your online presence matters more than ever. And we are not just talking about your website, which of course is teaming with valuable search-optimized content. We are also talking about landing pages, social platforms, videos, media coverage, speaking engagements, sponsorships, advertising – all of which are aligned with purposeful messaging and imagery that complement each other and reflect your corporate brand.

Because now – more than ever – AI tools are increasingly scanning online sources for information, dramatically increasing the likelihood of your organization being identified by AI-powered market research tools used by your customers and prospects.

Unless of course, your online presence sucks, in which case, no worries… because no one will ever see it anyway.