As the world continues to move online at a rapid pace, your business’s digital brand often becomes the first impression potential customers have of your business. Getting it right, therefore, is key to ensuring you not only draw in new customers, but that you’re also able to retain your current ones. By following these eight actionable steps, you can ensure your business is better positioned to survive (and thrive) in the digital business landscape.

What’s one practical step any company could take today to improve their digital brand, and why is it effective?

1. Design a Content Strategy

You need a content strategy — everything else will improve from there. You may have a surplus of creative content, but if you don’t have a strategy behind it, you most likely won’t reach your intended audience. Start by building your strategy based on the goals you want to achieve with your digital brand. The sooner you start, the sooner you will see results. – John Hall, Calendar

2. Ensure Consistency

Making sure all digital touch points are consistent is an effective way to improve a digital brand. Inconsistent messages send out conflicting information, and this can hurt a brand in the eyes of consumers. Consistency is the key to success. – Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC

3. Engage With Your Audience

The best way to improve your digital brand is to engage with your audience. If you spend plenty of time getting to know the people who visit your website and social media page, you’ll understand more about their pain points and goals. This information will give you the data you need to fine-tune your content marketing strategy and website design. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights

4. Analyze Your Reviews

Data shows that the majority of people rely on online customer reviews to make a purchase decision. One step companies can take today to improve their digital brands is to create a review strategy. This means analyzing reviews to find out what customers like and don’t like and creating a strategy to build a more positive customer experience. – Andy Pandharikar, Commerce.AI

5. Optimize Your Website’s Speed and Usability

You can dramatically boost the success of your digital brand by optimizing your website for speed and usability. The last thing you want is people to find your website, only to leave because it took too long to load. Regular maintenance and security checks can improve your site’s performance, which leads to a positive brand image. – John Turner, SeedProd LLC

6. Expand Your Presence

One way to improve your digital brand is to expand your presence. I suggest filling out your Google My Business information and using keywords that are optimized for voice search on your website. If implemented correctly, your company could show up more on mobile devices and smart speakers, which means more traffic and brand awareness. – John Brackett, Smash Balloon LLC

7. Study Your Competitors

Improving your digital brand includes checking on your competitors and studying what works for their companies. You can learn a lot from others in your industry and use it as insight for your own business. This doesn’t mean you copy their content or strategy, however. Instead take the strengths of their strategy and add them to your own. – Jared Atchison, WPForms

8. Collect Feedback

To improve your digital brand, you can collect feedback from current customers and website visitors about what works for your business and what doesn’t. You can gain insight that you didn’t previously have and use it to continue enhancing your current strategies. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms