So you’ve decided to hire an agency to handle all your digital marketing so you can go laissez-faire. Still, it pays to understand the resources and methods necessary to achieve success online. Check out our answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about digital marketing and web development.
Digital marketing is no longer just an option; it’s a must for businesses (big or small; across all industries) to stay afloat in this connected world. It may sound like handling this yourself may seem like the better decision, but there are many advantages to outsourcing your digital marketing. First, doing this allows you to spend less time learning the ropes and more on improving other aspects of your business. A digital agency would already have a set of proven methodologies and tools to bring you the best results for your budget. Hiring digital marketing experts will also give you an objective look at your business and be a source of feedback you can use to improve your day-to-day.
Digital marketing won’t transform your business overnight. To get real customers, conversions, and revenue, it may take you months before you begin to see significant results from your digital marketing efforts. Where you start, the industry you’re in, your competitors, your budget, and the channels you focus on can all influence your progress. The good thing is that you’ll have access to a wide range of data and insights to refine your efforts. Digital marketing is a process: do it right and you’ll see your bottom line improve for the long term.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving the quality and quantity of traffic to your website by optimizing it for organic web searches. Most of the top search results you see on Google (or any other search engine) didn’t happen by accident. Brands have built their websites to adhere to the algorithms of SEO to reach first-page ranking. If you want your target audience to find your site, this is what you do.
You need quality website traffic because you want to attract customers who are genuinely interested in your products or services and not visitors who would click away from your website as soon as they enter. The higher your ranking is in search engine results pages (SERPs), the more traffic you will attract.
Unlike traditional advertising (which use ‘interruptive’ methods involving reaching out to customers whether they like it or not), using SEO to market your brand, product, or service is a form of ‘inbound marketing’. This marketing technique is more customer-centric in its approach. This means when customers try to look for solutions to solve their problems, they can find your brand on their own. SEO is also more cost-effective as it seeks to target your ideal audience instead of sending out ads to an arbitrary audience.
There are several ways you can get your page to reach the top of search engine rankings. The first step is to optimize for RankBrain, Google’s machine-learning AI system that handles ambiguous or brand new questions that have never been asked before. Creating content that answers queries relevant to your audience will help greatly.
Another method is to optimize for ‘near me’ search queries which involve using mobile and geotargeting as the key drivers for how you optimize your page. You will need to anticipate what your customers need, address those needs, and make your mobile experience as fast and straightforward as possible.
Other methods include optimizing your Google MyBusiness page, social media pages, voice search, and speeding up your website loading times.
Ethical SEO is the act of doing search engine marketing/optimization using only techniques and strategies that search engines deem to be acceptable. There are guidelines that are set by major search engines that you are encouraged to follow when optimizing your website for SEO. Unethical SEO (also known as black hat SEO) involves using techniques such as hidden text, keyword stuffing, page cloaking, and so on. Not only will you get penalized and lose a big chunk of traffic for doing this, you will also bring in visitors who aren’t relevant to your business.
On-page SEO is done when web developers optimize individual web pages as a way to rank higher in the SERPs and earn relevant traffic. On-page SEO involves optimizing content as well as the HTML source code, as opposed to off-page SEO, which involves backlinks and other external signals. It is important to keep your web pages up-to-date with the latest best practices.
Link building is the process of getting links leading to your website in order to drive referral traffic and increase your site’s authority.
There are two types of links: inbound links and internal links. Also known as backlinks or external links, inbound links are HTML hyperlinks that lead from one website to another. Think of inbound links as positive votes regarding the quality of your website that search engines use to measure your importance on the web.
Internal links, on the other hand, are links that lead to pages from the same domain. This has to be done naturally and not in a spammy way. A high amount of these links would provide a signal to Google that your web page is something valuable and must be ranked higher. It also helps users better navigate your website.
Content marketing is an approach that focuses on the creation and distribution of relevant and consistent content to attract your ideal audience and get them to convert. This is a long-term strategy that seeks to establish a lasting relationship with your audience by giving them value.
In order to boost SEO rankings and get quality leads, your website needs to have useful, relevant content. Content is the perfect opportunity for you to express what sets your brand apart and how you can be of value to customers. So what makes content great? There are a few things to consider. First, be original. Copying other people’s content will not put you in Google’s good graces. You also have to make it a goal to capture your audience as quickly as possible. Also, make sure that your content is actionable — meaning you have to give users an idea on how to properly apply what they just learned. You can also add images and video to not bore your audience with long blocks of texts. And lastly, add fresh content to your website regularly and reoptimize your least performing pages.
Ecommerce is one of the fastest-growing industries that have revolutionized our way of living. It gives you the complete freedom to buy whatever, whenever, and wherever. Ecommerce businesses must have a website that is fast, easy to use, responsive, mobile-friendly, and straightforward. Security and data protection are also a big plus since customers usually buy online using their credit cards.
Having a clear brand for your company is one way to win new customers and keep the ones you have. Brands set expectations and so when you have a website with clearly-defined branding, you are telling your customers that you mean business. A solid brand could influence customers into choosing you over the competition.
Google Ads, formerly Google Adwords, is a paid advertising platform where you run ads on Google’s display network or affiliate websites/apps and get charged each time a user clicks on an ad. According to Google, advertisers make $8 per dollar spent on Google Ads. That means, with a properly optimized ad, you can get a considerable ROI.
Paid social encompasses all forms of advertising done on social media platforms. It’s a great way to get leads from social media’s constantly active and engaged users. Nowadays, organic content doesn’t drive as much traffic as before. Organic tweets reach only around 10% of followers, and a Facebook page of about a million likes only get a 2.27% organic engagement rate. Paying for social ads will help your brand immensely, especially if you make use of the sophisticated audience targeting tools social media platforms have.
Taking care of your customers is a crucial part of your business. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategy that involves managing your company’s relationship with current and potential customers. When it comes to digital marketing, the term CRM usually refers to a digital tool used to facilitate this kind of customer management.
Simply put, email marketing is the process of sending out emails to promote products, gain new customers, and generate repeat sales from your current customer pool. Email marketing helps businesses educate their customers about their brand. Emails are also an inexpensive way to market your product or service, and are easy to set up and track, too. Open rates are also high if you send out bespoke campaigns to the right audience at the right time.
Chief Marketing Officers are responsible for developing marketing strategies to facilitate growth and increase sales, as well as help organizations gain a competitive advantage. It is the CMO’s job to identify the company’s position in the marketplace, determine where the company is headed, and execute strategies based on well-defined metrics. Outsourcing CMO responsibilities is highly-recommended, especially for brands that are still just starting out. It is also more cost-effective than hiring and onboarding an in-house CMO.