Introduction To Digital Marketing
So, you have the perfect domain name, a solid host for your website, engaging and well-crafted content and a feature-rich website ready for business. Now what?
A website isn’t going to magically bring customers to you, yet to be successful, your site needs visitors. Let’s look at various ways you can attract visitors to your new website and what to do when you get them there.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing is the practice of marketing a business through paid advertisements that appear on search engine results pages (SERPs). Advertisers are able to bid on keywords their potential customers may be using in their searches when looking for certain products or services. The highest bids get the better placements.
The thing that makes SEM such an effective tool in digital marketing is that it offers advertisers the opportunity to put their ads in front of customers who are already motivated to buy. No other advertising medium can do this, so it’s no wonder SEM is such a powerful way to grow your business. Another positive is that you only pay for the ads when they’re clicked on. This is called a pay-per-click (PPC) system for that very reason.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is another acronym you’ve no doubt been exposed to, whether you understand its meaning or not. In a nutshell, Search Engine Optimization is maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on a list of results returned by a search engine. This is achieved two ways:
1) By identifying keywords and ensuring they are present in your website content
2) Improving your site’s reputation as a whole
These two aspects are known as On Page and Off Page Optimization in the web development field.
On Page Optimization is the process of identifying keyword searches that are being used by your prospective customers and then ensuring that your site is relevant for these search terms. Off Page Optimization is the process of building up the reputation of your site as a whole and improving the relevance and reputation of specific pages for given search terms.
Be aware that your search ranking depends on various factors such as the level of competition, the location of the user searching, outside links to your site and so on. For more information on SEO, visit yippeeweb.com/seo
Email Marketing
Smart email marketing considers everything from upselling related products to reminding visitors of abandoned shopping carts. You have the ability to keep in touch and resell to existing customers as well as a means to edge prospective customers towards making their first purchase.
Email is often used to promote content, discounts and events, as well as to direct people toward the business’s website. The types of emails you might send include:
- Blog subscription newsletters
- Follow-up emails to website visitors who downloaded PDF or some other document
- Welcome and Thank You emails
- Holiday promotions to loyalty program members
- Customer nurturing
- Gift card promotions
It’s a tool you use every day most likely, but are you utilizing it to build and maintain relationships with your customers? If the benefits of email marketing are unused, you might be missing easy opportunities to boost conversions.
Lead Generation
Although sending out emails is extremely important, you will get nowhere without a list of prospects. Where does that list come from?
You can buy a list of “prospects”, but be conscious of the fact that they’ve probably already been heavily targeted. What you should really do is devise a strategy for harvesting email addresses from your site visitors. Rather than chasing for leads, you rely on your system which perpetually keeps on generating leads.
This requires providing something of use to your market, for free. This is where eBooks like the one you are reading now can be helpful. Or maybe you can offer a free report on a topic in your field of expertise. The idea is to provide a piece of content that is highly useful to your target audience and then promote it rather than the commercial aspects of your business. This is where building relationships and gaining credibility catapults your business.
Social Media Marketing
Unlike email marketing, there is no simple way to utilize social media networks. You will need to spend some time considering how to best take advantage of what is available. You have so many options at your disposal: online communities, blogs, videos and more!
The best way to utilize social media is to engage with your audience and invite them to respond. By showing up and serving them interesting and stimulating content via their Facebook/Twitter accounts, you’re constantly reminding them who to call when they need your products or services. All of this is done in a relaxed way, building relationships which lead to direct commercial benefits in the long-term. Plus, you have the ability to target specific criteria with these platforms’ advertising packages, making your message very direct to the people you want to reach most.
It might seem counter intuitive, but on social media you don’t always need to promote your products. If you are a very product-oriented business, then customers might go to your competitor when they offer cheaper prices. You want to make a brand of your company on social media which transcends your products and helps to build a natural and sustainable relationship with customers. It is important that people view your business as a living entity that offers them something meaningful rather than just a bunch of products.
Offline Marketing
When you have built your new website, it can be tempting to concentrate solely on ranking well in search engines as a way to generate success. However, your business itself is full of opportunities for you to further promote your online presence.
First of all, add your web address to all of your printed materials. That’s your business cards, flyers, advertisements, letterheads, company vehicles and any other promotional items. You may also find ways to collaborate with your favorite local charity or radio show for some kind of giveaways to build more interest and awareness.
Another important thing we always forget is utilizing the most effective yet simple way of all- word of mouth. Just remember that you have a business and any time you are conversing with someone, and a relevant topic comes up, let the other person know you have this business. It does not even have to be that you are selling your products or services to them; everyone should know that you have this business and somebody they know might use your services even if they do not need it.
Summary
There’s no way to discuss all the successful website marketing techniques, but now you have a starting point. There’s more to making your website a success than just building it and waiting for the visitors to roll in. You start with the foundation, then build from there with the website marketing strategies we’ve shared and any others you find along the way.
