Digital marketing is everything that happens after the build of your website. It can include getting the right people to your website, and also getting them to trust you. Without digital marketing, having a good website isn’t enough to get any customers.
There are several components which comprise a successful digital marketing campaign for business online. We take a look at them below.
1. SEO and PPC aren’t rivals, they’re different timelines
Search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) are not rivals – in fact, they can work to different timelines. For immediate visibility, PPC can work well but costs per click can soon add up. Meanwhile, good SEO can take time to work but after initial set up, costs can be minimal. Most small businesses are best served by combining both for immediate results and for the longer term. This is especially the case in the early days after a website launch when organic rankings have yet to have a chance to develop.
2. Search itself is changing
Most search queries are now answered directly by the search engine via a summary (e.g. an AI generated extract) of the most relevant content on the web rather than a list of web links. As a result of this shift in behavior of search engines, being the definitive and clear source of information on specific topics and writing in a clear and human manner to answer questions (rather than producing vague and thin content) is now more important than ever. The era of SEO as we have come to know it is not coming to an end, but the quality of content and how it is written to answer specific questions is becoming more important.
3. Local visibility matters more than most businesses realise
Showing up in local search results on Google (particularly your Google Business Profile) can in many cases be more powerful than your actual website. In many local search queries (decide-stage search) users are comparing businesses and visiting their websites to make informed decisions. As a result, getting your business details listed consistently across all platforms and obtaining genuine reviews from satisfied customers can be more powerful than anything else.
4. Content marketing works when it answers real questions
Content marketing works when it answers real questions, not when it is a large pile of thin, generic content that is full of padding to reach a certain word count. Thin, generic content is normally produced by businesses who treat content marketing as a numbers game. These businesses publish content on a regular basis, hoping that something, at some point, will rank. It does not. Instead, search engines, like Google, tend to ignore thin, generic content. And readers, like potential customers, tend to be bored by thin, generic content.
5. Email and social media are relationship channels, not broadcast channels
Email and social media are relationship channels and should be treated as such. Posting messages like announcements will get you nowhere fast. In fact, less but better thought out messages will get more results. Also, pay close attention to what your audience is looking for and what works for them.
6. Analytics tell you what’s actually happening, not what you assume is happening
Here’s another way of thinking about it – analytics tell you what’s actually happening on your website rather than what you assume is happening. This means you can be mistaken in your attempts to gain more online presence. Using analytics to track your website traffic allows you to see what’s really happening on your website. This includes which pages of your website people are visiting, where they are exiting from your website and what actions people are taking on your website just before they contact you.
7. Consistency compounds, one-off campaigns don’t
You can read plenty of articles about how easy it is to get more traffic to your website with a digital marketing campaign. In practice, of course, it isn’t quite as simple as that. Rather than a short, sharp increase in traffic to your website following a one-off digital marketing campaign, you need to build a successful online presence and achieve a consistent level of traffic and conversions.
8. Strategy over tactics
The line of thinking behind “trending” digital marketing tactics to use for your business is wrong, though. Tactics without a solid underlying strategy for how you will achieve your goals in the long run can certainly be active and seemingly productive for a while, but in the end they generally net little to no real results. However, starting with a solid underlying strategy for your business in terms of who you are trying to reach as customers and what they need to see and experience in order to trust your business enough to contact you or make a purchase can help guide just about every aspect of your online marketing efforts (i.e. the various online channels, schedules, and messages that you will use to reach your customers) in the most effective way possible.
None of this will mean anything if you don’t already have a business worth marketing. The purpose of digital marketing is to get people to notice you. Once they have noticed you it is up to you and your business to decide what happens next.
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