Everything you do to promote your website online is digital marketing.
And your website is a central part of that marketing effort, whether you realize it or not.
But unless you have a marketing background, you might not realize that at the start. In fact, I feel like most small business owners see a website as a tool or feature, while Facebook or other social media is your “home base”. But the reality is that your website is the rock of all of your digital marketing efforts, and it’s what you should focus on first before all of the other stuff.
So here’s a quick look at how your website fits into a digital marketing plan for your website so that you can utilize it to its fullest potential.
Place to call home
Your website primarily serves as the home base for all of your digital marketing efforts. Everything you do, from normal ads, to social media marketing to Google Ads and more, will lead right back to your website.
After all, the goal is to get people to come to your website and learn more about you and turn them into customers, whether through online selling or them coming into the store. So creating and thinking about your website as a foundation for everything else you do digitally can keep all of your efforts focused on the goal.
A great way to think about this is a hub and spoke model. You website serves as the hub for everything — your content, any videos you have, products and services you sell, and other resources. And each part of your marketing strategy (like Facebook Marketing, Google Ads, etc.) are the spokes that lead from that platform to your website and hopefully turn them into customers.
So you need to make sure all of your information is on the website and that all of the content you create is on there as well. That way you can draw people from those other platforms to your website and begin converting them.
Not going to change a whole lot
Also, because your website is going to serve as the home base for all of your other online efforts, it’s probably not going to change a whole lot. Or at least you shouldn’t if you want to get better results.
The idea is that because this your home base and probably something a lot of people will recognize you for, you shouldn’t be completely changing the look of the website often. Sure, you can obviously add in new content as needed. And if you want to add some new features, like blogging or an online store, you can add those in as well.
And then maybe change the look and feel of the website only every few (read 3 to 5) years to maybe kick in some momentum if you need it. But don’t go too crazy.
Now for other things like social media or Google Ads campaigns, yeah, you can change those much more often, like every couple of months. That keeps things fresh and allows you to try other things to see if one strategy works over another.
But keep the website the same for the most part. It won’t have that big of a positive effect.
Make Sure Your Website’s Digital Marketing is Always Working
Digital marketing requires so much more than just a website. You need to make sure it’s on quality web hosting, is secure and always updated and you need to know the stats so you know if your efforts are working. The WordPress Website Care plans offer all of that to you. You get great hosting on WP Engine, security with Wordfence, weekly updates and Google services set up and running. It’s the best way to make sure your website is always working for your business.
Give Your Website the Care it Needs!Will take time to get results
Finally, you need to know that it’s probably going to take a while for the results to come in for your website and larger digital marketing campaign. A pot of water won’t immediately boil when you put it on a stove, and likewise, a new website in your marketing campaign won’t make a massive, immediate impact.
Instead, it will take time. If you’re taking a radically positive step in the SEO structure of your website, it takes time for search engines to index the new code on the website. It takes time for people to see your ads and click on them. And it can just take time for people to find your website in general.
Also, it takes time to figure out what works. What text works on callout buttons to get people to buy the product? What ad text works the best on Facebook and/or Google? Is the content I’m writing ranking for the keywords I want it to?
These questions take time and testing to figure out what is working and what still needs tweaking. So just be patient. If you play the long game, the results will come to you.
So hopefully that gives you a better idea of where your website fits in the wider digital marketing arena. It’s the anchor
If you’re interested in learning more about digital marketing, I highly suggest the Digital Marketing learning path on LinkedIn Learning. It gives you a great intro into the many aspects of digital marketing. you might not become an expert, but you’ll have a much better idea of everything that goes into it.
