Understanding Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is the present and the future. Think about it. How many times do you see ads while you’re browsing the web, click on it, learn more about the product and service and are at least tempted to buy it. Now do the same thought exercise with a traditional marketing medium, like a flier in the mail or a billboard. You probably didn’t seek out more information because it was likely harder or you just forgot.
And the stats will back you up on that too. According to MDG Advertising, 70 percent of consumers learn about products through content (including online content on your website) versus traditional media. And according to Lyfe Marketing, about 50 percent of marketers believe that digital marketing has the advantage over traditional marketing.
But wrapping your head around digital marketing can be a challenge, especially if you’re new to the digital world.
So let’s dive into the world of digital marketing.
What is Digital Marketing?
What is digital marketing?
Well to put it simply, digital marketing is any advertising done for your business on digital channels, be it a social media platform, Google ads, content marketing, email marketing, even smartphone advertising or other forms of advertising on digital mediums.
But the biggest piece is your website, as this will be your digital home. By creating a website, you’re getting started with digital marketing for your business, organization or even just yourself.
So let’s take a look at what digital marketing is and the different elements that make up digital marketing.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is a key aspect of helping your business grow online. But what is Digital Marketing anyway? Why does it matter? And what can you do about it?
Elements of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is a pretty big topic, and there are a lot of elements to it. There’s the obvious website and social media components, but do you know about content marketing or email marketing? Let’s discuss the different elements to help you get a head start.
Why you need to be defining goals for your business website
You probably have goals for your business. But do you have any for your business’ website? If not, you’re missing out on data that could help you improve your website and ultimately your business.
A Website’s Role in Digital Marketing
Your website is your biggest and best tool when it comes to digital marketing. It is your home on the web — not your Facebook page or any other social media profiles.
You own your website and can do whatever you want and need on it to help your business, organization or even yourself.
Everything you do related to digital marketing will point back to your website so users can complete whatever goal you have for your website, whether it’s purchasing products, filling out a lead generation form, subscribing or anything else.
So let’s dive into the role your website plays in a digital marketing strategy.
What is a website actually?
On the surface, a website might seem like a basic thing. After all, you just need web hosting, a domain and an HTML file to have a website. But in reality, a website that helps your business is a lot more complex than that.
Understanding where a website fits in digital marketing
Whether you realize it or not, your business’ website is the rock of your digital marketing efforts. So if you want to utilize it to its full potential, you need to understand where it fits in your marketing efforts.
What is the goal of your website?
When you’re creating a website for your business, you need to know one major thing: what is the goal of the website? What do you need it to do to help your business? That can help you make the right decisions.
Misconceptions about Websites
There are a lot of misconceptions about websites, from the fact that if you build a website, people will find it naturally (they won’t) and that you don’t need to worry about changing your website ever (you absolutely will) and more.
So let’s take some time to debunk a few digital marketing myths.
Website Misconception: People will find you automatically (an introduction to web marketing)
So you’ve just made your new website live. Awesome. People should just flock to your site, right? Not exactly. People won’t just automatically find your website. You have to work for it.
Website Misconception: SEO is a one-time thing
If you have a website, you’ve probably heard about SEO. But maybe you think that it’s just a one-time thing that you take care and then it’s done. Think again.
Website Misconception: Websites should never change (An introduction to the iterative process)
One of the most common misconceptions about websites is that they aren’t supposed to change. That you can set it and forget it. Well, that’s not exactly true.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is a massive part of any digital marketing plan. The majority of your traffic is probably going to come from search results. And if you’re a business, you want to make sure that your business and website are showing up high in the search results.
So you’re going to need to work on an SEO strategy to drive traffic to your website. And it’s no small feat. There’s making sure your website has the right schema. Then there’s doing keyword research and creating content for those keywords. Also, you need an internal and external linking strategy. And that just touches the surface of what your SEO efforts will entail.
So let’s take a look at what SEO is and how it plays a role in your digital marketing efforts.
Why Local SEO matters and what you can do about it
SEO can be very difficult for a small business. Just getting past the “big boys” to rank on the front page is a massive task. But Local SEO allows you to rank higher for local searches, and helps you reach the right people.
Should your small business be blogging?
It can be very tempting to start blogging for your small business these days. After all, everyone has one now, right? Well, in fact it actually might not be right for your business.
How your code affects your SEO
Before you can really start to work on your SEO, you first need to make sure your website’s code is built and ready for it. Why does this matter? Search engine crawlers don’t see the page the way you and I do. They just see the code underneath. And they use that code to correctly…
Keywords and SEO
When you go to Google to search for something, what do you put in? You put in keywords. So when you’re working on your SEO for your website, your content needs to be focused on keywords that your target market is searching for and trying to rank for them. So let’s talk more about keywords,…
Tracking Your Website’s Analytics
You’re also going to be sure to track your website and digital marketing effort’s success with analytics.
The stats you can get from tools like Google Analytics can be priceless. You can see how many people are coming to your website, what pages they are looking at, how long they’re staying on your website, how your web pages are performing in search results and so much more. Plus, there are advanced tools that allow you to see ecommerce stats, funnels and more.
From here, you can use those stats to see what you need to fix on your website to make it even better and easier for users to use.
So let’s take a look at how you can get set up with analytics for your digital marketing efforts.
Getting started with Google Search Console
Google Analytics will tell you a story about your website traffic, but not about its search stats. That’s where Google Search Console comes into play.
Five things to do on your Google Analytics account
Google Analytics provides a treasure trove of information about your website’s usage stats. But it can be overwhelming when you look at it for the first time. So here are five things you can do to get started.
Take that Next Step
Ready to help your business grow with an awesome new website? Or ready to get help managing your current website while you focus on running your business? Now is the time to get started! Click one of the links to the right to get started right now and get the help you need to help your business in this digital age.