The term ‘online marketing’ can mean different things to different people. To some, it might be a tasking list of things to do, filled with activities like SEO, content marketing, and paid marketing. To others, it might be a way of thinking – a marketing approach which focuses on online behaviour rather than offline actions. No matter what perspective you take, there’s one thing which is certain – without marketing your website, you’ll never get visitors to your site.
If you’re looking to get started with online marketing but don’t know where to begin, then this page is for you. Here, we’ll identify the most important things you need to know so you can get the most out of your digital marketing efforts.
The Basics
As the name would suggest, online marketing is all about marketing your products and services online. This can include everything from advertising on social media channels to SEO, content marketing, and paid marketing. For the sake of this article, we will focus on SEO and content marketing.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is the process of getting your website listed at the top of search results for relevant keywords. Let’s take a quick example – if you’re selling flowers, you might want to optimize the keywords ‘florist London’ because lots of people are searching for ‘florist London’ when they want to buy flowers.
The more relevant keywords you have in your SEO content, the higher you will rank in search results. Having said that, too many keywords will hurt your ranking rather than help it. When creating your SEO content, keep things simple and relevant.
Optimizing Your Website For SEO
As we mentioned above, SEO is all about ranking high in search results for relevant keywords. Let’s take a quick example – if you’re selling flowers, you might want to optimize the keywords ‘florist London’ because lots of people are searching for ‘florist London’ when they want to buy flowers. Now, if you want your website to rank for these keywords, you will need to ensure that you meet the search requirements – namely, that your website has enough content dedicated to these keywords, that the content is of good quality, and that the content is consistently optimized for keywords throughout the entire website. To put it simply, in order to get high rankings in search results for a particular keyword, you need to ensure that all of the content on your website is relevant to that keyword.
The process of optimizing your website for SEO is a lot like putting together a puzzle. You need to ensure that each piece fits correctly in order to get the picture right. From a layout perspective, you might want to use a 960 grid system or a complex theme which is built on a foundation of white space. From an architectural perspective, you might want to ensure that all of your pages are structured in a way which is easy to understand and quick to navigate.
Once you’ve optimized your site for SEO, you will see a noticeable improvement in your conversion rates. In case you’re curious, you can go through the simple steps of seeing how optimizing your site for SEO changes your page load time and conversion rates here: https://developers.google.com/speed/webpagetests/.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is simply a type of marketing which focuses on creating and distributing content. This can include anything from blog posts to videos, and more. The main purpose of content marketing is to attract, engage, and delight customers by providing useful, engaging content which they might find valuable.
This is a difficult task which requires a lot of research and analysis. Before you begin content marketing, you might want to take a look at the kind of content which performs the best. From experience, content which is highly relevant to your target audience tends to perform the best – if you’re not sure what your target audience is, you can use marketing analytics tools to discover that information.
As a content marketer, you’ll create content which is tailored to suit different platforms and distribute that content via various channels. While some content marketers focus solely on organic distribution via social media or blogs, others might want to consider paid distribution platforms like Google AdWords or Facebook Ads. With paid distribution platforms, you can target your audience based on their interests and demographics rather than just their behavior on social media platforms. Simply put, you’re paying to have your content seen by the right audience rather than just relying on the ‘viral’ nature of social media to reach your target audience.
Branding
Branding is the process of associating a particular image or persona with a product. When someone thinks of ‘florist London’, they might immediately think of fancy flower shops and beautiful bouquets. With branding, you can take this feeling and associate it with a particular product or service – in this case, ‘florist London’ is the brand and ‘fancy flower shops’ is the feeling which people get when they think of florist London. Now, if you want to create this feeling for your product or service, you need to ensure that you have a consistent branding strategy in place – namely, that you match the way your product or service is presented on your website with the way you brand your product in every other part of your company. For example, if you have a retail location which carries products with a different branding strategy, your website might use the same branding strategy – if not, your customers might get confused and associate your website content with the incorrect branding. To put it simply, if you want to create a brand experience, make sure that all of your branding decisions are made to create that feeling.
Creating a brand experience for your customers is a lot like creating an atmosphere for people to enjoy – if you want people to come back and visit your website or purchase your product, you need to make sure that everything about your experience is pleasant and that you meet their needs.
Incorporating the above tips will get you on your way to a successful SEO and content marketing strategy.