If you’re reading this, I assume you’re already somewhat familiar with online marketing. You’ve probably built a brand for yourself on social media, created memes and shared articles to engage readers, and learned basic SEO strategies. But maybe you’ve even done a bit more than that. You’ve got a product to sell and you want to make sure your online presence connects with your audience. In this article, we’ll discuss six key things you need to know as the digital marketer for a business.

Design A Website That Works

This one may seem obvious, but it’s crucial to keep in mind. Your website is your digital billboard, your shop window, and it’s essential that you design it to convert. That means you need to focus on usability, simplicity, and most importantly, you need to avoid using all caps and overly complex language. These are all huge turn-offs for users, and research has shown that complex language on a page can hinder your ability to have a successful SEO strategy. Don’t get me wrong, UX is important, but you need to do everything you can to have an effective SEO strategy. In terms of design, make sure you use the right images, create a mood board, do some A/B testing, and take into account the way people interact with your products and services on social media. For example, if you sell shoes, make sure you include images of people wearing your shoes and that your copy is simple and to the point.

Don’t Forget About Mobile

Around 80% of the population now uses mobile phones. That’s a lot of people you need to consider when designing your digital strategy. Not only do they have access to the internet via mobile phones, but they also use social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to share and discover new ideas and products. For that reason, you need to make sure that your website is responsive. That means it needs to adjust to the screen size of whatever device someone is using to view it. So if you’re designing a desktop site, don’t forget about the mobile audience. You can use tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Finder to easily find out whether or not your site is mobile-friendly. If you’re curious, you can also use the device you’re on to check the responsiveness of the site.

SEO Is About More Than Just Page Rank

Nowadays, we often think about SEO in terms of page rank. While this is still relevant, it’s not the whole story. In today’s world, SEO is about much more than just getting your page ranked highly in search engines. It’s about driving qualified traffic to your site from organic searches. And while this may seem obvious, a lot of businesses think that SEO is performed magically by getting some keywords in the right place. The truth is, this doesn’t work for EVERY business. You need to have a plan and you need to use the right keywords and phrases to effectively drive qualified traffic to your site. Once you do, you’ll see your bounce rate decrease and your conversion rate increase. You can also use Google Analytics to easily track the keywords and phrases people are using to find your website.

Content Is King

While good design and SEO are both important, effective content is what makes the biggest difference. The old adage ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’ is certainly true, and your blog posts, articles, and social media posts are all forms of content that can help drive traffic to your site. When it comes to creating content, you need to think about who your audience is and what they want. Ask yourself questions like:

• What do I want my blog post to be talking about?

• Who is my audience and what do they want?

• Can I write something that will make my audience feel better?

You can also use tools like Google Trends to easily find the popularity of ANY niche or topic. Looking for trending topics can help you find the most relevant content for your site. You can use this content to engage with your audience and start a conversation.

Social Is The Key

While Google is the most popular search engine, don’t forget about the power of social media to drive traffic to your site. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are all popular platforms used for marketing and communication. Your business may already have a presence on these platforms, but you should be using them to engage with potential customers. The key is to use relevant, interesting content to encourage your followers to share your posts. You can also ask your customers and potential customers for suggestions on what to write about. Not only does this get your content out there to more people, but it builds credibility for your business.

Local Is Important

If your potential customers are geographically located near you, you may want to consider local SEO. This is when optimizing your site for searches in your local area. If you’re curious, you can use Google’s Geo-targeting to find the areas that are closest to you. You can also use the reverse geocode to find out the latitude and longitude of any location. These coordinates can be used to find out the city and state. Remember, the closer the match, the more traffic you’ll see from those searches. You can use this to your advantage by setting up shop near a reputable retail store, restaurant, or cafe in your community.

Create Memes And Trends

With the world moving at the speed of technology, it’s important to be able to keep up with the times. That’s why we’ve seen the mainstreaming of memes. Before memes were ‘mainstream’, we didn’t have the capability to communicate effectively using images. Now that we can share memes easily on social media, businesses are taking advantage of the fact that people want to engage with images. You can use memes to make your content more engaging and to encourage your audience to share it with their followers. If you’ve got an eye for comedy, you can even create your own meme to inspire others.

Measure And Optimize Based On Research

To have an effective strategy, you need to measure the results of your efforts. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to hire a professional to do the measurement. You can use tools like Google Analytics to easily track the results of your online marketing strategy. With this tool, you can set up different profiles to track the results of various campaigns. To start, create a generic profile to track the average results of your site. From there, you can optimize the profile based on the results of your analysis. Doing this can help you determine the direction of your strategy moving forward.

Nowadays, SEO is more important than ever before. Back in the day, you would have all sorts of SEO ‘gurus’ claiming that this is the way to go. And while there are still some good old-fashioned SEO tricks that work, in the long run, content is what will make or break your SEO strategy.