In days gone by, people would flock to the town square to meet with neighbors, catch up on local news, and generally just socialize with one another. With the rise of the ‘net, this has given way to online communities where people can come together to share information and connect with others.
One of the greatest things about the internet is how easy it makes it for businesses to connect with potential customers. Thanks to online directories like Google Shopping and Amazon Product Ads, as well as SEO (search engine optimization) tools like Google Analytics and Hootsuite, marketers can gain valuable intel about their customers without having to spend lots of money on expensive marketing tools. And what’s more, they can do all of this from the comforts of their home.
Not sure how SEO and online marketing work together? Here’s a brief introduction.
SEO
SEO, short for “search engine optimization”, is the process of tweaking your web content and/or website structure in order to rank higher in search engine results. There are many “SEO experts” who can help you plan out a game-changing strategy for your business, but ultimately it’s up to you to follow through and put it into action.
SEO is all about making your website stand out above the rest. The better your SEO, the more visitors you’ll draw in. You can use a variety of tactics to rank higher, including getting link backs from high-quality websites, creating high-quality content that other websites want to share, and building a brand for yourself in your industry. With SEO, it’s all about knowing your audience and what they want, so you can provide them with the best experience possible when they are searching for a product or service like yours.
Online Marketing
If you’re new to the world of online marketing, chances are you’ve heard of SEO, thanks to its rising popularity. But have you ever heard of online marketing?
What is online marketing, and how does it differ from SEO?
Simply put, “online marketing” is the process of getting someone to click on a website link (or a product mention) in order to learn more about a product or service.
As the name would suggest, online marketing is often done online – typically via social media networks like Facebook or Instagram as well as websites like Google and YouTube. Because it involves “marketing” a product or service online, online marketers must also be knowledgeable about social media platforms like Twitter and YouTube, as well as the various email marketing platforms like MailChimp and Constant Contact.
In general, your online marketing strategy should include some combination of SEO and social media, as well as the two strategies discussed below.
Search Engine Optimization and Paid Search
In order to rank higher in search engine results, you need to optimize your website or blog for various search engines (like Google, Bing, and others).
There are free tools like Google Analytics that show you exactly how people found your site, which keywords they used to search for, and how they interacted with your content. Knowing this information makes it easier to target the right audience and find the right words to attract them.
Another important consideration when optimizing your site is mobile friendliness. After all, more and more people are using mobile devices to access the web. Your site needs to be “mobile-friendly” so that it can be easily accessed from a smartphone. To facilitate this, make sure that your site uses proper HTML5 markup, has a streamlined design, and is mobile-friendly.
Sometimes, in order to rank higher in search engines, you need to spend money. This is where paid search comes in. With paid search, you are basically paying (usually) Google or (less commonly) Bing to promote your product or service in the “sponsored posts” section of the search results.
These are expensive tools, but they can help businesses of all sizes and budgets get their product or service in front of the right audience. The success of paid search depends on a number of factors, including your budget, your niche, and your targeted keywords. But in general, if you want to make money online, paid search is a good way to do so. Just remember, the higher your budget, the better.
The Importance of Content
It’s important to note that SEO and online marketing aren’t stand-alone strategies. Instead, they work together to form a cohesive whole. The better your content, the better your SEO. Why? Because having more content means you have more to offer, which means you can potentially draw in more traffic and make more money. This is also why creating video content is so popular in the age of SEO and online marketing.
What’s important is that you establish a strategy first and then implement it. It would be wise to take the time to learn from experts, figureheads in your industry, and even the little things that work well (and don’t work well) in your own business.
One of the most important things for any business is brand awareness. By building and maintaining a strong brand, you make customers more likely to purchase your products or visit your website, as well as make other businesses more likely to do business with you. Essentially, a strong brand gives you a leg up in sales. It takes time to build credibility and trust with customers, but once you have, you can use that to your advantage.
So how does a business establish a brand? It starts with excellent content and continues with effective social media and SEO strategy. As you’ll discover below, all of these elements work together to form a cohesive strategy for businesses of all sizes and budgets.
The Essential Elements of a Winning SEO and Online Marketing Strategy
In order to establish a successful SEO and online marketing strategy, you need to pay close attention to a number of crucial factors, including the following:
Keyword Planning & Research
It’s important to note that SEO and online marketing are almost always combined with other marketing strategies, like paid search or social media. Because you’re often working with keywords and phrases, it’s crucial that you do your research before making any kind of strategy or move.
One of the most crucial elements of a SEO strategy is keyword research. When doing your keyword research, you need to enter your industry, then enter the words and phrases that you’ll use in your content. For example, if you’re a landscaping business in the Philadelphia area, you may want to enter “Philadelphia landscaping” as well as “flower delivery” and see what comes up.
Even when doing keyword research, it’s important not to just look at the number of times a word or phrase is searched for. Instead, you need to look at the number of times that someone is searching for that word or phrase versus the total number of searches.
Content Planning & Research
After you’ve entered your industry and have a decent list of keywords and phrases, it’s time to move onto the next step: creating content. This is where things can get a little bit tricky because you don’t want to spam your users with content that’s not relevant to them. You also don’t want to write an entire encyclopedia just to prove to Google (or Bing) that you can write quality content. Instead, find the middle road and create content that’s useful to your audience.
When it comes to creating value-add content, there are several different types of content that you can use, including videos, infographics, case studies, and more.
As you can see, not all content is created equal. Some content only provides entertainmentvalue, while other content is meant to be extremely valuable.
Link Building & Social Media
In order to make your SEO strategy work, you need to be sure to build backlinks, or inbound links, to your site. As the name would suggest, backlinks are links that point to your site. They’re also often used to measure your website’s “value” and determine your position in the search engine rankings. The more valuable and relevant these backlinks are, the higher you’ll rank.
Backlinks can come from a variety of places, including guest posts on other websites, mentions on social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn, and more.
When establishing a social media presence, you need to make sure that you’re engaging with your followers and creating a good experience for them. When doing this, make sure that you always provide value (good content that’s relevant and helpful to your audience), that you’re posting frequently, and that you’re responding to comments.