Do you feel like you’re constantly struggling to figure out what will work best for your business? Chasing trends and fads as well as trying out various marketing strategies is tiring and often leaves you stuck in a rut.
If you’re looking for an easy and effective way to grow your business, you’ve probably considered trying out online marketing. The upside is that you can test many different approaches without needing to commit to a complete overhaul.
However, being successful in digital marketing requires a clear strategy. This is where things can get tricky. There are so many ways to approach SEO, PPC, and content strategy that it can be hard to know where to start. That’s where this guide comes in. We’ve identified the top online marketing strategies for 2015 and the key elements you need to make them work for your business.
SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most popular online marketing strategies because it’s so effective when done right. When a customer uses a search engine to look for a product or service online, your business website will appear in the results page because you’ve optimized it for the search engine.
There are three steps you need to take in order to successfully implement SEO: keyword research, on-site optimization, and off-site optimization. We’ll go over each one in detail so you can begin to see just how useful this strategy can be.
Keyword Research
The first step in the SEO process is to conduct keyword research and analysis. This will help you find relevant terms and phrases that are both popular and relevant to your business. Once you have these terms and phrases, you can use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find the exact phrases people are using to find your product or service. This way, you’ll be sure to find the right audience and won’t waste your time with irrelevant searches.
On-Site Optimization
Once you’ve found the right keywords, you can start using them in your on-site content. Be sure to incorporate these keywords into your site’s structure and content. This will help establish you as an expert in your industry and make it easier for people to find what they’re looking for. In addition to this, you should also consider using SEO markup and content tools like Yoast and All-in-One SEO to make sure your content is easily discoverable by search engines. You can also use SEO to create content to promote other organic listings, like your social media accounts.
Off-Site Optimization
Once you’ve implemented on-site SEO and have had some success, you can start expanding your efforts to off-site optimization. This involves working with other websites and blogs that are relevant to your business. One of the simplest and most effective ways to do this is to create articles and blog posts that are useful and insightful enough that other websites will want to feature you. Some of the best off-site SEO techniques involve getting mentioned on large forums like Reddit and Quora as well as gaining enough social media followers to have someone connect your accounts and help you spread your reach.
The more you put in it, the more you will get back. This is especially important if you’re looking to use SEO as a stand-alone strategy as it can be extremely difficult to see results without also putting in a considerable amount of effort. For best results, work on optimizing all three levels of SEO—keyword research, on-site optimization, and off-site optimization—simultaneously.