Digital marketing is a complex, multi-layered strategy that involves dozens of techniques. As communications technology evolves and search engines become more sophisticated, this field becomes more complex. It is fairly common for business owners and professionals to feel intimidated by digital marketing even if they don’t need to be. Here’s a brief, concise guide on how to get started and establish a strong foundation for your business:
1. Create a Responsive Website
This should be obvious, but there are a surprising number of brick-and-mortar establishments and even online businesses that rely on social media or marketplaces. They don’t create a dedicated platform for their products or company, just setting up a shop on Etsy or selling on Amazon. While both of these avenues are great for finding an audience, they don’t really help businesses establish an independent presence.
The first step is to create a responsive, well-designed website that works well on mobile devices. Make sure the design represents your brand well and is search engine-friendly. This is important because more than 60% of online traffic comes from mobile phones and even Google gives mobile search priority.
2. Optimize It for Search Engine
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is one of the most powerful strategies you can employ when you’re just starting. It isn’t a quick and easy marketing solution so you won’t get organic traffic immediately, but SEO offers several advantages. It can help you establish a long-term presence online, help you showcase your authority, and encourage customer trust.
SEO is relatively easy to maintain once it is up and running. You just need to refine your website once in a while, upgrade your content, and build a strong link profile. A strong SEO foundation will only help your future digital marketing endeavors.
3. Invest Resources in Backlinking
Backlinking is a part of SEO, but it is so important that it deserves special mention. It is the most important ranking factor and Google relies on backlinks to determine just how trustworthy a website is. Link building is a difficult strategy that requires a lot of hard work. You need to create impressive and informative content that people will link back to. This often involves investing in research, coming up with your own findings, putting together scattered information, and more.
Once you have impressive content, you need to reach out to high-authority websites with strong domain and page ranks for backlinks. They will only link back to your website if they are impressed with what they find. However, once they do it, you have a strong foundation and reputation in the industry. That’s why backlinking is a worthwhile strategy that can help your business grow.
4. Use PPC To Bridge the Gap
SEO, content writing, social media marketing, and other such digital marketing strategies take time. You need to work on establishing a strong online presence to get any visible results. PPC bridges the gap and can deliver results as soon as you launch a campaign
After you have built a website and created optimized landing pages, start building targeted paid ad campaigns. Choose keywords that will reach converting audiences, create optimized ad copies, and test every ad carefully to make sure they are suitable. Once the ads are live, they will be featured on the top of a SERP and start bringing traffic immediately. PPC helps establish a brand presence and get a few clicks in. If customers who click on your ads linger on your website or buy something, it sends a positive message to Google.
These four steps will help you establish a basic foundation. Once you have done this, it is easier to build a more comprehensive marketing campaign to bring more traffic.
