Digital Marketing in Brief

These days having an online presence is vital for a business to succeed. This can be anything from having social media pages, a website and setting up your free Google My Business (GMB) account. Effective digital marketing is much like any other form of marketing, you require a strategy and various different tools and skills. We’ve outlined below what we think are the most important things to consider;

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
This is the process of optimising your website so that it ranks higher on SERPs (search engine results pages), this is what you see when you perform a search on a website like Google. SEO has many different approaches, but there are a few things to take into account to get you started; ensure the content on your website is relevant and high quality, focus on your users and the experience they have when using your website and make sure you have separate pages for services/products.

There is another aspect of SEO known as local SEO. The advantage of this approach is that you don’t have to compete with websites on a national level. This is where Google My Business comes in, you should make sure that the information on your Google My Business account matches the information on your website. This helps build trust between your website and Google, which in turn will help to improve your ranking.

Pay-per-click (PPC)
This relates to the search engine results you see right at the top of the page with the word ‘Ad’ underneath. This site isn’t there because of its SEO but because the company in question has paid to appear for certain keywords.
Paid for results are prominently visible in SERPs, but they cost that company money each time they are clicked on (hence the name!).

Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Social Media is a powerful platform if used effectively, it can help build brand awareness and loyalty. It is important to remember though that it primarily a social platform, so you don’t always need to go for the hard sell. Ensure your message is relevant to your audience to encourage them to engage with your company. Think of your brand as a person when trying to figure out how to build a relationship with your target audience.
There are a number of social media platforms you can use, such as; Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. It’s worth researching where your target audience is most active and what kind of content they interact with before choosing which platforms will be best for your business.

Using these tools will help you start to formulate a digital marketing strategy. One of the main things you will need to think about before starting is who your target audience is. If you have any questions or would like a FREE consultation about your online needs don’t hesitate to contact us.