SEO – Search Engine Optimization
If you want to be at the top of the search engine rankings, you need SEO in your digital marketing strategy. Nobody tends to look past the first two pages of search results, so it’s vital that you’re showing high up, in order to be noticed. A good way to do that is to use SEO.
SEO is a way to improve the flow and content of your website, giving it the best chance to appear higher up in search results. This tends to revolve around the use of keywords, weaved seamlessly into the content of your site and blog, if appropriate. Of course, it’s not just about placing keywords anywhere – they need to be strategically arranged and they can’t stand out too much to the reader. Google has pretty strong rules on the use of SEO, so you need to be informed of and play by the rules. The good news, however, is that when you do that SEO is without a doubt one of the best ways to get yourself noticed by the masses.
PPC – Pay Per Click
PPC is a form of advertising which is extremely powerful in the online world. In this case, you enter into an auction and you bid on the keywords that you want to associate with your particular products and your overall site. When someone searches for your particular winning keyword, your advert is shown in the search results, above the regular entries.
Then, if they click on the advert, you pay for it. Obviously, the hope is that you absorb the cost because the click will result in a purchase, and the more people who click, the more you earn, therefore soaking up the cost even more.
Content Marketing
As the name would suggest, content marketing revolves around the content you post on your website. This means writing content that connects with your customers on a deeper level and involves research into what they want and need to read about. You would then weave SEO into this, to create a stronger effect.
With content marketing, however, you’re giving information, rather than forcing a sale, despite the fact you would like it to end in one and that is your final aim. By creating this personal link with your customers, you’re able to use other digital marketing strategies to almost force a sale, therefore giving you a greater profit in the end.
You can either create the content yourself, or you could hire a freelancer writer to do the honors for you. By combining this with SEO, you really have found a winning combination that could help you reach high upon the search engine results page, and therefore reach out to more people.
Email Marketing
If you think about the cold calling in the ‘80s and ‘90s, telephoning numbers found in the directory, and hoping to make a sale, email marketing is a little like that but far more effective. It’s more effective because you’re reaching out to customers who have already shown an interest in your company, because they signed up to a newsletter or gave an opinion in a survey etc, therefore allowing you access to their email address.
Email marketing allows you to stay in touch with customers and reach out to prospective customers, by keeping them up to date with current news, offers, and promotions. It also helps to build up a bond of trust between your company and the customer.
Social Media Marketing
Social media is something you need to have a strong presence, and if you don’t, you’re going to get left behind. We’re talking about sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram mainly, but also LinkedIn, and Pinterest to a lesser degree.
By having a presence on social media and using it to inform customers of what you’re doing and what you’re offering, you’re also able to build up a personal link. When you consider the amount of time people spend on social media every day, you can understand why it’s so vital to be on there.
The good news is that social media marketing is pretty easy to learn and you’ll find many online courses to help you learn the basics; many of these are also free. As a result, you’ll be popping up on news feeds in all the right places!
Affiliate Marketing
Linking up with popular bloggers is a great way to sell your products and raise awareness of your brand. In this case, the blogger would inform their followers about your company and what you can provide them with, usually via a guest post where your product or services are talked about and weave into the content naturally. A clickable link is also present and for every link which results in a sale, the blogger will receive a commission from you.
If you choose bloggers with high follower numbers, you’re reaching out to countless new customers in an instant.
Video Marketing
Our final option is video marketing. Some customers prefer a more visual take and in that case, videos are ideal. This is almost the same as content marketing but rather than the written word, you’re creating videos that give the same information and help your customers to make purchasing decisions.
Types of videos include how-to tutorials, perhaps behind the scenes, or ‘a day in the life of’. It can be anything, as long as it’s of interest to your customers.
These 7 digital marketing strategies will bring you sure-fire success in 2020.
