Digital marketing is a term used to describe the use of digital channels to promote or market a product or service. It encompasses various activities, including search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, and more. In this blog post, we will provide an overview of digital marketing and take a closer look at two digital marketing activities: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Content Marketing. We will discuss
- what they are,
- how they are different from each other, and
- why you should be using them as part of your overall digital marketing strategy.
Digital Marketing Overview
Digital marketing includes the following activities:
- Search engine optimization
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing
- Email marketing
- Paid search (a.k.a. Search Engine Marketing)
- Affiliate marketing
- Display advertising
The main difference between search engine optimization, content marketing, and other forms of digital marketing is the focus.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is about improving the visibility of a website in organic or unpaid search results.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is about creating and distributing valuable content to attract and retain customers.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing creates content that engages users and encourages them to share it with their friends.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is about sending promotional messages to customers and prospects.
Paid Search (a.k.a. Search Engine Marketing)
Paid search is about buying paid placements in search results.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is about promoting products and earning commission on sales.
Display Advertising
Display advertising is about buying ad space on websites and other digital platforms.
What Digital Marketing Strategy is Best for Me?
You can’t just throw a digital marketing strategy at your business and hope it will be effective. The best way to determine what digital marketing strategy is best for your company, product, or service is to audit your current online presence. An online presence audit will help you understand where you are starting from and what needs improvement.
Once you have a clear understanding of your online footprint, you can then determine your target audience and what digital media they use. With this information in hand, you can develop your core messaging and marketing strategy.
If you don’t go through these exercises, the best place to start is with Search Engine Optimization and Content Marketing.
Why start with Search Engine Optimization?
Digital marketing is a complex and ever-evolving field. It can be challenging to know where to start, especially when so many different tactics are available. But if there is one digital marketing strategy that should be implemented first, it is search engine optimization (SEO).
SEO is an umbrella term that includes many different activities to improve a website’s visibility and organic search results. By optimizing the website for search engines, businesses can increase their chances of appearing higher on the search results pages (SERPs) and drive more traffic to their site.
Organic search results are the unpaid search results that appear on the first page of a SERP. They are the results that are not sponsored or paid for by a third party.
Here are a few statistics to consider on organic search.
- Organic search is the most significant driver of website traffic. According to a study by BrightEdge, organic search drives 53% of all website traffic!
- Increasing where you rank in the SERPs increases your organic traffic. Research shows that 95% of web traffic goes to sites on page 1 of Google SERPs. In addition, the top 3-4 spots on page 1 have the highest click-through rate.
What Factors Contribute to a Successful SEO Strategy?
Many different factors contribute to a successful SEO strategy. In addition, some of the factors cross over into other areas of digital marketing. Nothing in the online world is a complete silo!
Google considers Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (E.A.T.) as major ranking factors. However, just like human relationships, it takes time to develop expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Furthermore, once a connection is established, it takes ongoing effort to continue and grow. In other words, SEO never ends.
A successful SEO strategy includes:
- Quality content
- Optimized website
- Fresh content
- Good website design & user experience
- Backlinks from high Domain Authority websites
- Social media engagement
Quality Content
If you want to have a successful SEO strategy, it is essential to start with quality content. Quality content means creating informative and keyword-rich articles, blog posts, and web pages that can attract the attention of search engines. In addition to being informative, your content must also be well-written and engaging so that visitors will want to stay on your site and continue reading. Finally, regular updates to your content will ensure that your site remains relevant in the eyes of both search engines and potential customers.
Writing quality content starts with keyword research. Keyword research helps you identify the terms and phrases that potential customers use to search for products or services like yours. Once you know what keywords to target, you can then optimize your website for those terms by including them in titles, metatags, and throughout the body of your content.
Optimized Website
An optimized website is a website that is secure, accessible, mobile-friendly, and has fast loading times. These are all crucial factors in SEO because they contribute to a positive user experience.
In addition, an optimized website contains additional information in the code to help search engines decipher the website content and categorize it appropriately.
Fresh Content (a.k.a. Content Marketing!)
One of the most important aspects of a successful SEO strategy is regularly adding new or fresh content to your website. The latest information could be blog posts, articles, infographics, videos, etc.
When it comes to SEO, content is king. By creating fresh, relevant content, you are not only giving your website visitors something that they want to see, but you are also telling the search engines that your site is active and up-to-date. This will help your site rank higher in the search results.
Besides being part of SEO, adding content is also part of content marketing. Content marketing is a strategic approach that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience. Ultimately, this drives your audience to take profitable customer action.
Good Website Design & User Experience
Many factors contribute to a successful SEO strategy. Still, two of the most important are undoubtedly good website design and user experience. So let’s take a closer look at each of these in turn.
It should come as no surprise that website design is essential for SEO. If your site is challenging to navigate or simply not visually appealing, users are unlikely to stick around for long. Search engines are well aware of this, so they take user experience into account when ranking sites. In other words, a good website design is essential if you want your site to rank well in search results.
User experience is also crucial for SEO success. After all, what’s the point in getting users to your site if they’ll click away again immediately? A good user experience means creating a site that is easy to navigate and provides users with the information they want. Once again, search engines are aware of this and consider it when ranking sites.
Backlinks & Linking Strategy
Backlinks are when other websites link to yours – and they’re essential because they show that your site is reputable and trustworthy. Google considers these links when ranking sites, so the more high-quality backlinks you have, the better.
Of course, not all backlinks are created equal. It’s not enough to have many links from any old website – they need to come from high-quality, authoritative sources. That’s why it’s so important to build relationships with other websites in your industry and get involved in the conversations online.
In addition to backlinks, another vital factor in SEO is linking within your website. Internal links – which are links from one page on your site to another – help Google understand the structure of your site and the relationships between different pages. They also provide a way for visitors to navigate through your site easily.
External links – Links to other websites – can also be helpful, as long as they’re from high-quality sources. These links show Google your site is connected to the outside world and you’re providing valuable information to your visitors.
Social Media Engagement
By engaging with users on social media, you are increasing brand awareness and building relationships with potential customers. In addition, social media engagement can lead to increased website traffic and higher search engine rankings.
When it comes to social media engagement, quality is more important than quantity. It’s better to have a smaller number of engaged followers than many unengaged followers. To increase engagement, post interesting and relevant content, ask questions and respond to comments and messages.
Successful SEO Strategy Recap
SEO is a crucial part of any digital marketing strategy. By optimizing your website for the search engines, you increase your chances of being found by potential customers.
By creating fresh, relevant content, you are not only giving your website visitors something that they want to see, but you are also telling the search engines that your site is active and up-to-date. This will help your site rank higher in the search results. (More on Content Marketing to follow!)
In addition to content, many other factors contribute to a successful SEO strategy, including website design, user experience, backlinks, and social media engagement. By focusing on these areas, you can ensure that your website is optimized for the search engines and that you are providing a good experience for your users.
Content Marketing: Part of SEO and Another Digital Marketing Activity
Another digital marketing activity and SEO activity is content marketing.
Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience to drive profitable customer action.
Like traditional marketing, content marketing attracts prospects and customers to your business. However, instead of pitching your products or services, you provide information that educates, entertains, inspires, or benefits your readers. The ultimate goal of content marketing is to turn your prospects and customers into repeat buyers and loyal fans.
Types of Content
Content marketing can take many forms, including blogs, ebooks, articles, white papers, infographics, webinars, etc. Whatever form it takes, your content should be quality and engaging if you want it to achieve its objectives. That means making sure it’s well-written, engaging, and relevant to your audience. It also means ensuring that it’s SEO-friendly, so people can find it when searching for information on the topics you cover.
Content Marketing Benefits
If you’re new to content marketing, or if you’re not sure how it can benefit your business, consider these four key benefits:
- Content marketing builds trust and credibility. When you provide quality information that’s useful and relevant to your audience, they begin to see you as a trusted source of information. That trust can increase sales, loyalty, and referrals from happy customers.
- Content marketing generates leads. By creating content that educates your target audience about your product or service, you provide valuable information that can help move prospects through the buyer’s journey – from awareness to consideration to decision.
- Content marketing helps you close sales. In addition to generating leads, quality content can also help you close sales by addressing common objections and concerns that prospects may have about your product or service.
- Content marketing improves SEO. Search engines love fresh, relevant content, so a well-executed content marketing strategy can help improve your website’s ranking in search results, making it more likely that prospects will find you when they’re searching for information related to your business.
As you can see, content marketing offers benefits that can help your business succeed. If you’re not already using content marketing as part of your overall marketing strategy, now is the time to start.
How to Get Started with Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, or Content Marketing?
Suppose you’re like most business owners or marketing managers. In that case, you know that you need to be doing some digital marketing, but perhaps you’re not quite sure where to start. For example, you may have a beautiful website, but it’s not doing its job if no one can find it when searching for your products or services. That’s where WP Custom Websites and our business partner, EZone Marketing Solutions, can help.
At WP Custom Websites, we specialize in creating high-quality, optimized websites for search engines. In addition, our business partner EZone Marketing Solutions provides expert digital marketing services. So regardless of your budget, we can find a complete or partial solution to start your business on the road to getting found and increasing traffic for more leads and sales.
It’s essential to keep in mind that results from digital marketing efforts don’t happen overnight. Instead, they accumulate over time and require constant attention and adjustment to continue gaining ground and maintaining success. However, with a bit of help from our team of experts, you can get started on the path to achieving your digital marketing goals. Contact us today to learn more!