If you’re new to the blog and aren’t familiar with digital marketing, this post is a great way to introduce you to the topic.
Today, we’re talking about the five pillars of digital marketing. Let’s dive in!
1. SEO
Search Engine Optimization – a crucial part of digital marketing, yet often overlooked by those building a website for the first time. This is mainly because it can be harder to measure the results of the effort you put into SEO compared to something like social media.
SEO is what controls how well your website performs on search results. Today, having the #1 or #9 spot on Google can make the difference between a thriving business and one with no traffic at all. This is why it’s so vital to tend to your website’s SEO consistently and effectively.
SEO is broken up into three sections: on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.
On-Page
Creating and optimizing website content with target keywords and related terms to increase relevance and rankings.
Off-Page
Acquiring and managing backlinks from official, relevant sources to boost website authority and relevance.
Technical
The ‘behind the scenes’ aspects to your website that affect crawling, indexation, UX, and rankings.
A balance of these three SEO strategies is where you’ll find the sweet spot. SEO is crucial to any digital marketing strategy – you can’t go without it.
2. Social Media
When people think of digital marketing, social media is often the first thing that comes to mind – which is no surprise.
In recent years, social media has transformed businesses that invested in it both smartly and heavily. Taking advantage of social channels to promote a business has undoubtedly proven itself to be a powerful thing – but it isn’t everything.
The thing is, many people misunderstand and misuse social media as part of their digital marketing strategy. Simply having thousands of followers on Instagram or Facebook doesn’t mean non-stop conversions for your business. Metrics such as followers are known as vanity metrics in the digital marketing world.
Vanity metrics are over-valued yet under-deliver. It’s all fluff.
The whole point here is that while social media is a key component to digital marketing, it isn’t the only solution for growing your business online. And there’s more that goes into a smart social media marketing strategy than gaining followers. For example, your content should be:
- Relevant
- Consistent
- Branded
- Quality > Quantity
Another thing to consider with regards to social media is to not spread yourself too far or too thin. Most businesses don’t need to be on all social channels such as LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
You need to do what works for your brand and build off of that. And if you aren’t sure what exactly that looks like for your business, that’s what you have us for!
3. Branding
Out of all 5 pillars, branding is most related to its offline marketing counterpart.
The way you present yourself online directly relates to the audience you’re trying to sell to.
Everything from your font and color choices to your logo is subconsciously consumed and interpreted by anyone who comes across your brand. This is why consistency is key.
When establishing your brand, you’ll want to consider your target persona: the fictional person you would ideally like to do business with.
When imagining your target persona, it’s more important to think about what your ideal customer is like rather than what your ideal customer likes – there’s a big difference.
- Where do they live?
- What are some of their day-to-day challenges?
- What is their background?
- What are their interests?
- iPhone or Android?
- Budweiser or IPA?
These are all good examples of questions you should ask yourself when creating your target persona.
The more you ask what, followed by a why, and then another why, the more you’ll find the right place for your business online and get yourself in front of the right who.
Tip: Don’t be afraid to make more than one target persona!
When creating a brand, you want one that is accurately and consistently representative of your values. Branding takes time and evolves as you do. Keep in mind that the more you try to appeal to everyone, the less likely you’ll appeal to anyone. Keep it focused and keep it original.
If you’re just getting started with branding or would like to overhaul your current branding strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out!
4. Analytics
After performing all these actions online, you need to know if they’re working, who’s seeing what, and what all is happening, right? Enter analytics.
A solid digital marketing strategy is good and all but without data, it’s impossible to tell what is and isn’t working.
Google Analytics (GA) is the most popular resource used for website analytics. It’s customizable and offers massive insight into what exactly people are doing on your website. You can look at things like:
- If you’re driving enough traffic to your website
- Where people on your website come from
- Where people go on your website (page views, button clicks, time on page, etc.)
Implementing analytics into your website can be overwhelming, and it’s important to understand which metrics actually matter. If it’s not a task you want to take on alone, you don’t have to. In fact, you don’t have to do anything. Hiring a digital marketing agency, like WebLocal, means you don’t have to lift a finger when it comes to your online marketing strategy. All you have to do is stay focused on running your business while we manage the rest. Don’t hesitate to reach out to learn more about how we manage analytics for our clients.
5. Google Ads
Google ads is the branch of digital marketing that involves budgets. The return on ad spend (ROAS) can be high if done properly.
Google Search Ads
Search ads (GSA) are the sponsored results displayed at the top, bottom, and sidebar of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). They’re an effective way to get your website to dominate the SERPs for people with searches relating to your business.
Search ads differ from SEO because you’re in full control – results are guaranteed (for how much you’re willing to pay), and you have control over the copy that will be in the ad. If you hire a digital marketing agency, they’ll work with you to determine the best search ads strategy for your business.
Take note – generating traffic with search ads won’t help your website’s organic SEO. Google can differentiate between organic traffic and paid traffic.
In order to use search ads, a campaign must be built in Google. Each campaign will contain ad groups – these are groups that contain all possible search queries for a particular category of your business.
If you’d like to learn more about how we manage Google ads for our clients, as always, don’t hesitate to reach out!
In Conclusion
Hopefully, you have a better understanding of some of the most important building blocks of digital marketing. If you’re just getting started with a strategy of your own or would like to revamp your existing one, be sure to contact us! There’s so much that goes into online marketing – this post really only scratches the surface. If you have questions, we have answers.
As always, thanks for stopping by!