Digital marketing is the umbrella term for all marketing that is done through digital channels. These channels include social media, mobile apps, search engines, and e-commerce sites like Amazon.
Digital marketing strategies involve designing and executing complex plans to promote your business using these platforms. They require a deep understanding of how each platform works and how to leverage them to promote your business.
Doesn’t sound too easy, does it? Well, fortunately for you, we have broken down the basics of digital marketing into four simple steps that anyone can do!
Starting off with some basic knowledge of digital marketing is a great way to get started. You will learn how to use these different platforms to your advantage and gain some confidence in what you are doing. Eventually, you may want to pursue professional training, but this is a good starting point.
Having a website is the first step to getting started in digital marketing. You can create a website for free using platforms like WordPress or Tumblr, or you can pay a company like Squarespace or GoDaddy to make and host your website.
Having your own domain name is also important as it helps people find you online. Using social media platforms to add links to your site or posting promotional materials on it also helps spread the word about your site.
With WordPress, there are many free themes (designs) and plugins (features) you can use to get started, but there are also premium ones that are paid. Finding the right combination of features and design for you is important for creating a solid presence.
There are many ways to get more advanced as well, by adding more features and switching out the theme and plugin settings.
Another way to get started with digital marketing is to start by uploading images to social media. You can do this by taking pictures of your business offerings or creations and posting them on Instagram or creating and sharing images on Pinterest.
By posting beautiful images on Pinterest, you can attract new visitors to your website or business as well as create new business opportunities. This is called pinning for pay - you pin high-quality content that directs people to your business.
Using Instagram can help you gain new followers if you use hashtags correctly. Create an interesting account with a nice profile picture and write a catchy bio that draws viewers in. Then use relevant hashtags that people are searching for to find new accounts like yours.
You can also post pictures of your offerings or creations with these accounts, which will draw attention to your business.
A key part of any marketing strategy is creating content. Content can be anything from an article, video, post, or picture. The purpose of content is to educate your audience or persuade them to take action.
The more engaging your content is, the more people will pay attention to it and share it. You want people to share your content because that leads to exposure for you or your business.
Content also helps build trust with your audience. If people see that you are constantly putting out new and informative pieces of content, they will feel like they can trust you. Trust is a powerful factor in convincing someone to do business with you or buy from you.
Having good content available online makes it easier to get people to connect with your business. They can go and find out more about you or what you offer by reading, watching, or listening to more of your content.
A key part of digital marketing is encouraging people to share your content. The more people that see your content, the more people that will learn about your business and perhaps purchase from you.
There are several ways to encourage social sharing. First, you can create content that is very shareable. This can be done through creative imagery, catchy titles, and interesting content.
Second, you can create accounts on social media platforms where your target audience is present. Then, you can promote your content on these accounts in hopes of getting new followers or engagement.
Search engine optimization, also called SEO, is the process of optimizing your content and website for the search engines (like Google) to be able to crawl and rank your page on a search result page.
There are hundreds of factors that play into whether or not your page will rank. Some of these include backlinks, content quality, keyword density, and website structure.
Backlinks are a major factor in SEO and what makes it so hard to succeed. Backlinks are when other websites link back to your own website or content.
If a website with high quality rankings links to yours, then that is a good backlink for you! The issue is getting other high quality ranking websites to link to yours.
In order to get more backlinks, you must do things that give other websites incentive to link to you. This can be by promoting their content or giving them credit for something they did.
Keywords are a big part of your digital marketing strategy. Keywords are words or phrases people type into search engines like Google or Bing to find information.
You choose keywords for your site based on what you want people to find your site for. If you run a blog about vegan recipes, then you would want people to find your site when they search for “vegan recipes” or “how to cook vegetables”.
Keywords are an important part of getting traffic from searches. When people search for recipes, they expect to find a recipe on a site. By having the word “recipe” in your domain name and blog titles, people will find your site.
You can also use keywords in your content to promote other things on your site. Let’s say you have ten different types of recipes on your site, you could write a short paragraph about each recipe type and include one recipe in the title.
With the rise of social media and people’s constant connection to their phones, video has become a dominant marketing strategy. People like to watch videos, and they especially like to watch videos about products they might want to buy.
It is much more engaging to show a product in action or a descriptive sales pitch than it is to show a picture of the product or a written description.
By creating short marketing videos for your business, you are able to get your information across effectively while attracting new viewers and subscribers. Streaming services make it very easy to upload and promote your videos, so there is no need to spend money on equipment.
If you are not too savvy with film production, there are plenty of free resources to help you get decent looking video footage.
As internet users became more savvy and mobile-device dependent, the need for a mobile-friendly website increased.
Nearly all searches are conducted from some sort of mobile device, whether that be a phone or tablet. Most people conduct their everyday internet tasks, such as shopping or banking, from their mobile device as well.
Having a website that is easy to use on a mobile device is an essential part of digital marketing. If your site is not compatible with devices such as phones and tablets, then you are potentially losing customers and sales.
Making your website compatible with apps like Twitter and WhatsApp so that users can easily share your content is also important. Giving people ways to share your content makes it go viral and gets more attention!
Getting started in digital marketing does not require having an expensive professional website.
