In order to answer, “Why use digital marketing?” one must truly understand what digital marketing is.
“Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and their websites to connect with current and prospective customers” (Alexander, 6/26/18)
It is your business’ presence in the digital world and as a small business owner first impressions are very important. The internet gives small businesses the opportunity to gain the same kind of exposure as large corporations. It also gives them the opportunity to target specific current and potential customers across a variety of channels. Each aspect uses and reinforces each other in a single marketing campaign to give your website higher domain authority, placing it higher on the Google search lists without having to pay for ad space. This improvement in the Google rankings occurs when a proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy is in alignment with your website and social media platforms. Everything starts with the keyword research that you perform. Then comes the optimal website design and proper use of keywords on each page of your website. The SEO of your website should always be in mind throughout the designing process and maintenance of the website. You will also implement your keyword research and SEO strategy in your advertising and social media campaigns. This will be slightly different from the keywords that you chose for your website, but is still important to gain exposure for your business. If you use digital marketing properly for your small business, the campaigns that you design will generate revenue at a lower cost than traditional marketing and advertising.
First ask yourself “What is the main topic for each of the web pages that I want to design for my website?” Your keyword research is then based on these main topics. These keywords are used throughout your content strategy for your digital marketing campaigns. The design of your website is going to be key in establishing a presence in the digital world. Even a business’ logo influences consumers decisions on the validity of your business. Having a crisp clean logo is important in establishing identity for all businesses, but the need to attract consumers for small businesses is more crucial. Therefore, your goal as a small business owner is to be at the top of the page during a web search to gain the same amount of exposure as the larger corporations. Users also want and expect to see pictures and videos on your website. When Google crawlers scan your website, they are looking for proper design structure as well as the relevance of the material on your website. The Google crawlers do not see or register pictures or videos, so a concise detailed description is required. A lack of description is considered an error and errors will penalize your site and lower your domain authority. Placing keywords in the proper places like the page name, headers, and throughout the content of the page is something that can be easily overlooked and will also hurt your domain authority. To be truly optimized for the search engines the web design of each web page has to be structured properly and work as flawless as possible.
The SEO of any website is always changing and should be looked at as a long-term, never-ending investment. SEO starts with the keyword research, choosing and changing the keywords to find the best fit for each page on your website. If there is a page with a high bounce rate, that means that the information on the page is not what the user is looking for or something is broken and needs to be fixed. The keyword needs to be changed to better fit the content on the page or the content needs to be changed to better fit the keyword. The SEO process then continues through to compressing files to decrease page speeds. “Most people won't wait around for more than two seconds for your website to load” (Hicks, 10/16/17). Creating link and backlink building strategies, proper conical and meta-link tags, and using concise and direct descriptions all need to be considered and addressed on the website when developing an effective SEO campaign. Google penalizes your website if any of these are missing, broken or being improperly used; too long, too short, or not enough information. Your chosen keywords also need to be implemented in all of your social media platforms. The more exposure that your business’ website can gain through these platforms, the better.
Likes and followers on their social media platforms gives small businesses the chance to gain the exposure they desire very cost-effectively. “The number of social media users worldwide in 2018 is 3.196 billion” (Chaffey, 3/28/18). Because there are so many users and platforms, you really need to narrow down who your target audience is in your social media campaigns. Are there certain age groups or genders that you are trying to target? Is there a certain region that you are trying to target? Are you trying to attract local customers or tourists? Are you using pictures, videos, or both? These are all going to determine what social media platform, or platforms, to target and the type of content you are going to post on each platform. Every small business should at least utilize one social media platform and generate an e-mail list for free advertising to consumers. You never want to over or under post, and you do not want to post nothing but promotions. You want to follow the 4-1-1 rule, which is posting 4 informational posts in a row, followed by 1 soft promotional post, and ending with 1 hard promotional post repeated in a consistent manner. However, your business’ end goals are ultimately going to determine the type of posts and promotions you develop. Remember, both for small businesses and large corporations, you want to determine your target audience first, so you know where to focus your social marketing efforts.
“There was a 78% increase in online mobile usage between 2013 and 2015” (Erik Devaney, blog.hubspot.com 17 Website and UX Design Statistics That Make the Case for Smarter Web Design 4/12/2016). Also, 67% of users visit a company’s website to start their consumer research (Hubspot Content Trends Survey, Q3 2017). Lastly, if this research is done as a local search, a purchase is made 78% of the time. Of these purchases, 73% are made in-store and occur within 15 miles of their current location (Michael Becker, Mobile Marketing Foundations: Mobilize Your Web Presence: Getting Local, 6/24/2014 lynda.com). Using digital marketing is your way to brand your business in an international market and to be seen by the users that turn in to customers. Using all aspects of digital marketing properly can gain you exposure over large corporations and even the playing field for small businesses. Using the free social media platforms as a digital word-of-mouth, you can reach a global network with a click of a button. Effectively using your SEO research to make sure that you are being found at the top of the list for the keywords that you want to rank for will get you more interaction on both your social media accounts and your business’ website. Utilizing your social media accounts to drive traffic to your website is another key way to get users to interact with your website. More traffic and interaction through your website will generate more exposure and more revenue. Tracking statistics and information is much easier in the digital world. When using the correct software, finding out what works best is faster which saves you time, and time is always valuable when trying to run a small business.
References:
https://www.hostgator.com/blog/reduce-website-bounce-rate/ 8 Reasons Why Your Website Has a High Bounce Rate (and How to Fix It) Kristen Hicks, October 16, 2017
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-digital-marketing Originally published Jun 26, 2018 5:23:00 AM, updated October 30 2018 Lucy Alexander
Michael Becker, Mobile Marketing Foundations: Mobilize Your Web Presence: Getting Local, 6/24/2014 lynda.com
Global social media research summary 2018 Dave Chaffey, 28 Mar, 2018
Erik Devaney, blog.hubspot.com 17 Website and UX Design Statistics That Make the Case for Smarter Web Design 4/12/2016
Hubspot Content Trends Survey, Q3 2017