Online marketing, or digital marketing as it is commonly called, is a term that encompasses a wide range of channels. In its simplest terms, online marketing is any form of marketing that is designed to improve your business’ online presence – this can include building a website, optimising your website to appear in search results (SEO), social media and digital ads amongst others.
There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to online marketing as different services offer different benefits, reaching different audiences. Much of what businesses look for as part of an online marketing strategy can be placed under three categories, which are:
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- Social Media
- Pay Per Click (PPC)
Here, we will give you a brief introduction to these three forms of online marketing, what they are and what they do:
SEO
Search Engine Optimisation simply referred to as SEO, is arguably the most widely used form of online marketing by businesses. The ultimate goal of SEO is simple, as the name suggests, which is to optimise a website so as it appears as high up the results of search engines as possible for a keyword or phrase.
One of the popular misconceptions of SEO is that it begins and ends with keywords when there is so much more that goes into creating and maintaining a website that search engines like. This also includes making sure the website works as it is supposed to (i.e. doesn’t take too long to load and works well on both desktop and mobile devices), that the site has links from other authoritative websites and offers a good all-round user experience.
Social Media
For many new businesses, social media is where they first start. Social media can be used without spending a penny, which is why so many aspiring entrepreneurs take to the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to create social accounts for their brands. However, while anyone can use social media, it takes someone who knows what they are doing to make it work – this is why the largest businesses in the world employ teams of social media experts to manage their social accounts.
This is, after all, where your customers are most likely to engage with your brand, so you have to make sure that you get the tone right. Some businesses fall into the trap of utilising their social channels to talk about themselves, rather than what interests their audience. By engaging your customers via their social feed, you win their trust which has always been important when attracting and retaining customers.
PPC
Pay Per Click advertising often referred to as PPC, is a completely different ball-game altogether than social media, although much of it does happen through social channels. Allow us to explain; when you scroll through your Facebook or Twitter feeds, the chances are you will come across a promoted or sponsored post – this is a PPC advert that has been targeted to appear for someone like you. The idea being that by targeting potential customers based on interests and/or location, there is a better chance of a conversion.
Google Ads is the most popular form of PPC and this accounts for the results you will see right at the top of the page when you search for anything on Google. Brands will bid for placements on keywords - some of which will be much more competitive and, with that, more expensive than others - for their advertisement to appear on the screen of the user who is actively searching for their product and/or service.
Creating an Online Marketing Campaign that Works
For an online marketing campaign that works for your business, you may not need to invest in every single application of digital marketing, at least not straight away. By assessing the needs and long-term goals of your business, this will help to determine the online marketing services that will be most effective for your needs.
