Digital Marketing Definition
Before you can begin to understand the various uses of digital marketing, it is important to get a clear idea of what digital marketing is. So, what is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is an umbrella term for all of the marketing efforts that a business makes that utilizes the internet or an electronic device. This is an incredibly broad term for a reason as technology is constantly updating, so more types of digital marketing continue to be introduced. Currently, the most popular channels for digital marketing include search engines, social media, email, and websites.
Popular Uses of Digital Marketing
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
You may have heard this term several times in the past. It is becoming more and more frequent among business owners–especially small business owners who have a lot of competition in smaller markets.
SEO stands for search engine optimization and it is the process by which you enhance–or optimize–your website to rank higher in search engine result pages. This type of marketing is considered organic, which means that you did not have to pay any money for the traffic that your website receives as a result of successful SEO. SEO is an excellent tool for websites, blogs, and even infographics. All of those can be used to lead back into your business.
There are several different approaches to SEO that you can use to generate traffic to your website.
On-Page SEO: This is the type of SEO where you are simply focused on the content on the page in front of you when you are looking at a website. You can research keywords to see how many people search for them and what their intent is when they search them. From there, you can try to answer questions that readers may have related to your business and, as a result, rank higher on the results pages of those particular questions.
Off-Page SEO: This type of SEO is focused on the activity that is not immediately present on the page. This is referring to the activity that happens “behind the scenes” such as backlinks. Backlinks are the links that other websites place on their pages to refer their readers back to you. Depending on how much authority those websites have and how many of those websites link back to you, that will impact how highly you rank for certain keywords.
Technical SEO: Technical SEO is as it sounds. It deals with the technical elements of your website. This typically means the coding that makes up your webpages, which is more formally referred to as the “backend” of your website. In technical SEO, image compression, structured data, and CSS file optimization are all important ways to help quicken your loading speed and get you to rank higher.
Content Marketing
Content marketing refers to creating and promoting content for the explicit purpose of increasing brand awareness, generating traffic growth, assisting lead generation, and gaining customers. There are a number of ways to do this effectively.
Having a company blog is one of the best things that you can do for your website. Not only does it allow you to demonstrate your expertise in your industry through blog posts, but it also gets you organic search traffic for your business. Ultimately, with a well-written blog, you can take those casual readers and turn them into actual leads.
Long-form content such as ebooks can also be helpful in educating the visitors that come to your website. Many company websites will offer ebooks for free in exchange for the information of the visitor. This allows you to contact the reader later on to see if they can be turned into a sale.
Finally, infographics are also a valid way of creating content. While infographics qualify as visual content and not written content, they too can be optimized to generate more organic traffic for your website.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Perhaps after learning about all those “organic” forms of driving people to your website, you may be wondering what would be considered inorganic. PPC is your answer. PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click, which is a way of driving traffic to your website by paying every time that your ad is clicked. When people think of PPC, they often think of Google Ads, which is the most popular. However, they are not the only place where PPC is used.
On Facebook, you can select pay for ads. These ads can take the form of a video, an image, or even a slideshow that Facebook will show to the people who most accurately match your business’s audience.
On Twitter, you can launch an ad campaign that allows you to place a series of posts or profile badges to the newsfeed of a particular audience. You can tailor your campaign to achieve a specific goal for your business. This can be more traffic to your website, more Twitter followers, or even downloads of your app.
On LinkedIn, you can pay to send messages to designated LinkedIn users based on what industry they work in or what their background is.
Video Marketing
In the past, video marketing would have been left solely to commercials on television stations. Today, more people are viewing content online than ever. This means that a lot of your customers are going to be making purchasing decisions on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. You can use these platforms to run a marketing campaign and draw people to your business. In fact, many companies integrate their video marketing campaigns with SEO, other content, or other social media.
Online PR
PR is rather similar whether it takes place online or not. With online PR, you are working with digital publications, blogs, and websites, but it functions essentially like traditional PR. Ways that you can engage in online PR vary, but here are some options.
Reach Out to Reporters: Reporters utilize social media heavily and it is never a bad idea to take advantage of this and try to develop a relationship with them. This will put you in a great position should there ever be earned media opportunities that your company can participate in.
Responding to Reviews: If you get a review online, you always want to respond. Even if you receive a positive review, you’ll want to thank the person for taking the time to review you. Not only does it help humanize your company, but it also shows that you care about your reputation.
The Top Orlando Digital Marketing Firm
If you are looking for a trusted Orlando digital marketing firm to help you with your business’s digital marketing, look no further than Innocom. We will work hard to deliver the results that you deserve. To learn more about us, contact us today.
