You know what get’s annoying? Articles on the web only giving you a single piece of the puzzle. As a business owner, a piece doesn’t do you any good. You want all the pieces for obvious reasons. A puzzle without every piece isn’t complete. We understand how you feel. So today, we’re handing you a complete guide to effective online marketing.
Keep reading. We’re bringing the thunder.
Effective Online Marketing and SEO
SEO has been a marketing buzzword for nearly two decades. We all know what it is. We all know what it does.
There is a reason for this. It’s how marketing is done. It’s the A1 steak sauce of the digital world. No effective online marketing guide would be complete without it.
On Page
This is where we all start our marketing journey. Blogs are the hub of any business. They bring traffic in with compelling content, and then your internal links spread them out to viable product and service pages throughout your site.
It’s so simple.
Not really.
The reason it isn’t simple is this: To do it right, you can’t think solely about yourself and your organization. You have to put the customer first.
Every piece of content, every social media post, every email you send, has to be about the customer. Make them happy and keep them happy.
So let’s do it right.
Step 1
Make a website. Duh. Yes, this is obvious. What isn’t obvious is how you’re going to build it, who’s going to build it for you, and where is the site going to be hosted?
We’re going to break it down to the simplest, most realistic answers. Build it on WordPress. Host it with a successful, highly-rated hosting service such as Bluehost, and have someone in-house make the website.
It takes about an hour to do. Small business where you’re CEO and the only employee? You’re in luck.
Step 2
Make that blog. Then you create the most amazing content the world has ever seen. It’s going to shine so brightly it almost hurts your eyes to look at it.
Step 3
You’re going to sprinkle in keywords for days. But not weeks! That would be too many keywords.
And too many keywords is not what we want. Back in the day, shady marketers would keyword stuff to trick Google into overly ranking their sites. Google may forgive, but they don’t forget.
We want a 1% density. Ish. A little more or a little less is fine. Just remember 1%-ish and you’ll be ok.
Step 4
Sprinkle your content with internal and external links. The internals go all over your site and the externals go to authoritative, relevant-to-the-anchor-text websites.
Step 5
Plugins. Those sweet, sweet WordPress plugins. Goodness, they are lifesavers, aren’t they?
However, too many will slow your site down. A business running 100 plugins is:
- Too slow
- Being punished for being too slow
- Not being visited because it’s too slow
- Running three times more plugins than they will ever need
The final song on our SEO playlist? Speed. Make it fast.
With all five steps complete, we shall move on.
Off Page
There are two key elements to off page SEO:
- It’s a huge part of effective online marketing strategies
- Most of it should be done by someone who isn’t you
What should be done by you?
Social Media
It’s easy. It’s free. Paying someone to do this for you is the epitome of laziness.
Most of the time.
If you aren’t on a budget and your marketing team can barely handle their current workload, yes, you want to hire someone to do it for you.
You can either hire a social media manager or you can outsource to a competent digital marketing firm who is already expertly handling the social media accounts of other clients.
If you run a small business and don’t have the cash to hire or outsource, jump on it. Check out some basic tutorials. YouTube can tell you everything you need to know.
And while we’re at it, you’ll need a YouTube channel. Not really up for debate anymore.
Local
There is no one in this world who knows more about your business than you do. If you have a physical location, which you probably do, you need to capitalize on these possibilities.
Establishing yourself within your community will do nothing but help your business continue to grow. You will need new employees at some point. You will eventually need local people’s help with something.
Donate. Sponsor festivals. Participate in everything you can.
As far as SEO, make sure your info on your website is up to date and accurate. Then go through every possible directory you can think of and do the same. And Google My Business.
So what won’t you be doing yourself?
Link Building
This is left to the pros. As a new business owner, you likely don’t have the resources to reach out and snag these valuable, beautiful links. Given how much time it eats up and how busy you likely are, you’re probably short on time as well.
What has become a common practice is outsourcing this tedious task to link-building services who have positive relationships with authoritative websites.
A few dollars can save you a ton of headache and hassle.
One thing you can do, especially if you have a love for writing, is to write some guest posts for other websites. You can even do a post-trade with friendly competitors so you each receive a link.
PPC
This is one of the lesser talked about strategies but it’s also a large part of effective online marketing. Similar to link building, PPC, which is short for pay per click advertising, can be a tedious task.
It can also be the most expensive mistake you can make in business.
When pro marketers talk about SEM, or search engine marketing, they’re usually referring to a combination of SEO and PPC. The campaigns, when used together and used properly, are capable of amazing results.
Google Adwords, which is the program used to create and time your ads, is so complex that Google offers a free exam and certificate upon completion. It is one of the most difficult tests you will ever take.
While Google Analytics isn’t nearly as complex, the two work in tandem to help track the success of your PPC campaign.
The Takeaway
Well, that’s the skinny on all things effective online marketing. These strategies take time, patience, and quite a bit of skill to pull off.
Roughly half of SEO is easy and pretty much anyone can do it. PPC and the other half really need to be left to professionals. Errors can be costly to the point where they will bankrupt your entire business.
Marketing isn’t always hard, it’s not always expensive, but effective online marketing is 100% necessary if you want to create a successful business.
When you want something done right, you want to talk to Bear Fox Marketing. Talk to us today for a free consultation on how we can help next level your business.