Online marketing is extremely important for businesses these days. Customers who could once be seen strolling down the high street now hang out online and therefore the focus of our marketing has shifted greatly since the rise of the internet age. Perhaps you are a business owner or entrepreneur who is new to online marketing and are not sure how to create an internet marketing strategy? If so, read on as we will be looking at all the component parts of a comprehensive online marketing campaign.
Search Engine Optimisation
For many companies SEO tends to be the foundation stone of their online marketing. It is pure and simply the process optimising your website in such a way that it ranks highly in the search results when a user types in a search query relevant to your company. For the hotel that provides a conference suite, when a potential customer types in ‘conference venue’ to Google, they want their website right up there at the top of the first page in order to be in with a chance of getting that business!
PPC
Pay per click advertising is extremely popular as the results can normally be seen very quickly. If you decide to run some PPC advertising then you will need to have a good idea of the search phrases that your potential customers will be using to find the type of services you offer. You can then make a bid on these terms and if you are successful your website will be returned to the user in the sponsored results section of the search engine results pages. You then simply pay per click that the link to your website gets. PPC provides guaranteed top spot and page 1 rankings and so many people prefer it to organic SEO.
Social Media
Social media should be included in any type of internet marketing campaign that is run in this day and age. Now I’m not saying that every business should have a presence on every single social media platform but that you should decide on the platforms that are most suited to what you do. If you are an extremely corporate company then a strategy for LinkedIn would be a good idea. If your target audience is students then perhaps consider Facebook and if you want to reach women or if you have a very visual business (photographers for example) then try Pinterest.
E-mail Marketing
E-mail marketing is good for keeping brand awareness alive. A customer may come across your site but not need your service immediately. E-shots will help them remember you for when they do need your services. It is a good idea to incentivise e-mail sign ups on your website. Create a fantastic resource that your customers will love and offer to send it out for free if they enter their e-mail.
Vicky works alongside Managed PPC. She enjoys writing articles relating to internet marketing with a special emphasis on SEO and PPC.