Focusing on your website vs focusing on your digital marketing Stephanie Holmes

Focusing on your website vs focusing on your digital marketing

When it comes to focusing on your digital marketing, whether you are a startup gearing up for great online presence, or an existing business looking to generate more leads, it can be difficult to know where to start.

With leverage nowadays for businesses to raise brand awareness on numerous digital channels including search engines, emails, social media, and the like, it is understandable why digital marketing can seem overwhelming and well… like another full-time job. We want to break things down for you, ease your minds and help you prioritise, as you move forward into the online world. There are oodles of opportunity that business owners like you may not have yet seen in your internet bubbles. Having embraced the shift into a digital age, we want to be part of making it a fast and efficient place to be for all.

The foundation for successful digital marketing.

You might have heard a little-known fact before that goes something like this… your website is your shop window. Wrong. Let’s face it. Your website is far from being a ‘shop window’. We would say it’s more so the 24/7 showroom for your entire business. After all, it is the go-to place for any visitor to gain information about you and is the primary representation of your business within the online community. It is your key source of contact with the world and quite simply, the mothership of all things digital marketing. That is a lot of responsibly that should not be overlooked, nor taken lightly. Wouldn’t you agree?

So, we would say that having a completely optimised, highperformance website is a great place to start with your marketing strategy as whole. Only then can a true digital marketing plan, take its course.

Digital marketing is no quick fix!

Once you have established foundations with a glowing website, you’re in great stead to amplify your digital marketing and connect with your current and prospective customers in a very purposeful way. There are numerous elements involved when it comes to digital marketing, which you can chip away at over time. Remember, there are no quick fixes in this game. Long term, steady growth with valuable marketing strategies, is the answer. So how can you do this?

Here are some ideas of digital marketing strategies that you can focus on and have some fun with!

The brilliant fact about all these different digital marketing tools, is that all of them allow you the ability to drive your visitors back to your website, which ultimately, is where you want them to be. It is your showroom after all.

Content marketing

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) High quality SEO will continue to be a critical link in the digital marketing chain. Niche and longtail keywords to create engaging content is the goal here. Undoubtedly, blog articles and website copy are a fantastic tool to start with for all things SEO.

Blog Articles Publishing articles is a great way for you to demonstrate your expertise as a business, whilst generating organic search traffic to your website. You want your users to love what you write about, find exactly what they’re looking for, and enter the sales funnel as quickly as possible. Who doesn’t?

A little note to keep in mind when you’re writing that next article however… your visitors appreciate transparency, honest advice and quite simply, answers to their questions. It is good practice to pre-empt the concerns and problems your visitors will have and address them. By addressing the doubts, you diminish them. Instead comes trust from knowledge and clarity that you are providing to the customer. Don’t be scared to address the elephant(s) in the room – if you don’t, your competitors will.

Although blog articles are great, it’s no secret that rolling out masses of content on a regular basis, can be very overwhelming and time consuming indeed.

Web Stories

This is where the wisdom of web stories comes into play, an extension of Google’s open-source technology project, AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). Web Stories are a visual storytelling format for the open web, that allows readers to immerse in tappable, full-screen content that is fast, open, and user-first.

Web Stories are a simple way of conveying valuable content, whilst still improving your SEO rankings (without having to write those lengthy blogs!). Intrigued? You should be.

You might have heard a little-known fact before that goes something like this… your website is your shop window. Wrong. …it’s the 24/7 showroom for your entire business.

Videos & webinars

Take your business live with video and webinars. Last year saw a huge push into the realms of a new digital age, shifting events from in-person to virtual. This has resulted in video and webinar content being even more important. Your prospects will always want to learn as quickly as possible and gain information fast. There is no better way to do so than with the help of video marketing.

Are you a business that offers a particular product? Share a video talking about what you offer – show your product off, how it works and how to use it. Are you a consultant who offers a service? Why not share a video that talks about what you do and how you can help people? Have some fun with it.

Podcasts

Creating regular podcasts puts you on a one-way road to gaining credibility and asserting your expertise within your sector. It’s your gateway to growing your audience of current and prospective clients and nurturing them over time. Podcasts (can also apply to videos/webinars), are also the perfect hub for engagement and building a brand community.

Evidently, people love a sense of community belonging – it makes them feel valued and appreciated. By developing a community with a strong social experience between like-minded individuals, with relevant, on-going engagement, you enhance the trust between you and them tenfold. Quite simply, this trust leads to loyalty – increasing retention in relationships, whether that be existing or prospective clients.

Social Media Marketing

Social media is one of those funny ones. A love-hate relationship usually for busy, business owners like yourselves. But engaging on social media channels is a fantastic way to increase brand awareness, drive traffic back to your showroom (yes, your website… you’re getting it now), and ultimately generate leads for your business.

Email Marketing & Automation

Email marketing can be a really useful tool within your digital marketing strategy. It’s a great way of communicating with your audience to inform them of new content, discounts, upcoming events and of course, it’s a sure way to direct people back to your website.

It’s also an opportunity to maintain content flow within your business community, with leverage to supply valuable and relevant content, consistently.

It is a lot, but it is manageable.

We get it… it is a lot. And if we are to be honest, this simply scratches the surface of the digital marketing game. But the great thing about this process, is that it does not all have to be done at once. Take your time and remember… to have a website, is to flourish all aspects of your digital marketing. Once you have an established website in place, each one of these fabulous digital marketing strategies, can all link back to that alldesired, online showroom!