Digital Marketing FAQs

Digital marketing can be essential to success online for many businesses – whether your customers are purchasing products from you directly, or registering their interest in your services. For many users, a search engine is the first time they will see and consider interacting with your business, and their subsequent interactions with your website can make the difference in how they perceive your business.

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing consists of several different disciplines all focused on improving your online presence and the likelihood of attracting new customers (as well as retaining existing ones) via your website, social media, and other digital spaces.

Whilst the digital presence of every business is unique, there are a number of key areas that digital marketers work with to have the greatest impact, both in the short and long term;

• Organic SEO (Search engine optimization)
• Paid Search (Advertising on search engines)
• Social Media
• Technical improvements (Optimising the technical underpinnings of your website)
• User Experience
• Analytics (Measuring success and establishing areas of improvement)

For most businesses, digital marketing is an ongoing process – as the business grows and evolves, and as online spaces change. New products, key sales periods across the year, and even international events or the weather can have an impact on user expectations and interactions.

WHAT IS SEO?

Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is the optimisation of a website specifically around search engine guidelines, in order to maximise visibility for users of those search engines.

Most search engines work by scanning (commonly referred to as crawling) your website, assessing the content they find there, and then including the website in results for terms entered by the user. Search engine optimization commonly includes ensuring that the right phrases and key terms are used across a website, with the aim of improving the website’s position (or ranking) within search engine results.

Google is the most common of these engines, making up more than 80% (CHECK THIS) of the marketing, with others including Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and location-specific searchers like Yandex or Baidu.

Each search engine results page is a competitive environment, and implementing ongoing optimization can make the difference against your direct and indirect competitors within those spaces.

WHY ARE KEYWORDS AND CONTENT IMPORTANT?

Keywords and the content (whether visual or written) of a website are the most fundamental elements of digital marketing, and SEO particularly. Having the most relevant terms utilised throughout your website ensures that it will be visible within searches, and that new users will be able to find your business online without previously knowing your website address.

Optimisation of keywords and content can involve researching these terms, discovering new opportunities to include relevant terms and phrases, as well as ensuring that the content on a website is both appropriate to its audience and constructed using the right tone of voice.

The keywords and content of each website are unique, but there are common optimization goals including better search engine results ranking, and ensuring that users are being directed to the right pieces of information or web pages of key importance to a business – for example, users looking to purchase a specific item, or find answers to specific queries.

WHAT IS A CONVERSION?

Whether your business is b2b or b2c orientated, there should be specific goals for your users to complete via your website. These goals are commonly referred to as “conversions”, the point at which a user has completed their digital interaction with your website, and “converted” from a user to a customer.

This can be as simple as filling in a contact form and requesting more information, purchasing a product, or as complex as registering for access to a specific product or service. Digital marketing optimization focuses on making these conversion points visible and straightforward to navigate to, simplifying existing processes such as filling out forms, or reducing the amount of time needed in order to reach that final conversion point.

WHAT ARE SOME ESSENTIAL SEO TASKS?

Whilst search engine optimization rarely has an immediate effect on rankings or traffic numbers, there are some tasks that can have a greater impact – particularly if they have not been performed before, or for a long period of time.

1. Implement Meta Descriptions and Meta Titles – also referred to as metadata, search engines use your meta descriptions and titles to form your website’s listing on results pages. Ensuring that your metadata is accurate to the page, utilises keywords, and includes a call to action can make the difference in how your listing is received by users.
2. Evaluate Your Content – Ensuring that your written content is appropriate for your users, provides clear and accurate information about products and services, and fulfils users needs (e.g. answering queries) can all make a difference to how well your website is received and performs.
3. Clear Goals – Providing clear points of conversion for users is paramount in encouraging them to perform actions on your website. A positive user experience is essential to convert users into customers, and to have them return to your business.

Digital marketing can be essential for business success, whether your digital goals involve growth, improved visibility, or driving sales! For the answers to all your questions, digital audits, and SEO expertise, get in touch with the team at Wonderful today!