When
you hear someone say the words ‘Digital Marketing’, what comes to mind? It’s a
broad term covering a multi-faceted discipline.
Digital Marketing can mean anything from search engine
optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, e-mail
marketing, social media, or any other online marketing tactic. We want to give
you the low down, and help you understand each piece a little better.
SEO
SEO,
or Search Engine Optimization, is the beacon needed for any website to earn its
rank in Google search results. SEO is not one of those fast and easy things to
do – and if anyone claims it is, don’t hire them. There are two main parts to
SEO: the technical aspect and producing high quality content for your target
market.
Firstly, from a technical standpoint,
your website gets crawled by Google ‘spiders’ which determines how good your
website is. To get fast rankings, you need to have a fast site. Why would
Google want to show you a site that doesn’t load quickly? Another big part is
making sure your website is mobile friendly. Broken links is another issue to
make sure you avoid on your website. Ever notice those pages that you click on
that say “Error 404: Page Doesn’t Exist”, yeah, avoid that. Technical SEO is a
huge portion of what we do for our clients. If you need help with this, get in touch with us using the 'Contact Us' page above.
The
second way to gain strong SEO is producing fresh, relevant and high-quality
content. The more people that enjoy your content, the more they will link to it
from their own websites and share it on their social channels, getting you more
and more views.
The
more valuable your content is for your readers the more Google likes your site.
Just remember that good SEO doesn’t happen overnight; it’s important to assess
what your audience is looking for, then respond with fresh content on a weekly
or even daily basis, especially if you just started your website.
SEM
Search
Engine Marketing, otherwise known as SEM, is the perfect way to give your
website a grand debut. It’s beneficial for established companies as well, but
it REALLY works for those companies that are working on their long-term SEO. If
you’ve ever typed anything into Google (which I know you have!), then you would
have seen the 2 – 4 advertisements that always sit at the top of the page.
Those advertisements are SEM ads! Google AdWords is the most popular tool for
creating these ads. It helps people find your company when they are searching
for something similar to what you offer but wouldn’t normally find if your
rankings aren’t high enough on Google yet. SEO and SEM are the bread and butter
of digital marketing, and you should definitely be doing both if you are
running a business with a website.
Content Marketing
Content
marketing is marketing jargon for giving your target market what they want!
This is all the material that fills your website, social channels, and email lists with
things your followers will get value from. Leveraging content marketing means
not only creating new content, but also making use of old content in new and
innovative ways. For example, write a white paper about a fascinating topic
relating to your business. Turn that white paper into a more fun and engaging
blog post. Then take that information and turn it into an infographic that you
can share on social media. Maybe even make a video on it. Each consumer likes
to digest content in different ways, so this is a great opportunity for you to reach all of them.
Email Marketing
Email
marketing can be a great way to show consumers the content you created as part
of your content marketing strategy that they may have missed. Studies show that
email marketing is still one of the most effective tools for reaching and
selling products or services to your target market. Planning out a successful
email marketing strategy doesn’t have to be hard, but it does have to be done
right.
Over the years
Sherpa has mastered the art of email marketing. Check out this post to learn
more about email marketing and how it differs from direct mailing.
Social Media
‘Digital
Marketing’ includes in it’s pillars, the use of social media. Whether an
organization uses an internal person or team to run their social accounts, or
hires an agency like Sherpa, it is vital for businesses to be engaged with
their targets and prospects. This Social Media Stats Infographic outlines some important
trends on how Canadian consumers and businesses are using social media. The
stats may surprise you! Social media strategies should differ on each platform,
whether it’s Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube or maybe even
Reddit, your business needs to first start with a high-level strategy and then
determine tactics for each one.
Digital Marketing Tools
As
a digital marketer, the above practices can be quite overwhelming. Especially
if it is a small team of you working on ALL of it. As an agency we are
constantly busy finding the best opportunities for our clients and developing new
and innovative ways to do so. One thing that keeps us sane are the multitude of
tools out there that can help save you time and stress.
Google Analytics is a freemium web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. It is extremely simple to set up and use to gain valuable information. This is a must have to every marketer!
AWR Cloud is a web-based rank tracking and reporting service, capable to deliver localized rankings with pinpoint accuracy. This is one of the most valuable tool in every SEO's toolbox.
Simply Measured is a social media analytics platform that simplifies end-to-end analysis of all social network activities of its users, whether it’s paid, owned, or earned.
Learn about some
of the tools we use here.
It’s rare that all
these Digital Marketing skills exist in one person, and even if they did it
would be nearly impossible to do a good job given how demanding each of them
are. Therefore, here at Sherpa we like to hire experts in each field to make
sure we are giving our clients the best. If you have any questions or thoughts
about Digital Marketing feel free to comment them below.
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Thanks for reading!
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