Just getting your business online is not going to be enough; driving traffic to your site is the key! By now, it should be clear to you that more traffic on the site increases your chances of generating more leads. And of course, more leads mean more possibilities of conversions.
Setting up a brand is just the first step; the game is about promoting that brand and connecting with the right audience. Your site requires regular maintenance and technology updates to keep up with the competition.
Launching a Website is Just the Beginning
You need to build a realistic marketing strategy to grow your business online. Most of the people spend all their money on the development of a website without even realizing that if you do not work on a marketing campaign, no one will be able to see your website in search engine. You need to figure out what actions you need to take that will be apt for your business
1. The Foremost Step is to Optimize your Website
Optimizing websites is necessary for improved search engine rankings. It’s a great way to enhance the quality of websites by making them faster, user- friendly and easier to navigate. Most users trust the top 5 links that show up on the search engine results. So, to achieve the top most rankings in the SERPs, you need to optimize your website!
Site optimization offers:
• Increase brand visibility
• Increase in the traffic
• Business credibility
• Positive ROI
2. Get listed
Submit your website to all the search engines after optimizing your website. Business listing will help you in brand building and take your business to the next level. Promote your brand by listing your business in top business listing directories. The online advertising directories will help you to win trust and reliability. The process can be time- consuming, but once you’re done it’ll help you in driving more traffic to your website. Just make sure to submit your website on all major search engines and other listing portals.
• Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing
• Online yellow pages sites like Superpages
• Social Networks such as Yelp & Merchant Circle
• Portals and guides like AOL and Citysearch
3. Create your Social Presence
If you don’t connect with your users on a social platform then you are going to lose a major chunk of business. If you haven’t created a social outlet for your business yet then it’s time to create some social channel accounts to connect with the audience.
Social business pages allow your customers to connect and interact with your business on a more personal level. If you already have an established brand, social media might be an opportunity to further develop your brand and give your business a unique voice. Social media helps you to target right audience and allows you to engage with them at a personal level. Engaging more with your customers will help you get more traffic to your website.
“Create your accounts, develop a unique voice and brainstorm ideas!”
Share engaging photos, videos, texts to attract more users to your business page. Make sure to update your page regularly as inconsistency can create a bad impression on your customers.
4. Claim Your Google, Bing & Yahoo Business Listings
Claiming and verifying your business on Google, Bing and Yahoo listings will help your customers to find your brand easily on search engines. Accurate and updated local listings play an important role in local SEO. Google, Yahoo and Bing show these sites on the top of search engine results when a user searches with a local intent. If you haven’t claimed your local directory listing, there are chances of having inaccurate or missing information about your business.
The listings signal to search engines that they all belong to your business and increase the visibility of your website in the search results. Moreover, many customers use search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, as well as Yelp directly to find local businesses in their area. No matter how customers find your listings, you need to make sure that your listing is accurate with complete information. This might lead to possible lead generation as well.
5. Run a PPC Campaign
The next step is to set up a PPC campaign for your business. Pay-per-click campaign is an online marketing tool that produces immediate results for your business. The campaign may be costly for the long run, but it’s really beneficial for websites that need brand awareness and a wide audience. Startups are usually recommended to run PPC campaigns at the beginning to get things moving. It allows immediate exposure of your ads to millions of users over the internet. The more users see your ads, the higher the chances of conversions.
PPC campaign also helps in targeting specific clients. This can be done by selecting a unique and precise keyword related to your product/service. With a precise keyword, Google has the ability to place your ads within your market niche. The more precise will be your keyword, the more often the right people will see your PPC ads. The real benefit of a good PPC campaign is ROI. If you run your campaign carefully, then it will definitely reap you positive results. Just make sure to keep a track of your campaign to know what is working right for you and what needs to be changed to offer better user experience.
6. Search Engine Optimization
SEO is a long term investment marketing option. It helps in keeping your business at par with your competitors and eventually pushes it up the search engine rankings. Do proper On-page and Off-Page SEO to drive a steady traffic and increase sales.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is what increases your chances of being found when customers search for a product or service like yours with Google, Bing, and other search engines. You may have to spend some time optimizing your website to make it SEO friendly as well. With SEO marketing style, you’re not paying for each new lead like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. SEO doesn’t produce immediate results; however, it can produce excellent results within a period of 3-4 months approx. Patience is the key here!
7. Ad Retargeting
You must have noticed personalized banner ads that keep following you to whichever site you browse on the internet. This form of advertising is termed as retargeting. When you visit any website to buy something, but don’t purchase anything, that site will drop a cookie on your browser cache, so the company may then serve you with relevant ads to bring you back to make a purchase. Business marketers use ad retargeting to increase brand awareness and bring visitors back to a landing page for conversions. Retargeting has been proven as an effective way to convert visitors into customers. You can effectively target visitors who’ve already expressed their interest in your products. You can track the number of visitors returning to your site with the help of Google Analytics. You can use this data to understand your audience and to improve your website.
8. Email Marketing
Email marketing offers more opportunities of success for your business and drives a better ROI. With the help of email marketing, you can create a deeper relationship with your target audience at a fraction of the cost of traditional media.
Benefits of email marketing are:
• Cost Effectiveness – Email marketing campaign is one of the cheapest and effective marketing tool to communicate with your users. It also offers an extremely high ROI potential.
• Maximum Reach – No matter where you are or when you need to reach your audience, email marketing can help you in targeting your audience aptly. Gone are the days of running ads on television to target your audience. With email marketing, you have the ability to target your audience based on the generated lead status, demographics, location or any other data. It ensures that your audience receives information specifically to their needs, thus fostering a higher conversion rate.
• Brand Awareness – With each email sent, consumers are exposed to your business and your brand. With strategic planning, smart design and targeted content, your business will consistently build value. In doing so, you always stay on the top-of-the-mind of your audience, then whenever a customer needs any product or service, your business will be the first that will come to their mind.
9. Content Marketing
Content is what drives internet and the core of digital marketing! It is a powerful tool used for of promoting a business on the Web. Creating engaging content in the form of articles, videos, infographics, or blog post offers relevant ways to connect with the audience. You can create and share content in many different ways to engage with your audience.
Benefits of content marketing:
• Increases inbound traffic to your website.
• Help you in building brand awareness through engagement.
• Increases link popularity
• Provide value to your prospect while establishing your brand as an authority
Basically, content marketing is using content to meet marketing goals of your business. So you can use content marketing for an acquisition of potential customers, retention of existing customers, making more people aware of your brand or your products, in short, content is the king!
To learn more about creating creative, engaging, viral, digital marketing campaigns, you can take assistance from OBM. We hope our tips are going to help you set up your business and run it perfectly. Feel free to comment below if you have any query or contact us for assistance with digital marketing services.