Things move fast on the internet. One month, everyone’s on Vine. The next month, Snapchat. Now, TikTok. It can be hard to keep up with the latest trend. Regardless of what social media platform is en vogue, the most effective online marketing strategies work. Master these online marketing strategies to stay consistently relevant with your audience and continue to attract new customers.
[Read: 5 Small Business Owners Reveal Their Best Marketing Strategies]
Learn search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is defined as “the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine.”
Google is constantly tinkering with its algorithms to deliver the best search results to its users. While the company makes updates to the criteria it uses to rank websites, some things never change. Learning the basics of SEO can help customers find your website, improve your brand’s visibility and ultimately help you sell more.
The best part? SEO doesn’t necessarily involve any marketing budget. Unlike paying for ads, search traffic is free. There are some easy steps you can take to set up your website so it is Google-friendly and helps improve your ranking. Check out this helpful blog post by webtool company Ahrefs to get started.
Invest in beautiful web design
Web design goes hand in hand with SEO. A beautifully designed website can not only help your website rank higher, but it can also provide a great user experience for your customers.
“Your website is the center of all your digital marketing efforts, so if your page is not clean, easy to read and interesting, it won’t matter how much time you put into strategy development — you’re still going to lose customers,” wrote The Balance.
Even if you’re not selling through your website, make sure it’s clean, simple and easy to navigate. Keep your business hours up-to-date and add your location if you’re selling out of a storefront. Many business owners benefit from an “About” page that tells more about their passion and reasons for starting a business. It’s the little things that differentiate you from a big box competitor.
Any online marketing strategy you try should involve some measurement and recalibration.
Consistently create content
While the most popular platform may change from month to month, one thing will never change: people love content. Videos, blog posts, images, podcasts, and social media posts are the vehicle through which you will stay relevant to your customers. It’s important to know what content works best for your audience and to have an online marketing strategy for constantly creating that content.
[Read: 3 Expert Strategies for Creating Great Content]
One easy way to create a pipeline of good material is to work with others. Tap influencers, repeat customers or members of your loyalty program to help you generate interesting videos or social media posts. Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most powerful forms of marketing there is. The more your content can harness the opinions and validations of others, the better your online marketing will perform.
Measure what works
One of the biggest benefits of digital marketing is that it’s easy to see what’s working and what isn’t. Unlike investing in a billboard or print ad, you can quickly quantify how many people have seen your latest video and track how many viewers clicked through to buy from you.
Any online marketing strategy you try should involve some measurement and recalibration. Track things like click-through rates and engagement on social media posts (not just likes and shares but saves and click-throughs), and set up a funnel to see which of your online marketing channels is performing the best. There are plenty of free tools that can help: start with Google Analytics and go from there.
Build an email list
Email campaigns dominate in terms of digital marketing effectiveness. Email engagement rates are, on average, much higher than other digital outreach (like social media, for instance). By collecting the email addresses of customers at checkout, you can build a direct marketing channel to an audience who is already familiar with your brand and is proven to buy from you. And, as the infamous statistic shows, return customers are more valuable than new ones. Email is one of the best ways of promoting your business to a captive audience that already appreciates what you have to offer.
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