The past few years have been a crazy time for small businesses when it comes to online marketing. Online marketing used to be a much more simple practice with companies investing in paid search ads with minimal search engine optimization. Cost per click on paid ads were low and it only took a few backlinks in order to rank for important keywords. These were the keys to generating website traffic and gaining new customers.
Things aren’t so simple anymore. Today, there are so many more aspects to online marketing. Search, SEO, have changed and social media networks have taken over the internet and online marketing. It’s become harder to know what is important when it comes to online marketing SEO and what are some aspects that should be left alone. Here are some important areas to focus on when it comes to your online marketing.
SEO is Content Driven
There has been a change in SEO for small businesses over the past few years, this has been due to Google’s two major updates, Panda and Penguin. Not only did they put an emphasis on high ranking, but there also has been a drop of organic search traffic.
It is the content that you produce that the search engines find important. If your content keeps users coming back for more, than your SEO will increase. This content refers to blog posts, videos, pictures, PR releases and any other content that is unique, creative and answers your users questions and enlightens them about topics they want to know about.
For a small business, focusing on a content strategy that is keyword rich will get you organic search traffic and help with your SEO.
The Mobile Market
There are millions of smartphones and tablets out in the market and if you aren’t focusing some of your online marketing efforts on mobile devices, then you are missing out on a large part of a potential customer base. Mobile devices are changing the way that people access the information that they want and there is a higher demand for that information.
If you are focused on providing the information your customers want on the go, then you have even more opportunity to grow. If your customers have a question or are wondering about a certain topic on their way to work and your blog post or social media post is the first thing they find in a search engine query, then you’re using content marketing to reach out to your customer base.
By optimizing your online marketing strategy to focus on the mobile market, then you will have great success in the future.
Importance in Website Design
There’s having a business website and then there’s having a website that emphasizes design and usability. Websites that are optimized for adaptability with mobile devices will gain over those that aren’t.
Your customers want a fast experience and even though networks are improving every day, websites and apps aren’t necessarily keeping pace. If your website takes too long to load, then your customers will just go to another website that will load faster and can still provide them with the information that they want.
Design and usability are an essential part to your online marketing efforts because they affect users staying on your website. You have to have an easy to navigate website, that loads fast and is usable on mobile devices as well.
Focus on VSEO
The point is YouTube is one of the highest visited sites on the internet with close to 1 billion unique visits each month. Users are consuming videos at a high rate and they are always in a demand for more. Google is also placing videos in their search results, so by focusing on a video online marketing strategy, you can reach out to a greater target audience. Videos you can produce are:
- Product videos
- Demonstrations
- How to’s
- Testimonials
Social Media and SEO
Your business relies on your target audience. More importantly, a local business relies on the local market for their customer base and potential new customers. It’s important for your business to build a customer base with customers that will market your business through word-of-mouth.
Social media is your business friend. It allows you to build a customer base that is outside your local market and build customer communities throughout the world. You can do this by getting more followers on Twitter and Facebook, creating connections on LinkedIn and gaining subscribers on YouTube. Social media is quickly becoming an essential part of any small business’ online marketing strategy.
SearchPro Systems
2024