Getting Started With Web Marketing

You wouldn’t have been able to read this post 30 years ago, why? Because the world wide web (www) was still in its infancy. A few years later and the story has changed. The internet has transformed the way we live; making us part of a global village.

Information is now transferred at supersonic speed, breaking barriers that were hitherto unsurmountable. Now, thanks to technological advancement, we have new ways of doing business, new ideas and a vast majority of forward-driven solutions.

One way in which the internet has been of benefit to businesses is the way in which they now engage both customers and prospective clients. Prior to the internet, business practices were slow, ineffective and expensive. However, the internet has changed that and will continue to do so.

Marketing; a core practice in business is one of the main strategies employed by businesses and we shall go into details in this guide.

 

What is Web Marketing?

 

Ever heard of Web marketing, internet marketing, digital marketing, and re-marketing? Technically, they all mean the same thing. By definition, it is the process by which businesses advertise their goods and services to prospective clients. The importance of marketing cannot be overemphasized in this day and age.

It provides a platform for companies to ensure that customers always get information about any goods or services they render. In this post, we seek to explore what web marketing entails, its advantages, tools for online marketing and possible ways to exploit web marketing for your business.

Unlike conventional marketing which uses means like radio, television, newspapers, and magazines to draw the attention of audiences locally, internet marketing helps businesses capture and build a cordial working relationship with customers all over the world.

 

How to Execute Effective Web Marketing Strategy

 

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Creating High-Quality Content – Content Marketing

 

Create content that gives value to your target audience. For example, blogs serve as a means for you to share valuable information about your brand to your audience. Engaging in such activities regularly will help establish your brand as dominant in your industry, create more visibility and attract attention from customers in the long run. Not only that, but blogging also helps to gain backlinks to your website — Consequently, improving your site SEO.

 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

 

Optimize your website for search engine visibility in other to drive targeted-organic-traffic to your website. There are many ranking factors, and it keeps changing each time. Learn about Google’s best practices.

 

Email Marketing

 

If you are looking for a faster and cheaper way to market your products and services online, email marketing is the way to go.  You can create an opt-in form on your website for lead generation. From time to time you can advertise (promotions) to prospective customers on your mailing list who have opted in (i.e., consented) to receive emails from you. Email marketing is certainly an effective way to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.

 

Paid Search Advertising

 

Bidding for ad placement on search engines such as Google is also an effective way of marketing your business services to your target audience. People search the internet daily for products and services.

Buying ad space would increase your chances of being found online. Especially if you are in a highly competitive niche. The difference between SEO and Paid Search Adverting is that the former requires time while the latter is somewhat immediate.

 

Social Media

 

There is a plethora of social media networks that can be harnessed for web marketing. Some of them include; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter among others. For example, Quora — a platform where you can answer questions related to the services or products you sell.

Furthermore, a link can be attached to your answer, which will redirect Quora users to blog posts written by you on similar topics. Again, this is another way of establishing yourself as a professional in your industry and also to make your prospective clients trust your brand.

 

Facebook ads

 

Advertising on Facebook ads is another way you can advertise your product online to people, based on criteria such as demography, age group, hobby, etc. With over 2.5 billion active users on Facebook, it provides an opportunity to find potential customers.

 

YouTube Videos

 

By creating a 2-5 mins video presentation of your business services, you can reach out to as many as 1 million people that require the knowledge you are sharing. To benefit from this, just attach a link in the description box so that visitors to your channel can be directed to your site to learn more about your business services or products.

 

LinkedIn Group

 

LinkedIn group enables you to connect with individuals that are not part of your connection. In other words, you can network with people who share similar interests with you, and market your business services or product to them later on.

 

Tools used for Web Marketing

 

To take advantage of the benefits that web marketing offers, there are some important tools that are to be utilized if you want to get results from your online marketing efforts.

 

InfusionSoft

 

Infusionsoft helps save the time spent on sending emails. You are only required to set up the system after which you’re good to go. However, it is quite expensive, costing about $2,000 to set up and a monthly subscription fee ranging from $200 to $600 monthly. This is high-end marketing automation mostly for medium or large-scale business owners.

 

Canva

 

Canva is excellent for creating graphic design and visual content. Quality graphics are a necessity as they appeal more to the intended audience (especially if you are running a social media campaign or content marketing). This will help your audience perceive your brand positively and will help them interact better with your content.

Canva makes design easy and fast and is basically free. However, it requires a monthly subscription fee of $12.95 for the advanced features.

 

Google PageSpeed Test

 

In the ever-competitive internet business world, speed is key. Slow website speed can result in downtime and in turn cause you to lose customers and money. Your website should load anywhere between 2-4 secs, anything short of that will put your website at risk of having a high bounce rate.

PageSpeed Insight helps in improving your website’s speed. A website that loads fast will improve your search engine optimization and conversion rate. The tool is absolutely free.

 

Buffer

 

Buffer allows you to manage multiple social media accounts. It is important to regularly update your social media accounts such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, etc., on a daily basis if possible. Buffers allow you to create schedules for such updates, this helps save time.

It is free but there is a subscription fee of $10-$250 if you want to access additional features.

 

CoSchedule

 

It is important to plan your digital marketing strategy. CoShedule helps to do just that. It helps in organizing marketing campaigns by preparing content and other things required before the deadline. It costs basically about $15/ month for single-use and about $600/ month for larger corporations.

 

Google Analytics

 

Google Analytics helps you monitor your website traffic and track where the source of traffic is coming from. Having this data will help optimize your future marketing campaigns in other to get better results.

 

HubSpot

 

Just like InfusionSoft, HubSpot is a top player in marketing automation. They provide a very wide range of services to help optimize online marketing campaigns. These tools were designed to help you with activities ranging from blogging, SEO, Social media, Email, and Analytics.

 

Ahrefs

 

Knowing your competitive landscape is very important in the online business world as it helps you to strategize how you can focus on your competitive advantage. Ahrefs helps you know which keywords people are searching for in relation to your business services or products.

This information can make a difference when creating content such as articles, blog posts, social media content, etc. If you know the keyword phrases your target audience are looking up on search engine platforms, it becomes easy to curate content for them.

Other web marketing tools include Crazy egg for IT help, Followerwonk for Twitter analytics, KISSmetrics for analyzing and optimizing digital marketing performance, Hootsuite for scheduling social media posts.

 

Advantages of Web Marketing

 

Web marketing, if done effectively, has the potential to grow your business exponentially. All because of its many benefits. Some of these advantages are detailed below.

 

Speed

 

The internet is highly volatile. This makes online marketing very effective in reaching out to the audience swiftly. Here, there’s no boundary, as long as you can access the internet, you can view the ads. This makes it possible to have customers from different parts of the world.

 

Affordability

 

Internet marketing definitely beats the cost of conventional marketing. For example, you can send a bulk email rather than send emails through the post office. This will save cost of printing, buying postage, etc.

 

Availability

 

With internet marketing, it is possible to work 24/7. You can set your online ad campaigns to run every day for as long as you want. And you don’t have to worry about paying for overtime like you would for normal working staff.

 

Measuring Performance

 

With internet marketing, it is possible to measure and track the result of advertising campaigns; a feat that was declared impossible with conventional advertising. Measuring and analyzing the results enable us to know which one of our campaign is performing well.

Also, it provides us with suggestions as to how we can improve our marketing campaign in order to drive traffic and ultimately boost sales.

 

Global Reach

 

With web marketing, the world is your market. There is no restriction as to where your customers can come from. With an optimized website and Paid Advertising, you can generate millions of traffic from all over the world.

 

Diversification

 

With internet marketing, it is possible to promote goods or services efficiently.

Other advantages of Web marketing include; Instant payment for goods and services, improved sales relationships, ability to target customers demographically, convenience and time effectiveness.

 

Conclusion

 

We have definitely come a long way — from the Stone Age to the Industrial Age and now the Internet Age. The internet has made the world more connected, and the impact is seen clearly all around us, including the way we do business.

We have been able to discuss the ways by which businesses and individuals can take advantage of this opportunity. What are you waiting for? Start using these tools, and when you start recording success, don’t forget to share your success story.

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