The Beginner’s Guide to Online Marketing

Google Analytics

OK, we're going to start with Analytics - simply because if you can't measure your successes, how will you know if you've achieved your goals?

Any web designer worth their salt will integrate this into your website when they build it. However, if your site hasn't been updated in the last 5 years, you might not have Google Analytics installed.

Once you've got this sorted, it's time to deep dive into the facts and figures of your online presence. You'll need to know what you're working with to know how to improve. You'll want to pay attention to your traffic numbers, bounce rates, conversion rates, referrals, engagement rates and, if you sell online, average order value.

The go-to blog for analytics: A great choice for analytic newbies is Avinash Kaushik (he's head honcho of digital marketing at Google).

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

If you've read anything on online marketing or promoting your website online, you will have heard about search engine optimization - repeatedly. SEO is basically fine-tuning your website to perform as best as possible on the likes of Google and Yahoo.

SEO takes a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of knowledge but you can make serious headway online with it. Essentially, SEO targets people searching for things online. There's two types of SEO: organic and paid.

Organic SEO includes tactics like blogging and adding landing pages on your own website. Each piece of unique content you write should target key words/key phrases people will search for in your industry.

For example, if you sell women's gladiator sandals online, you optimize your content to target 'buy women's gladiator sandals online' and when someone types in 'buy women's gladiator sandals online' you appear as the number one result.

This is a really simplistic break down of what organic SEO involves, but you get the general idea.

Paid SEO includes pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, social media ads and retargetting adverts. If you know how to use Google AdWords, you'll be fine using other forms of paid advertising too. Not sure about paying for advertising? Get in touch with our team - they can give you a few pointers.

The go-to blog for SEO: Brian Dean's Backlinko or Moz's blog (yes, we had to choose two, they're both fantastic).

Copywriting & Content Marketing

An art in itself, copywriting is a highly valuable skill. Having a badly written website can make all of your marketing efforts pointless.

Content marketing is simply having trustworthy, likeable content that helps readers looking for information in your area of expertise and promoting it.

The go-to blog for content marketing: The Content Marketing Institute is a fantastic resource for those just getting to grips with all things content, as well as those seasoned writers looking to improve their skill set.

Email Marketing

A great way to communicate directly with your potential clients, email marketing is still one of the best acquisition channels today.

Email marketing boasts one of the highest conversion rates of all the online marketing techniques.

The go-to blog for email marketing: The Online Marketing Institute has some awesome articles on email marketing with some easy-to-implement tips.

Social Media Marketing

Incredibly popular, social media marketing can provide instant access to hundreds, thousands and even millions of potential clients for your business. The downside? It's a really fast-paced area, with new social media platforms launching every few months.

The go-to blog for social media marketing: We personally love WordStream for inspiration and advice on all things social media.

Video Marketing

Often overlooked, video marketing is going to be huge. YouTube is the world's second-largest search engine - it's more than just cat videos and epic fail montages now.

The opportunity to reach your target audience is unbelievable. There are over 800 million unique visits to YouTube each month. As YouTube advertising hasn't quite taken off yet, it's still pretty cheap to advertise on. This means it's the perfect time for you to get started on it!

The go-to blog for video marketing: We're actually going to link to one blog post for this - it's pretty much got everything you need to know - CrazyEgg.

And there you have it - a brief introduction to the world of online marketing.

There's a huge amount to consider when looking for the perfect online strategy for your company, if you'd like to discuss your best options and see how we can help take the hard work out of promoting your business online, get in touch today.