A lot of people who create websites don’t want to deal with digital marketing at all. And, let’s face it, it’s pretty understandable. When we create websites, we just want to add our content and hope that it’s good enough to somehow attract the traffic we need.
Perhaps a reluctance to engage with digital marketing for our websites is a result of the idea that, by ‘paying’ to develop tactics that will get people to click on your website, that it’s somehow cheating - that it wasn’t just quality that brought people to your website. Or perhaps we simply don’t want to have to deal with the concomitant costs of digital marketing.
All these mindsets are definitely understandable. But understand that it’s not all about quality. That’s the most important thing, of course; but if you’re not engaging in digital marketing at all, then you’re just going to end up being flattened by the bigger websites that are doing it. Don’t make the mistake of completely ignoring digital marketing. But you shouldn’t just assume that because you’re involved with digital marketing that you’re doing it correctly!
We’re going to take a look at some of the things you should definitely understand about digital marketing if you want to make sure your website isn’t being held back.
Getting to grips with the jargon
Start reading articles about digital marketing and you’re going to be bombarded with a lot of jargon. It’s important to get to grips with some of them; while there are plenty of terms that are simply fancy names for something that’s common-sensical (same with any jargon-filled field, right?), there are some terms you should definitely know because they can be essential to your website’s success.
Among the most useful are SEO, CRO, ROI, and PPC (or CPC; they’re the same thing. PCP, on the other hand, is something completely different that definitely won’t help you in digital marketing). SEO is search engine optimization and CRO is conversation rate optimization; we’ll go into these a little bit more below. ROI stands for return on investment, and it’s not just a digital marketing term. However, you still need to view digital marketing in terms of an investment. Read up on how to measure ROI for a digital marketing campaign! PPC stands for pay per click, which involves the creation of adverts on other websites.
Those three words
Search engine optimization. This is essential for pretty much any website. Think about it: how do you find most of the web pages you end up on? Chances are it was through a search engine. Ensuring you get visibility on these search engines is vital if you want to pull in more traffic. SEO is all about making sure your website is structured correctly (so that search engine ‘algorithm bots’ can read it) and is producing strong, relevant content. This helps you get to the first page of the search results. How often do you find yourself going past the first page or two when sifting through those results?
The problem with SEO is that its efficacy isn’t always that obvious. Sure, if you’re getting a prominent place in the search results pages then it’s probably safe to say that it’s working. But what about in the meantime? How can you tell that your website is actually making its way towards that goal? What you need is SEO analytics. Using something like this SEO analysis tool can help you work out what’s working and what still needs to be tweaked.
Those other three words
Conversion Rate Optimization. How many of those clicks on your website are the right kind of clicks? Sure, basic page views are great. But users that actually keep coming back to your website are even better. If you’re actually selling something on your website, then you want users who will invest in your business through purchases!
Your conversion rate is the rate at which a user does something you want them to do, be it make a purchase, become a subscriber, or simply become a recurring viewer. It’s usually measured as a ratio against the number of users who view the given page then don’t return, or don’t return consistently. It’s essential that you put some focus into CRO - after all, what good is traffic, ultimately, if it’s not the kind that keeps coming back? What does that say about your website’s quality, really? Check out this handy list of fifty ways to improve your CRO.
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