These are some digital marketing basics for your business.

If you run a small business, it’s likely that you have a pretty tight schedule. It’s unfortunate that often, one of the first causalities of a time starved business owner is marketing.

Marketing is often viewed as an expense in both resources and time however, the truth is that digital marketing and the engagement it can generate doesn’t have to take up all of your time.

Creating a digital marketing strategy for your business may seem daunting at first however the trick is to find the right service provider who has a track record of delivering results and understands the tough demands placed on small business owners.

For your business to make an impact through it’s chosen digital channels, it’s important to understand what makes a business digitally engaged.

What is digital engagement?

Digital engagement is using online strategies and techniques to market your business with a focus on enhancing customer engagement.

Let’s break it down…

1. SEO or Search Engine Optimization

SEO is the process of enhancing the visibility of a website on organic search engine result pages (SERPs). There are many determining factors on where you will appear on the SERP however a successful search engine optimization campaign will always include the enhancement of your web pages to make your page more prominent for search engine algorithms. There are two basic components to SEO, On page & Off page. On-page refers to website elements which comprise a web page, such as HTML code, textual content, and images. Off-page refers to backlinks (links pointing to the site which is being optimized, from other relevant websites).

2. Search engine marketing

Search engine marketing involves the promotion of a website or other digital content by increasing its visibility in search engine results pages through paid advertising like Google, Bing and Yahoo’s Pay Per Click or PPC ads. Depending on your objectives you can choose from a wide range of ad formats including text ads, display ads, video ads, in app ads and more.

3. Responsive websites (Mobile friendly)

More and more people are using their mobile devices as their primary access the internet. It’s vitally important that these users are provided with a pleasant viewing experience if they are to persevere exploring your site. 40 per cent of people will abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load and more than 50 per cent of all searches are now done via mobile phones, so if your site is not mobile-enabled you have the potential to lose a half of your visitors.

4. Social Media

Social media is word-of-mouth marketing at its best! With over 1.59 billion Facebook users, more than 330 million active Twitter users, 400 million LinkedIn users and over 400,000 Instagram users it’s hard not to take advantage of social to enhance your brands mark on the world. We all know how important it is to form strong relationships with our customers and social media sites are the perfect channels to keep them engaged. Almost three quarters of social media users read online reviews before making a purchase, so a strategic and customer-oriented approach is vital to win more business.

5. Strategic email marketing

Content is still king and email is still one of the most popular ways to distribute that content! Daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly content-rich newsletters provide a great opportunity to engage with your customers. Like social media, email marketing allows you to track the results and get a great insight into your customers.