Some decision-makers still see online marketing as an expense rather than an investment. Many are even hesitant to spend money on marketing techniques that preclude television, radio, or print media.
However, the times are changing. Businesses that don’t have an online presence will miss out on countless opportunities for growth and expansion, not to mention potential customers. Considering this, more business owners are turning to affordable web marketing options to attract new leads and boost sales.
You might think that web marketing is just a fancy term for websites and SEO. While those aspects of online marketing are undoubtedly crucial, so much more goes into developing an effective web marketing strategy.
What’s Meant by Web Marketing?
Web marketing is a catch-all term for all the online strategies businesses use to gain visibility, engage their audience, and generate leads. It’s an ongoing process; even after you design your site and connect with prospects, you still need to keep them engaged with fresh content and new offers.
Web Marketing Works for Both B2B and B2C
While every business needs a website, not all websites can benefit from the same web marketing strategy. However, one thing that remains true across the board is that every business can benefit from web marketing.
Whether you’re selling to businesses or consumers, web marketing allows you to showcase your products and services online without becoming a spammy presence in social media circles or search engines.
How Web Marketing Works
Because web marketing doesn’t rely on traditional media to gain visibility, it’s often more cost-effective than any offline marketing method. Even better, you can track your marketing efforts and gauge little milestones every step of the way.
For example, if you run a radio ad and don’t see a boost in foot traffic, you don’t know if it’s because no one listened to the ad or because they didn’t take action after hearing it. With web marketing, those leads are just a click away from becoming customers.
Web Marketing is Ideal for Businesses that Want to Be Visible and Relevant Online
As we’ve explored in this article, web marketing is an excellent way for businesses to gain an online presence. When implemented effectively, web marketing can be highly beneficial to your business’s bottom line.
However, you choose to approach your web marketing strategy, it should always have the customer in mind. That way, every lead you attract will become another happy customer–and more customers means more sales!
What’s Included in Web Marketing?
These five components comprise a majority of web marketing, but a lot more goes into developing and implementing an effective web marketing strategy.
According to HubSpot, “There are many ways businesses can communicate with prospects and new customers online, including social media marketing, blogging, search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, email newsletters, and promotions/referral programs. These are all great ways to make your website more visible.”
Blog Creation
Blogs are the perfect platform for getting in touch with your audience and establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
Not only can you post articles and written content, but you can also incorporate images, videos, and other elements to create a well-rounded blog.
Blogging allows your audience to get to know you and feel more connected to your brand. This intimacy makes them much more likely to take action when it’s time for them to make a purchase.
Social Media Presence
If prospects and customers can’t find your business or brand on social media, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to grow and engage with your target market. Social media isn’t just one more “to-do” when it comes to web marketing. It’s a tool you need to learn how to use right. Otherwise, all your efforts will be a complete waste of time and money.
Email Marketing
eMarketing is a critical aspect of any web marketing strategy. According to HubSpot, you can use email marketing on its own or in conjunction with social media and other online marketing strategies to promote brand awareness, increase website traffic and leads, [and] support sales.”
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
According to Word Stream, “Organic search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of affecting the online visibility of a website.” You can achieve this through certain page tags, post types, keywords, and other elements that search engines look for when indexing your site.
Combining these strategies gives you a strong web marketing plan to engage your target audience, convert them into customers, and eventually generate more leads.
Real-Time Web Marketing Examples
Here are some real-time marketing examples that will hopefully give you a better idea of how web marketing works, just in case you aren’t sure.
Example #1: How Content Marketing is Driving Leads and Sales for a Company
We can all learn from HubSpot. Before you knew about their products, you probably got to read one of their blog posts. They focus on giving people valuable content through blogging and social media, which helps drive leads and sales for them in the long run.
Example #2: How Ecommerce Companies Use social media to Drive Traffic and Conversions
Social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter allow users to share content with their connections, making them perfect for web marketing. One example is how the online retailer Gilt uses social media to drive traffic back to its site, resulting in sales.
Example #3: How News Sites Use social media to Get Traffic and Boost Credibility
Social media isn’t just good for getting people interested in your brand; it can also be used as a tool for gaining more credibility. For example, CNN uses social media to increase its page rank on Google and link its site.
Example #4: How a Blog Drives More Traffic and Sales for an Ecommerce Company
We can all learn from BetaBrand. It turns out blogging isn’t just about getting people to know about your brand. But quite an effective tool for making direct sales. Betabrand uses its blog to sell its products directly through its site.
Example #5: How the Website of a Publishing Company Grows Their Audience Using social media
Let’s all learn from Scribd. Even if you don’t have millions of readers, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook can be a great way to increase your reach. Scribd uses these networks as a tool for building relationships with their audience, which has, in turn, helped them grow tremendously.
Example #6: How an Online Fitness Company Uses News Sites to Rank High on Google
We can learn from Fitness Singles that ranking high on Google isn’t just about getting links but also about building credibility. As a result of their efforts, they rank higher than other fitness sites, which has led to more traffic and sales for them.
Example #7: How an Event Planning Company Uses social media to Sell Their Services
It’s not just about showing people what you have to offer or how great your company is. Social media can also be used to sell your products and services directly to potential customers. For example, an event planning company called Love it So Much uses social media for this exact purpose – selling their services through Twitter and Facebook.
Who Should Implement a Web Marketing Campaign?
I’d say every business out there. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business, an e-commerce company, or a large multinational corporation; every business can benefit from web marketing.
Even if your business is already doing well, good business sense demands that you keep up with the times.
Why?
Well, if your competitors are implementing web marketing strategies and reaping their benefits, there’s a good chance they will overshadow you in the long run. They might get more customers or sales than you and eventually end up taking a big slice of your market share.
Not yet convinced? Here are some more reasons why web marketing can make your business flourish:
#1. It’s free!
Well, not entirely – there may be some costs associated with getting started. If you hire a professional to do everything for you, there will be fees involved. However, if you’re willing to put in the effort and work, you can build a successful web marketing campaign for free.
#2. It’s effective
There’s no doubt that if done correctly, web marketing will help your business get more customers and sales. It might take you some time to see results, but eventually, your efforts will pay off.
#3. It can Be done anytime, anywhere
Web marketing doesn’t take up much time. Even if you only have a few minutes to spare in your day, there are certain activities you can do to boost your business’ success – like writing a fantastic blog post or promoting your brand on social media sites.
#4. It builds your brand
It’s not just about sales. The more you promote your business online, the more people know about it.
It’s about establishing your brand as a reliable business that people can trust.
#5. Web marketing is effective even with small budgets
Although you might have to put in a lot of effort and time, web marketing doesn’t necessarily need a big budget. There are so many things you can do just with a small budget.
#6. It’s not affected by the economic situation
Times are tough, and things aren’t looking up just yet. But these challenging times have made web marketing even more effective. People want to save money, so they’re looking for a good deal online. If you offer a great product or service at a reasonable price, there’s a higher chance you’ll get more customers and sales.
#7. It’s ideal for small businesses
It might seem like web marketing is only meant for large corporations with lots of money at their disposal, but the truth is that every business can benefit from this technique – big or small.
#8. It comes in handy for businesses that are new to the market
How do you get people to know that your business exists?
Web marketing is a great way to introduce your brand to potential customers. It’s the best way to let people know that you exist and are ready for business.
#9: Web marketing is 24/7
Web marketing isn’t limited by time. You can do it any time of the day, 365 days a year.
Not only that. You can also aim your efforts at specific times of the day to get more views and sales.
#10. It works with any business
You might think web marketing is for online businesses only, but that’s not true.
Web marketing works with any business, physical or digital. It doesn’t matter if your company sells products, services, or promotes a cause – web marketing will work for you.
#11. It’s not a one-time thing
If you’re going to create a successful web marketing campaign, it won’t happen overnight. But if you stick with it and work on it consistently, there’s no reason your efforts won’t pay off eventually.
How to Develop a Web Marketing Plan
Planning is everything.
Before you start doing anything, it helps assess your current strengths and weaknesses and develop a plan of action that can help you get to where you want.
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Define Your Goals and core Objectives
The first thing you need to do is to identify the core objectives of your online marketing plan.
What are you trying to accomplish with web marketing? Is it to get more visitors? Or is it to get more sales? Once you have a clear idea of your ultimate goal, feel free to go ahead and build around that objective.
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Create a list of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Next, you’ll need to make a list of KPIs that will help you measure your progress. Think about what you want to achieve on the web, and come up with quantifiable data that can help you determine if your plan is effective or not.
For example, if your goal is to get more sales, you can create a KPI that tracks the generated monthly revenue for the whole year.
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Make a list of your key activities
Once you have an idea of your KPIs, you can move on to the next step – defining the specific activities that can help you meet those goals. What are some of the things your business needs to do online? And which ones are important? You have a lot of options, but the following activities come highly recommended:
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Building a blog and social media presence
Depending on your business type, it’s crucial to establish an online voice and personality right from the start. A blog is one of the best ways to do this. You can use it to talk about emerging trends in your industry or share any relevant information that can help your customers.
Another critical activity is establishing a presence on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest.
Social media can be a powerful tool for getting more sales and building deeper relationships with your current customers if done right.
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Doing online advertising
If you want to quickly increase the number of people who know about your brand, you need to consider online advertising.
Websites like Google and Facebook make it easy for any business – small or large – to advertise their products and services online. All you have to do is set your budget and decide what type of messaging best suits your company image.
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Creating an e-commerce website
If you want to capture more sales, it helps to have an online store with a convenient shopping cart system.
By creating your own e-commerce site, you can easily list and promote all of your digital products and services (downloadable PDFs, photos, videos, templates) for customers to purchase on the go.
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Building and promoting landing pages
If you’re marketing an online product/service, it helps set up a dedicated landing page where visitors can come and learn more about what you have to offer before buying.
A good landing page should include everything your potential customers need to know (product description, photos or videos, FAQs, etc.) and should be designed to give visitors a call-to-action (CTA) that makes it easy for them to act.
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Conducting A/B testing
It’s never wise to rely on just one marketing channel. One of the best ways you can keep track of the performance of your overall online marketing efforts is to set up A/B testing.
A/B testing allows you to compare two versions of your website (homepage, product page) and determine which one works best for your business. Statistics won’t lie – the data will tell you what version gets more visitors or converts better into sales.
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Put Together all the Necessary Resources
Once you’ve defined all of the key activities you need to do, go ahead and put together all the necessary resources. That includes money (for online ads) and workforce (an in-house staff to work on building your web presence).
Once you have everything in place, it’s time to start executing your online marketing plan. You can try launching two or three activities simultaneously and see which ones are more successful.
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Stop & Review
As mentioned earlier, constantly measuring your KPIs is a critical step in ensuring you’re on track in achieving your set goals. Be sure to stop and review your KPIs at least once a quarter (every three months) and adjust your online marketing activities accordingly.
Once everything is in place, you’re ready to launch your web marketing campaign. The next step will be setting up analytics tools that track how each activity contributes toward achieving your goals.
Remember that the whole point of setting up web marketing is making sure that all of your marketing efforts lead to more sales. So don’t forget – track how each activity affects the bottom line.
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Repeat the Process
After you’ve successfully executed your web marketing campaign and achieved all of your set goals, it’s time to take a break. But be sure to review everything once more – maybe in six months – and develop new strategies to improve your online presence further.
One More Thing…
What would be the most optimal solution to achieve maximum visibility on Google?
- Give away your product for free and advertise it via social media
- Promote your content heavily across all online channels
- Spend half of your budget on paid search ads and the other half on content marketing and building high-quality backlinks
- Create an e-commerce website and conduct A/B testing
- Create landing pages and continuously promote them across all digital channels
- Put together all the necessary resources and start executing your web marketing campaign
7 Web Marketing Tips for Your Business
Here are a few web marketing pointers you can use to help you achieve your SMB marketing goals:
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Spend on Google ads but don’t rely on them
This is one of the many channels that you can use to drive traffic to your website. However, it helps to have a solid strategy in place to avoid running losses.
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Build high-quality backlinks
Quality always beats quantity when it comes to building links. So don’t be in a hurry trying to build as many backlinks as possible. Instead, focus on creating content worthy enough to attract linkers naturally.
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Focus on your website’s user experience
Following Google’s latest algorithm change, getting traffic is no longer an easy task for many websites. But if you’ve built a great UX, it’ll be easier for search engines to crawl and index your site pages. And that means more traffic for your site.
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Make the most of social media
One of our favourite SMB marketing channels is also one of the best ways to promote your product or service across all digital channels. If you have an existing brand community, this can be a great way to engage with them and drive more sales.
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Optimize your online presence
If you haven’t done so already, now is the right time to look at and optimize how you handle SEO, email marketing, and conversion rate optimization.
After all, if you want to generate more leads and sales from digital channels, you first need to make sure that your web pages are crawlable and your website is easy to use.
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Make the most of Google My Business
This one’s another great SMB marketing tool you can use to improve your digital presence. And while some people think that having a ‘basic’ profile on this platform won’t make much difference, they couldn’t be more wrong.
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Create a customer-centric content strategy
This is one of the most effective SMB marketing strategies you can use to achieve your eCommerce goals. By developing a content strategy that’s uniquely customized for your audience, you should be able to generate more leads and sales from all digital channels.
Bonus Tip: Watch Out for Negative SEO
Negative SEO attacks website traffic, conversions, or search engine rankings using unscrupulous methods. Here are a few things you can do to avoid falling victim to this black hat tactic:
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Keep an eye on your backlinks
The more quality links you have, the harder it will be for someone to mess with them. But if someone does find a way to lower their value, it’ll reflect poorly on your website’s reputation.
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Don’t use spammy or cheap link building services
Some SEO companies may try to boost your website’s SEO and organic traffic using questionable link-building services. And while you might see an initial increase in traffic, your site’s reputation will suffer in the long run.
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Monitor your search engine rankings
If you haven’t done so already, now’s the time to monitor your website’s search engine ranking and see how it fares against your competitors. This way, you’ll know if something out of the ordinary happens with one of your backlinks.
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Increase your site security
You can’t stop negative SEO 100%, but you can make it harder for people to mess with your website by increasing its security level. That way, even if someone finds a vulnerability, they won’t be able to do any serious damage, at least not right away.
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Focus on the user experience
Your eCommerce website’s UX is an excellent defence against negative SEO. So, if your site has a lot of problems with crawlability and usability, you’ll leave a door open for black hat tactics.
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Keep all your site assets organized
When you keep all of your digital assets (images, video files, etc.) in one place, it will be easier for search engines to crawl more pages on your website and index them more often.
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Build high-value backlinks
These are links that are naturally obtained through editorial outreach, not by using shady SEO techniques. If your website has more kinds of backlinks, the more you’ll be able to defend yourself against Blackhat SEO attacks.
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Create quality content
Content is king! And this certainly holds when it comes to maintaining a healthy online presence. As we mentioned earlier, customers tend to spend more time on websites with compelling and up-to-date content – so keep this in mind as you create your site’s pages.
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Monitor your Site for Malware
Malware is one of the most common causes of website traffic loss, so it’s crucial to stay on top of security issues and scan your site regularly for viruses and other malicious software.
Careers in Web Marketing
Finding the perfect job is never easy. If you’re looking to take your career to the next level, consider taking up a position in web marketing. Here are some of the qualifications employers look for when hiring web marketers:
- Ability to think strategically
- Demonstrated knowledge of SEO and content marketing best practices
- Proficiency with Google Analytics or other web analytics tools
- Understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Ability to work in a team
- Experience with marketing automation, email marketing, and social media tools
Have these qualities? You can find more information about careers in web marketing here:
If you’re thinking about embarking on your career in web marketing, there are plenty of resources out there to help you get started. Here are some helpful websites that will show you how to turn yourself into an SEO pro:
- Backlinko
- Search Engine Journal
- Yoast.com
- and of course, our mediaonemarketing.com.sg blog
Web Marketing is the Future of Sales – Why You Should Get Involved Now
Every year, more and more people discover the wonders of eCommerce thanks to an ever-increasing number of online stores that offer better service at lower prices. However, even the best eCommerce websites need a healthy dose of promotion to generate traffic and increase revenue. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources out there that will show you how to become an online marketing pro and help you boost your store’s conversions.
If you’re interested in getting involved with web marketing, don’t waste another minute. Here’s how you can start paving your way to success today:
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Learn how search engines operate
Everyone knows about Google, but there are hundreds of search engines out there, each with different ranking criteria. You can only improve your site rankings by understanding what makes these algorithms tick — only then will you be able to optimize your content to perfection.
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Make sure your website is mobile-friendly
Mobile devices are now the most popular way to access the Internet, so if you want to reach a wider audience, focus on designing websites that render beautifully on all screen sizes. If necessary, hire a web development agency to help you with this task.
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Increase your digital footprint
Even if you have a great website, you need to market it to make potential clients aware of its existence. Think about developing an online marketing plan or joining forces with other web marketers. You can also hire an advertising agency to help you promote your business – this is especially relevant for physical stores that don’t already have a solid online presence.
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Ensure your website is accessible to everyone
The WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) establish rules and recommendations to make the Internet more inclusive – especially for users with disabilities. Web marketing agencies often bring up this issue when discussing the importance of compliance with accessibility standards.
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Never stop learning
Staying up to date with the latest trends in web marketing is crucial if you want to remain competitive and generate more sales. Here are some great resources for those who enjoy self-education:
– Moz Blogs – Search Engine Land – Digital Marketing Depot – Social Media Examiner
Remember that when it comes to generating more sales, you must constantly improve your website and marketing strategies if you want to succeed.
