The world of digital marketing changes fast — really fast. One day, your non-mobile site is just fine. The next day, wham!, you’re flat on your back with flatlined traffic and sinking conversion rates.
Your job as a business owner and entrepreneur is to move revenue up and to the right, to keep the business afloat, to run it all, and to look good doing it.
You can’t be expected to know everything there is to know about the field of digital marketing. But, on the other hand, you have to know a few things. Below are six of the most important things that you should know about the state of digital marketing right now.
1. It’s more than PPC ads.
A few years ago, PPC was the end-all digital marketing solution. Today, however, PPC has less of an impact.
I watch businesses pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into the PPC hole, thinking it’s the only digital option. Well, it’s not. There are plenty more methods that are even more effective.
Don’t necessarily cancel your AdWords account right away. You can still bid on a few select keywords, but it’s time to wake up to the wide, wide world of all that digital marketing has to offer.
2. It costs money.
On the other side of the spectrum are people who think that digital marketing is essentially free.
Somehow, they've heard of the benefit of “organic traffic” and “SEO hacks” and think that drumming up traffic takes a bit of magic, a few black hat techniques, and a couple website tweaks. Suddenly voila! you’re at the top the search results.
Nope.
Digital marketing costs money. It costs money to write content, publish content, hire professionals, do social media, and all the other things involved in “content marketing.” You may not have to bid on search terms, but you’re still going to have to invest some cash
Here’s the thing. If you spend the time and money to do it right, your digital marketing will have a powerful ROI.
3. Content is king.
Every time I write that phrase, I kick myself. I hate cliches, but this one is going to die hard.
In fact, it’s probably not going to die at all, not unless the Internet blows up in an unlikely eruption of trillions of bytes of data.
The Internet is content. The digital landscape is comprised of millions of articles, blogs, infographics, websites, evergreen pages, journals, tweets, status updates, images, pins, posts, pictures, profiles, videos, vines, gifs...and more and more content.
It’s all in the content, folks.
Know this: Digital marketing is content marketing. To have a presence in the digital marketing landscape, you must be producing content. Period.
4. SEO is not dead.
Another digital marketing misbelief involves all the delusion surrounding SEO. Sadly, there is still a ton of myths attached to search engine optimization. The most persistent misbelief is that “SEO is dead.”
Doomsday prophets have been heralding the end of SEO for a long time, but it hasn’t died yet. As long as there is online search, there will be some form of optimization.
Although SEO hasn’t died, it has changed. Every day, Google updates its algorithm. Every few months, the algorithm change is drastic enough to upset the apple cart, sending online companies to the top of the SERPs or to the bottom of the barrel.
Business owners don’t need to know the exact implications of every Panda, Penguin, or Pigeon update, but they should know that SEO is alive and well,
5. Mobile optimization is de rigueur.
The most recent shakeup in the digital world is the absolute domination of mobile. Google’s latest algorithm change reminded all of us that our websites need to be mobile friendly.
And what if they’re not? Then you will suffer the consequences. Today’s digital natives experience life through a few square inches of the smartphone screen. They don’t just desire mobile friendly experiences. They demand it.
They do their shopping on mobile. They do their directions on mobile. They find places to hang out on mobile. They socialize on mobile. They live and breathe mobile.
It logically follows that a company without a mobile strategy is a company that will get stepped on, overlooked, sidelined, and altogether rejected.
Mobile friendly websites aren’t just for companies with deep pockets and a progressive stance towards technological innovation. Mobile friendly websites are a must-have for any business that wants to have a chance at a digital presence.
6. Conversion optimization will give you the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time.
One fast way to digital success is conversion optimization.
Every website has something to offer, something to sell, or something for the user to do. Conversion optimization is the science of helping more users do just that.
I mentioned above that digital marketing costs money. Conversion rate optimization costs money, too. It requires professional expertise to determine how to optimize a website, implement split testing, and make the necessary changes. However, the ROI of conversion optimization can be astonishingly high.
If you’re looking to maximize your digital experience, I’d suggest giving conversion optimization a try.
Conclusion
Today’s era of digital marketing demands that we are knowledgeable, action-oriented, and proactive.
As business owners, we don’t have to know everything there is to know about digital marketing. But we do have to know the right things.
What do you think that every business owner should know about digital marketing?
