Digital Marketing is a very important component of any business, big or small. Research indicates that more than 60 percent of brick and mortar store sales were actually made thanks to online research. Digital marketing is an overall term for promoting awareness of your products and services to potential customers using the internet. This includes your website, social media, search engines, videos, emails, blogs and other digital marketing efforts. All retailers (all businesses for that matter) whether they sell online or not need to have a digital presence. But, digital marketing terminology is always changing. To give you our expertise, we’re breaking down the digital marketing terms to know.
Understanding Digital Marketing
Digital marketing happens 24/7 and provides personal, accurate and measurable results in real-time. It delivers an immediate return on investment, is economical and can fit into any size budget. Bill Gates coined the term content marketing way back in the 1980’s stating that “content is king” and boy was he ever right. Photos, videos, blogs, website updates, social media posts, emails and text messaging all combine to create content marketing. This online content creates brand awareness, lead generation, company relevance, traffic growth and loyal customers. The secret to content marketing success is knowing your customer, what interests them and keeping them engaged.
Digital Marketing Terms To Know
A well thought out digital marketing campaign works together using both traditional and digital efforts. When you provide cohesive brand images and messages online and mirror that in your store, you’re on your way to successfully integrate these two marketing approaches. Also, recognize that your local search optimization drives that online traffic to your brick and mortar.
So, if you want to generate more online visibility and drive traffic into your store, now is the perfect time to ramp up both your digital presence and your traditional ones. To do this, there are some digital marketing terms to know and learn how to implement your strategy.
SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the process and strategy to get traffic from organic search results on search engines. Search engines like Google and Bing. Because the majority of internet searches happen on one of these two search engines, SEO is a free way to help your business “show up” on Google (organically). When we say “organic” we mean the natural or free way. Unlike Pay Per Click, there is no payment involved to make your SEO better overnight. SEO takes time to build and improve. Plus, because Google is constantly changing the rules and best practices, SEO changes with it. So much goes into what we know as SEO. For a beginner’s guide, we’ll keep it simple. There are on-page (or things you can do on your website) to improve your SEO. This would involve things like adding more content to your web pages, updating your HTML structure, using keywords that get a lot of traffic for your business, etc. The list goes on. The other part of SEO is the stuff that happens off your website. What kind of websites are linking to your website? Is your website getting “social signals”, visibility and likes across social media? What about your local SEO? These are all factors that happen off your actual website pages. And they’re all working together for your SEO. If we were giving out awards, SEO would get our gold medal in digital marketing terms to know.
Local SEO
Local SEO is different from standard SEO because it helps drive online customers to your brick and mortar address. If you have a store or a local business, your website should be designed to promote your products and services right when and where customers are searching for them. Local SEO is the practice of building relevance and reliability around specific locations so consumers can find your business when they are nearby. Local SEO is one of many very important digital marketing terms to know. It’s targeted to an audience who are using specific words to find a specific product or service.
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
Also known as PPC. Pay per click marketing is the result of using search engine advertising to generate clicks to your website. This is different than organically ranking on search engines. PPC ads are paid ads and appear on the side or top of Google’s search results pages. Advertisers, like you, place bids on specific words or word groups, called keywords, designed to match terms users might enter when looking for products or services similar to theirs. Every time a visitor clicks the PPC ad, it sends a visitor back to your website or landing page and Google charges the advertiser a small fee. Google Ads, formerly known as AdWords is one of the most popular PPC platforms.
Click Through Rate (CTR)
If you’re using email, PPC, or any form of marketing tracking, you’ve heard CTR. A click through rate (CTR) is the ratio of users who click on a specific call-to-action to the number of total users who view a page, email, or online ad. CTR is used to measure an online advertising campaign’s success and a campaign’s effectiveness. Examples are links or buttons in an email, blog or social media post that prompts the user to take a certain action – like fill-out
a form, sign-up for a newsletter, or download an infographic.
Conversions
A conversion is simply getting someone to respond to your call-to-action content. You will see conversions for websites, emails, advertising, and more. Some examples can be very simple or very complex. When someone opens an email, goes to a website, are all simple conversions. The ultimate conversion is turning a visitor into a customer. Conversions can be tracked
Impressions
An impression is a basic, single display of a paid (PPC) digital ad on a website page. When an ad loads and displays it is a single impression. Keep in mind you can’t have clicks without impressions.
Long Tail Keywords
Long tail keywords are more specific to what a shopper searches. And these keywords can be differentiating factors when competing for shoppers in your market. How? Because the better your keywords, the better the chances that your store will appear higher in search results. For example, a common keyword is “dining chair.” A long tail keyword phrase is “traditional brown leather dining chair”.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM goes by several different names. You may hear search marketing, search engine marketing, SEM. No matter what you call it, it’s definition is the same. Search marketing is your chance to get traffic through paid efforts. Advertisers bid on common keywords search engine users may type in while searching for certain products or services. The advertisers’ ads might then appear next to those search results increasing the opportunity for customers to see them.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Conversion rate optimization is the process of increasing the percentage of website visitors who take action from a call to action. Some examples are completing a form, making a purchase, requesting a quote or joining an email list. The CRO process is getting a thorough understanding of how visitors navigate a website, what actions they take, and what is preventing them from responding to the call to action.
Organic Traffic vs. Paid Traffic
Organic traffic is when a user visits a website based on search engine results. Organic traffic is driven by SEO and is earned not paid. Think of organic traffic like the natural way to get visitors. Organic traffic means traffic you didn’t pay for. When someone finds your website on social media, clicks on your business page from Google, or just goes to a link they saw in an article. Those are some examples of organic traffic. Alternately, paid traffic is the group of visits to a website that are paid for advertising like Google Adwords through PPC campaigns. You’ll see notations for the type of traffic in your Google Analytics data.
Algorithms + SERP = Search Engine Results Page
Algorithms are computer codes that work together to connect users with what they are searching for. SERP, Search Engine Results Pages are the pages that search engines display in response to what a user is searching for. SERP will list results from keywords and phrases from both paid and organic ads. Your website should be optimized to follow the rules of (the ever-changing) algorithms.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is one of the best and free tools provided by Google. It helps website operators look at reports and data from the highest level to the granular detail. Some of the basic information that Google Analytics will show you is the number of users that come to your website, where they’re coming from, how long they stay, and what pages they look at while they’re on your website. Google Analytics is a free tool that gives you a simple code to put on your website. That code is unique to your account. It also tracks all of the data from your website activity. Google Analytics sees users and devices and breaks up the data for you to see anything you’d like to track within the system. There are so many customizations, especially for ecommerce companies, that will help you define how much value a website visitor can be worth to your company. To help you learn, Google provides helpful Academy courses online. The courses are free and invaluable to the business owner ready to take on Google Analytics. Maybe Google Analytics ties for first place with the best digital marketing terms to know.
Landing Page
A landing page is a website page that gives businesses the opportunity to capture a visitor’s information using a lead form. Landing pages target a particular traffic stream. A great landing page is like a good host at a dinner party: there but silent. Your landing page should be part of your website but not available to a visitor who is browsing your website. Landing pages should be set for a purpose in your campaigns or events. If you have an email campaign that advertises an informative ebook, you’ll find a landing page about that ebook when you click on a button or link in that email. For PPC advertising, your landing page is very important. The landing page should be a place that describes exactly what a user expects to see when they click on your ads. Landing pages should also have simple forms to collect information in exchange for an ebook, a promotion, a whitepaper, etc. The better your landing page, the more likely it will bring more leads (or conversions).
How to Implement a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy
As online shopping increases and consumers use their mobile devices to find online products and brick and mortar stores, every industry is working to figure out how they can use digital marketing to their advantage. Your customers are looking for you online – so get your strategy started.
Here are some helpful tips:
- Get to Know Your SEO. Get to know the keywords your industry uses. Research competitors, too. Always use keywords, phrases and links to all the content you use on your website, social media, blogs, and links to your website. Professional digital marketing firms like MicroD can help you with your website, SEO strategy and a complete content marketing strategy.
- Get Blogging: Blogs are a very important part of your digital marketing strategy. They are cost-effective and will improve your search engine rankings. A blog is a perfect platform for you to position your company as the industry leader and drive traffic to your website. Search engines love new content, so the more you blog, the higher your chances of a search engine ranking you higher.
- Use Social Media: Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others are a very important part of a digital marketing strategy. Posting on social media is an effective way to drive traffic to your website. Post things that interest your target audience like photographs, videos, artwork, memes, gifs and then include a link to your website where they can find more information.
- Use Email Marketing: Email allows you to share important information with your customers and then send them to your website to get even more. Email management services provide you with a variety of templates and tools needed to incorporate email marketing into your content.
There are many moving targets in a digital marketing strategy and when implemented correctly can make a big difference in your overall success. The bottom line is that you must pay attention to these digital marketing terms and rules and continually work them into your overall strategy. If you’re not sure where to begin, a digital marketing professional, like digital marketing team, can get you started.