Whether you’re considering paid or natural search marketing, display ads, sponsorship or online video, social media marketing or contextual advertising, the important thing is to find the channels that provide the highest return on investment for your business.
As businesses strive to beat the competition for the number one spot in the search engines, increased emphasis is being placed on search marketing to achieve it. However, the key to success online is to develop a holistic digital strategy that can do this and much, much more.
Search Engine Optimisation is an incredibly effective, cost-efficient and wholly trackable way in which to increase traffic volume to a site and compete with the competition in the rankings online.
There are a number of techniques such as landing page optimisation, refreshed content, keyword selection and analysis, user generated content, link building, innovative content and different web layouts but getting the most from SEO means understanding what it can be used for and optimising it for long term success.
For example, SEO is not the most appropriate tool for short term campaigns or location-sensitive activity. SEO really comes into its own when it is used as an integral part of a long term digital marketing strategy for reaching your target audience and guiding them to your products or services as and when they require them.
But, since the key objective for any online business is to convert search rankings into sales, your strategy should also aim to deliver a high return on investment, not only through effective use of SEO but through other digital marketing channels that can help to boost conversion rates and repeat business in the long term.
Where to start
Developing an effective digital strategy isn’t easy. Once you’ve got your website right, where do you begin to increase the traffic to your site and convert your visitors into customers? There are so many options available that it’s difficult to encompass them all.
Whether you’re considering paid or natural search marketing, display ads, sponsorship or online video, social media marketing or contextual advertising, the important thing is to find the channels that provide the highest return on investment for you and optimise your campaign to continually improve performance and reduce wastage.
A full service digital agency can really help you to put together a plan that is right for your business encompassing everything from developing and optimising a site to search engine marketing, online advertising and analytics.
Where to spend your budget
It is essential to ensure that you spend your budget in the most effective and efficient way, which might be easier than you think. If your site conversion rate is low, it will make more sense to undertake some site optimisation work to increase it rather than spend more money on online media or SEO, as the long term effect of increasing the conversion rate will generate a far higher ROI than any other option.
It’s about tackling the quick wins first, improving your online business as quickly as possible and reducing the effect of the law of diminishing returns.
Measurable campaigns that deliver ROI
The main benefit of online marketing is that it enables you to measure the return on investment accurately, allowing you to clearly see what parts of your marketing campaign are working and where to improve the parts that aren’t. And because the web is so dynamic, different optimisation strategies can be trialled very easily, meaning that optimisation can take weeks rather than months, as is the case with offline advertising.
In these challenging economic times, it is even more crucial to make every penny of your marketing spend count. A well devised digital marketing strategy can help to achieve this. SEO and other forms of digital marketing can influence the online purchasing journey of the consumer. However, they must work together in order to achieve the best results.
