The Most Asked Questions for Digital Marketing Answered

Long gone are the days of potential customers finding you in the Yellow Pages. Let’s be real—long gone are the days when most people even remember what the Yellow Pages are. Google is now a verb, and it’s where the vast majority of your customers are going to start their search for your products or services—and possibly where they’ll end up buying them. Almost 60 percent of people aged 16 to 64 buy something online at least once a week. In the vastness of the almost 2 billion websites on the Internet, how are you supposed to ensure that the people looking for your exact product or service find you . . . instead of one of your competitors? Well, that’s where digital marketing comes in. But what exactly is digital marketing? Let’s answer some digital marketing FAQs!

Top Digital Marketing Questions

1. What is a digital marketing plan? The best things start with a great plan. When it comes to digital marketing, the key aspect of your plan is “Who?” Many digital marketing tactics and channels are exciting and shiny, and it’s tempting to start with which tactics you’re most interested in (or have been told are the hot new thing). But your digital marketing plan should actually start with SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, time-bound) goals and your audience. In order to effectively market your very specific products or services, you need to determine who is most likely to be looking for them—and then where and how they’re looking for them.
2. What is SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and covers all the strategies used to make sure your website appears as high as possible on SERPs. Typically, SEO is broken into three main parts
   1. Technical—This strategy focuses on optimizing the backend of your website, including link structures, sitemaps, and speed.
   2. On-page—This is the content optimization on your website that incorporates a strong keyword strategy to boost your rankings when potential clients are searching using specific keywords.
   3. Off-page—An important part of SEO has to do with what other sites link to yours. Off-page SEO focuses on strategies to get other well-respected sites t link back to yours and includes tactics like link building, reviews, and guest blogs.
3. How long does SEO take? Unfortunately, it depends on many factors, including the amount of competition you have and the noise you’re trying to break through. The more specialized your service or product is, the easier (and faster) SEO results will start showing up. Whatever type of business you are, it will take an absolute minimum of a few months before you start seeing results.
   
4. What is PPC? PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click. While many digital marketing strategies are organic, PPC as a strategy that uses paid advertising on other websites that you pay a price for each time the advertisement is clicked on. A strong PPC strategy includes being extremely specific about targeting to make sure that the ads are being served to the most likely potential customers.
5. What is conversion rate optimization? If you spend an exorbitant amount of money to drive traffic to your website and the traffic does, in fact, increase, that’s fantastic! However, if you’re getting few (or no) additional customers or sign ups from that increased traffic, then the money was not well spent. Your conversion rate is basic math—the number of people who took whatever action you wanted them to take divided by the number of people who landed on the page. Conversion rate optimization experts analyze your site and make minor (or large) changes to increase the rate of people who take an actual action on your website.

Digital marketing is complex and multi-faceted. There is no one-size-fits-all answer—nor is it possible to set-it-and-forget-it. Your strategies will change as your business does . . . and as search engine algorithms and technology do. Bringing in an expert team of digital marketing experts with a proven track record can keep you on top of your SEO game and help your business take off. Contact Globe Runner today and let us find the best strategies to be rocket fuel for your business!