For the majority of companies worldwide, the main challenge they have in marketing is to generate content that increases Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This problem particularly affects many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with limited budgets.
Advertising growth generation is low
Advertising is one way to generate growth, but, surprisingly, such disruptive techniques have a much lower conversion rate than inbound marketing. The latter technique is where someone looking for a product engages your brand and looks for your site. The inbound strategy is all about having the clients finding you, rather than you hunting out for them with ads. In marketing, inbound strategies are clear winners over outbound.
SEO is still important in inbound marketing
The first, and still major, tool to use is the good old SEO. For those who think SEO is outdated, hard to control and a waste of effort, think again. SEO is still the best way to optimize your web content to get better search engine results and to get that much-needed click-through. SEO is the most important part of inbound marketing, because, if clients cannot find you, you do not have a business.
SEO can be a very complicated strategy, and is often a specialized area, with experts telling you to think about keywords, codes, structure and link building. But if you just focus firstly on finding and using the more important keywords relevant to your brand, you can still make it work. Of course, if you have a large enough budget, there are hundreds of SEO experts who can do it for you. However, for those with limited resources, there is a gamut of free online information and help to start on the SEO basics.
Pay-per-click can reach audiences SEO cannot
Then we have pay-per-click (PPC). Although this is a paid strategy, PPC can be a useful tool in inbound marketing. Search ads will always appear when a consumer makes a search for a product. Those ads will always be relevant to the product the consumer is searching for, and can often be a good source of web hits. Most people tend to click the first relevant link on the results page first. With SEO, you have a very limited control of how high in the search rankings your website will be.
With PPC, you can almost guarantee to be in the top rankings as a paid ad. In addition, being on page one of Google can mean your ads get more clicks than the SEO rated results. You also have the control over your budget, and can bid on very specific keywords to get your ads on top for certain, much-defined searches. PPC also gives you the ability to pause your advertising, target only mobile searches and measure your return on investment (ROI) more easily.
Good content is the core of any inbound marketing strategy
No inbound marketing campaign would be complete without good content. Content marketing is essential for any form of campaign, whether inbound or outbound. Once you have your consumers in the door, you need to keep them there. Giving them good, interesting content, that catches the eye and is well formatted, can keep that consumer on your site, rather than going elsewhere. Content should take multiple forms, to help your target audience know what is best for them. The main key is to make your content stand out in the crowd. With the wealth of information and content available, you need to stand a head and shoulders above the rest, so the content needs to educate, inspire and captivate your key audience.
Building a blog is important with content marketing, as is having a testimonials page. Blogging can help with attracting new customers, and keeping return visitors with new content. If you can convince your audience that you are a thought-leader in your selected industry, and prove it with unique and captivating content, your blog can account for as much as half of your inbound traffic. And testimonials from previous happy customers can often convince an on-the-fence consumer to jump off on your side.
Social media is the biggest audience on the internet
Obviously, in this age of Facebook and Twitter, social media is a huge driver of traffic. When everyone has a social media account, this is one area of inbound marketing that you really cannot afford to ignore. Once you have the well-created content, social media is a great place to get it “out there” and get it seen. Many people follow their favourite brands on social media. And others who know them see who they are following, and look to see if they are interesting.
Social media can grow your brand in a way that was never before possible. Spending a little time creating a good social media strategy to get your content to the right consumers, getting clear analysis of the high-performing content, and paid promotions can help to increase your brand awareness, and click-through rate.
Landing pages must be interesting to the consumer
And, finally, you must look at your landing pages. This is where your warm lead ends up after clicking on your ads of media content. You landing page needs to be the best, to ensure the consumer does not just click on out again. There are several tips that can be used to ensure good landing page content:
- Relevancy: Ensure the landing page has relevance to you call-to-action
- Focus: The landing page’s purpose must be singular. People want to see the thing they are looking for first. Restrict navigation to other pages and make any forms short
- Design: The page has to be designed to keep the consumer interested. Videos, images and testimonials help to do this and improve your conversion rates
And, after all that is done, there is one last step you can use to bring them back. Remarketing. This technique uses cookies on your visitors, and can follow them around the internet showing them ads reminding them of the greatness of your site and brand. Moreover, it can be specific to the type of content they were looking for originally. All in all, these tactics should provide you with a very solid infrastructure for your inbound marketing strategy.
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