3 Digital Marketing Mistakes That Could Be Costing You Thousands
If you are looking to perfect your digital marketing strategy and implement detail perfect campaigns that increase your site's organic traffic and rank on Google, here are some old traps for new players. We have put together three mistakes - perhaps better described as under-estimations, to avoid with your content and platform decisions.
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Social Media
- Return on Investment
1/ Not revising your SEO
Your website is one of the most important assets that represent your business. It may have a brilliant design, beautiful colour scheme and all necessary call-to-actions, but all of this becomes useless if your website isn’t optimised. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) gives your website the opportunity to rank highly in Google search. If you own a landscaping business in Melbourne, you will want your website to be one of the first search results whenever someone Googles 'garden design Melbourne'.
Being among the top Google search results becomes really important here, as statistics show that the top 5 results on Google account for 67% of all clicks! That’s correct – only the first five organic searches get the most traffic. The following 6-10 results only get a measly 3% of traffic from all searches.
So what now? Should you try looking for a different search engine or completely give up?
Savvy marketers have come up with several ways to achieve a successful SEO strategy.
Do your keyword research
You have probably already identified the most relevant keywords that people are using to search for your business using Google Keyword Tools, but it's also important to remember that keywords change over time. What other people search for changes according to trends, social events and even time of year. If your business has seasonal ebbs and flows like retail, you’ll want to use different keywords for ads and promotions during for holidays and special occasions.
Keep your content fresh
Constantly updating your website with fresh content helps increase search engine ranking. This doesn’t guarantee being seen among the top Google results, however, it will help Google view your website as a living and constantly updated entity. Make sure your website has relevant quality information that incorporates common keywords which will give it the greater potential of being shown among the top search engine results.
Know the trends
There are constant changes happening in the way Google uses its algorithms and the influx of other factors can impact your ranking in searches. While it might be hard for an individual to notice these changes, an experienced Web Agency monitors SEO on a daily basis for their clients and is fully briefed with the latest trends in the digital sphere.
2/ Ignoring the power of Social Media
There is no logical reason or explanation for not being active on Social Media in 2018. This might seem obvious, although some studies show that 24% of small businesses lack Social Media presence.
Not using Social Media for marketing your business could be costing you thousands of dollars in potential revenue. That’s correct – you could be losing money by not doing anything! With the highest amount of users in history – 2.62 billion in 2018, up from 2.46 billion in 2017 – Social Media has become the biggest global marketplace in the World Wide Web.
Not only a large number of Social Media users can become your potential customers, it allows you effectively target users who are particularly important for your business.
Because let’s be realistic, if you are a pet shop owner in the Melbourne CBD, you will probably want to target individuals with pets in that area rather than everyone else. With sophisticated tools like Facebook Ads, you can create a hyper targeted campaign that will bring you more eyeballs than traditional outdoor advertising.
3/ Forgetting about ROI
So, you’ve got your stunning website up and running, you are on track with the SEO, your Social Media channels are all set but… what are you getting from it? Because if you don’t see clear and measurable results from any of those activities you might either be:
- Doing it wrong; or…
- Doing it right but it might not be something your business needs.
Consider the following situation. Let’s say you are an owner of a small gardening supplies shop in regional Victoria. Your typical consumer is aged anywhere between 50 plus and is not active on Instagram but is on Facebook; where he or she shares photos and updates on their life with family and friends. It will not make sense for you focusing your marketing efforts on Instagram if it’s not where most of your target market is found.
Rather, if you identify Facebook as your main marketing platform, you can work towards creating a community there. One great way would be creating a competition among your followers and encourage them to share beautiful plants they have grown using tools and supplies from your shop. You can ask them to tag and mention your Facebook business page in exchange for a 20% discount for all future purchases. This will bring more attention to your product and generate new potential orders.
Identifying activities that bring you the highest ROI is a long process of trial and error requiring a lot of time. The role of a Digital Agency is to identify key performance indicators (KPIs), monitor and measure those KPIs, report and measure the results. Analysing your results is the most important part of the entire process, as it helps identify which KPIs bring you real revenue. Their digital specialists will then work and test different tactics for constantly improving results.
If your business is ready to grow in leaps and bounds this year, we'd love to hear from you!
