A website is an irreplaceable marketing tool for any brand nowadays. High-quality visuals and on-point content can set your brand apart from competitors and attract more customers. It ensures your digital presence and is one of the most important digital marketing platforms that can help you increase your traffic and, of course, your sales.
Although, the mere existence of your website will not add more zeros to your revenue. If you want your website to really help your business grow and increase your leads, you need to include it in your marketing strategy.
So in the next 10 minutes, we will discuss the importance of your website to your marketing strategy and how it can help to grow your business.
Let’s go.
What is Online Marketing?
First things first, let’s understand what online marketing is. Online marketing is the practice of spreading a message about a company’s products and services through web-based channels. The methods and tools applied for online marketing encapsulate email marketing, social media marketing, PPC, search engine optimization, and more.
The main objective of online marketing is to reach potential customers through those channels and platforms where they spend most of their time searching, shopping, and socializing.
The extensive presence of online reality in our lives led to the widespread adoption of the Internet for both business and personal purposes. Fortunately, the Internet’s perks entail new marketing channels as well. Those include digital mediums to reach new people and convert them from virtual visitors to loyal customers.
The main difference between online marketing and traditional marketing is that the latter uses mediums like print, TV, or radio advertisements. In contrast, as mentioned before, online marketing is entrenched in social media, email, and search engines such as Google.
It is worth noting that before the emergence of online marketing, advertisement costs were quite expensive. Nowadays, everyone who wants to promote their business can benefit from these online marketing channels and boost their brand. You can simply launch a website and start customer acquisition campaigns. All that at very affordable prices and with surprisingly high returns on investment (ROI).
What is Website Marketing?
Your website is one of the most important elements of your brand. It increases your credibility, makes your brand look more professional, and of course, ensures your online presence. But what’s exactly the role of your website in your online marketing?
Your online marketing, which is one of the most cost-efficient methods to boost your business, will become utterly useless without a website. It doesn’t matter how much effort you put into it. If your target audience cannot find you online, you will lose most of them. Once you have a well-designed website, you should concentrate all your online marketing techniques on promoting it since your website is basically your customer magnet. It is the most efficient platform to convince your visitors to become your customers. This is called website marketing.
Website marketing is the art of promoting your brand’s website on the Internet to increase the number of your visitors. The key point here is that your visitors should be those who are likely to become your customers. If you sell maternity dresses, the 16-year-old gamer boys’ visits won’t add any value to your business. That’s why it is not only about increasing your visitors’ number but rather about those interested in spending money on your products or services. Only in this case will more visitors bring more opportunities to boost your business and gain a bigger market share.
What is a Website Marketing Strategy?
Now that you know what website marketing is, let’s discuss what a website marketing strategy is and why you should have one. A website marketing strategy is basically how you plan to improve your website to enhance your traffic and improve your visitors’ experience.
For instance, if you produce skincare products, your visitors will most likely be interested in reading about how to identify their skin type and what kind of nutrients their skincare products should include. It will be more convenient if they find all this information in one place. Considering this particular example, you can write an informative blog post discussing the mentioned topics and increase your website engagement.
Thus to effectively promote your brand, you should have a well-defined roadmap, which in this case is your website with its respective marketing strategy.
The Role of Your Website in Your Digital Marketing Strategy
1. Content Marketing
Whether you are writing a casual article (like this one) or a peer-reviewed research paper, you are creating some type of content that needs a place to live, and your website is that place. The content you create is one of your website’s main components and immensely affects how your viewers interpret your brand. Therefore, content marketing deserves way more attention than you might have thought.
In short, content marketing aims at creating informative and relevant media about your brand and other topics directly linked to your brand’s concept (remember the skincare example). Through this, your target audience can get familiar with your expertise and products. Thus, it should be noted that creating content that addresses the needs of your potential buyers is one of the most effective online marketing strategies.
Blogging
On this note, it is essential to mention that about 86% of companies run a blog to produce content. Nowadays, blogs are, in fact, among the main types of media applied in content marketing strategies. The reason behind this is very simple. Blogs can be very beneficial. According to a recent report, about 57% of marketers claim that they have acquired new customers right through blogging. Moreover, blogging as a marketing tool is 13 times more likely to get positive ROI than other digital marketing strategies. So, blogging is a smart way to convey quality content and enhance your brand.
Besides, studies have shown that about 20% of the internet population’s time goes towards content reading. So, it will be smart to pepper your website with custom content that responds to content-thirsty consumers’ needs. This entails providing them with valuable information and answering some product/service-specific questions that might arise.
Therefore, having well-written, on-point, and informative content on your website will boost your traffic and bring in more consumers. Try to publish at least one blog post per week so that you always have fresh content for your audience. Also, note that search engines prioritise the websites that are frequently updated, so blogging can also help you in increasing your position on SERPs.
2. Search Engine Optimisation
Once you’ve succeeded in creating informative and catchy content, you can take advantage of the almighty Google and enhance your traffic and reach out to a targeted audience. Don’t forget, a targeted audience = people who are likely to end up purchasing your products or services.
For instance, if you offer babysitting services in Atlanta, Google can send you targeted traffic from Atlanta instead of bringing in visitors out of your service zone. Only several simple steps and you can benefit from this irreplaceable power. First and foremost, you should choose the right keywords. Keywords are typically keyword phrases. For instance, in this specific example, “babysitting services in Atlanta” would be a keyword. In short, if you want your consumers to find your brand, you should create a website that contains relevant keywords. Only in this case will they come across your brand and say, “Finally, I am in the right place!”
So, do you want to gain targeted traffic and make the search engines suggest your brand on the first page? Then you should use relevant keywords, aka the language people use while searching for a similar product or service. So, keywords play a critical role in the art of SEO. And you know what is also crucial? Your keywords are directly linked to the concept of your website and the content you provide them with.
High-Quality Content
Thus having quality content will do you favours in SEO as well. Search engines like Google or Yahoo use algorithms that identify keywords and choose which content makes sense. Afterwards, your content gets a rank according to the keywords’ search results. For this exact reason, your content’s quality has an indispensable effect.
Users usually find what they are looking for on the first page of SERPs. Many of them won’t even open the second page or will do on a very rare occasion. This is precisely why the higher your SEO ranking, the more online traffic you get.
3. Email Marketing, PPC, and Social Media Marketing
I think it is incredible how immense is the role of your website in your online marketing in general and how harmoniously it cooperates with most of the applied online marketing strategies. We have already discussed the importance of your website and the mutually beneficial relationship between your website and your content marketing. The latter is a great example highlighting your website’s impact on your online marketing strategy. Nevertheless, it is not the only one for sure.
On this note, I would like to underline your website’s importance in your Email Marketing.
Email Marketing is basically the practice of sending commercial messages to people through email. If you are using email marketing to get new customers, then you definitely need a place where they can get more detailed information about your company. So, your website is a perfect platform you can lead your visitors to when they need more details. Email generates $42 for every $1 spent. For some industries, it can be even more.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that the importance of your website does not refer to your email marketing only. It is equally important for Social Media Marketing (SMM), PPC advertising, and, as discussed beforehand, Search Engine Optimization.
Final Thoughts
In short, your website is one of your main digital marketing tools. This platform allows you to combine and make efficient use of the main online marketing techniques. No matter what strategy you use, all of them should work towards boosting your website. Keep in mind that boosting your website is equivalent to promoting your brand.
Moreover, the content and experience your viewers receive while visiting your site are detrimental. The above-mentioned statistics highlight why having a website with well-written/on-point content should be a dominant online marketing strategy. It is extremely simple. Your website and content cannot survive without each other among the other available substitutes. Your website is worth nothing without your content, and your content can get lost without your website.
You always need a home base where your consumers can acquire relevant information about your products or anything that is somehow connected to your industry. Other digital marketing strategies you apply should work on promoting it. Your recipe for success in this online reality is very simple.
General FAQ
What is online marketing?
Online marketing, or digital marketing, utilises the web to spread awareness about a brand, or product. The methods and tools applied for online marketing encapsulate email marketing, social media marketing, PPC, search engine optimization, and more.
What is website marketing?
A website is the most valuable tool to your online marketing strategy. Through promoting your website, you can attract a good audience.
What is a website marketing strategy?
A website marketing strategy is basically how you plan to improve your website to enhance your traffic and improve your visitors’ experience. This could be through strategic content, SEO, PPC, social media and email marketing.
