Launching and sustaining a brand in 2020 is very different from the way it was 20 years ago, but at the same time, a lot of the goals are the same. You’re still trying to find the most effective way to market to the customers who are actually looking for a product like yours. Signal to noise ratio is still an issue, because marketing to people who aren’t going to be interested in the product is still a waste of time and money. The world is different, though, and the techniques needed to succeed now depend a lot on digital approaches. Even legacy advertising and customer outreach tactics have begun to integrate with the digital realm. So what is digital marketing? The short version is that it’s any marketing techniques that depend on making contact online.

SEO and Site Design

The first aspect of marketing online that most people think of is SEO, in part due to the focus on it during the early years of the internet. Site design is part of the process of optimizing pages today, as navigability and accessibility to disabled people have begun to play a bigger role in the ways search engines rank pages. Site design is also important on its own, because a clear and easy to navigate website is friendly to customers, making it more likely they will have a positive experience and come back. For blogs and other sites with a lot of informational resources, it’s also a way to keep readers looking through multiple pages, and that helps with your page ranking in keyword searches.

Social Media

Along with SEO and content-rich site design, social media has become a core part of most approaches to digital marketing. In fact, it’s now so important that many companies have dedicated roles for social media managers whose communication skills and knowledge of platforms gives them insight into the best approaches to cultivating a following that will share content. Shares help visibility, increasing site traffic and directly contributing to SEO efforts too, since page ranking depends in part on traffic to the page in question.

Advertising

PPC advertising is an important part of marketing online, but its influence has not remained steady throughout its existence. At times, it has been the cornerstone to supporting SEO, but at other times it has been a necessary but minor part of the overall picture. Some of that is because digital marketing techniques change with consumer behavior, but a bigger part has to do with the platforms you use and how effective their ad placement strategies are. Not all platforms are the same, and buying PPC ads on every available platform is not always the best idea. Take time to figure out what works for your company so you can get the most out of your social media reach and SEO.