Having a website for your company is a good start but it isn’t enough even if it presents a compelling message for your customers and an attractive design for online consumers.If your target audience can’t find your site then the site is not helping to bring in more business.
It is vital that you conduct online or internet or digital or web marketing to eventually direct traffic to your website. These terms are interchangeable. Marketing is essential to get people to know your products and services and eventually make a purchase.
There are two methods of web marketing available, namely the Inbound and Outbound Marketing, that business owners can use for their online marketing campaigns.
Outbound marketing reaches out to a company’s target market by sending out advertisements. It is essential that the ads are sent out intelligently with enough volume to be able to reach out to a large number of people. Due to the approach of outbound marketing, it is also known as shotgun marketing.
Some examples of outbound web marketing include sending out email blasts and placing online ads.
Sending out email blasts means sending out messages in bulk. Most of the time, though, such unsolicited messages end up in the spam folder.
Placing online ads would let users searching for your services become familiar with your brand and business. What ads people will see will be based on their browser history, ensuring that only relevant ads will appear while they’re surfing online.Companies can also subscribe to ad services to have their advertisements strategically placed on relevant websites.
Inbound digital marketing, on the other hand, operates on the principle that people are searching for your services, which keeps you from having to send anything out to people. The goal of inbound marketing is to land your website in the first pages of Google’s Search Engine Results Page.
The tools of inbound marketing are SEO or search engine optimization and PPC or pay-per-click campaigns. Some businesses use one over the other, but others use both for their inbound web marketing campaigns.
Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click campaigns are the tools used in inbound digital marketing. Both tools have one goal but a different approach to achieve it.
SEO is a long-term process that takes time to eventually get your website in the first pages. SEO focuses on improving your content to make Google see the site as relevant to what customers are searching for. Unless your business has no competition, it will be difficult for you to get to the top page since there will be multiple businesses already occupying it.
Another tool that businesses can use to get them to the first pages immediately is PPC which they can pay Google for. Google will place your website on the first pages as long as people use specific keywords when using the search engine.
Some businesses use one method over the other, but using both is also an option to ensure that your site lands on the first pages of Google’s Search Engine Results page for greater visibility to your potential audience.
To know more on Online Internet Digital Web Marketing, see this infographic by Landau Consulting and read on our other entries more information about inbound and outbound marketing.
