The 20 digital marketing tips outlined below will dramatically increase your chances of succeeding online.
The list is by no means complete, but it’s a good starting point for beginners in digital marketing.
20 Essential Digital Marketing Tips
- Use your own domain
- Use VPS hosting
- Create a professional website
- Make your website load as fast as possible
- Spend time on SEO
- Spend money on PPC
- Don’t forget about Bing Ads
- Start with a low advertising budget and grow profitable
- Build your presence on social networks related to your business
- Don’t over-promote your business and services
- Use paid advertising
- Publish good and original content
- Create a content calendar
- Promote your content
- Use email marketing
- Build an email list from the beginning
- Make sure your website is mobile-friendly
- Don’t forget mobile apps
- Buy advertising space
- Keep improving your digital marketing campaigns
1. Use your own domain
Buy a domain name relevant to your business and use it to build your brand. The recommended extension is a .com or .net. Keep the domain name short (max 3 words) and avoid having spaces.
Before registering a domain name, search for the name on Google and make sure that no other business exists with a similar domain. If there is, try to find something unique because otherwise, it will be very difficult to promote your brand and rank high for related searches.
2. Use VPS hosting
Website hosting plays an important role in the success of your website. Your website should be hosted on a fast and secure server. Avoid using shared hosting solutions. They may be cheaper, but hosting your website with many other websites is dangerous.
In a shared hosting environment, you share the same IP address with other sites, and if they are involved in spammy actions, it will have a negative impact on your website as well.
Spending $20-$40 a month for your own virtual private server is not that much compared to the benefits you get. Choose an SEO-friendly web hosting company and make sure that your website is secure with a valid SSL certificate and that the software is up-to-date.
3. Create a professional website
When you start a website, spend some time thinking about your site structure and functionality. A professional website is not characterized by its ‘looks’ but by its ease of use on all devices.
Identify the purpose of having a website and ensure this is reflected in the design. Don’t forget that a website represents your brand, and it should be something you’re proud of.
4. Make your website load as fast as possible
is an important usability and ranking factor. Make your website as fast as possible by avoiding unnecessary graphics or other cosmetic elements. Test your website speed using the Google PageSpeed Insights tool and follow their recommendations.
Resources to Learn More about Website Marketing
- Website Marketing – The Complete Strategy Guide.
5. Spend time on SEO
is not a once-off process but something you must do as an ongoing process. If you are unsure how to do it, go through an SEO certification. It’s the best way to learn SEO and optimize your website.
SEO will help your website get found on Google for related searches. Online businesses that can do SEO successfully are more likely to grow and withstand the pressure from other online competitors.
Resources to Learn More About SEO
- How to become an SEO Expert - The steps to follow to learn SEO and become an expert.
- SEO Checklist - A comprehensive SEO checklist that covers all areas of SEO.
6. Spend money on PPC
Pay-per-click platforms (think Google Ads) are great because they can generate targeted traffic to your website quickly.
If you are serious about your digital marketing, PPC should be part of your monthly budget.
7. Don’t forget Bing Ads
Google Ads is the most popular platform for PPC advertising, but other platforms like Bing ads can get you good results with a smaller budget.
Bing is the second most popular search engine and something worth testing as part of your overall online marketing strategy.
8. Start with a low advertising budget and grow profitable
Once you start with PPC, don’t put all your money from the beginning, but start slow, optimize your campaigns, make them profitable, and then increase your budgets.
A common mistake many digital marketing specialists make is spending all their budget on campaigns without first testing the waters with one or more pilot campaigns.
9. Build your presence on social networks related to your business
Many social networks are available, and you don’t have to use them all. Select the ones related to your business and potential customers and concentrate on those.
The table below shows the demographics of each network and you can use this as your guide.
10. Don’t over-promote your business and services
Social media networks are not about business; they’re about people, so ensure you don’t over-promote your business or services. Instead, make your pages useful with content that may interest your readers.
11. Use paid advertising
Getting social media followers for your business is harder than you think. People like to follow other people and interesting pages and not ‘business’ pages that try to sell them something.
So, the easiest way to get your business page in front of many people and increase your chances of getting new followers is to use advertising.
Facebook has a business advertising platform that allows you to run different campaigns and target a specific audience based on their Facebook activity, location, device, and demographic information.
12. Publish good and original content
Digital marketing is about content, whether this is text, images, videos, or audio you need good and original content for your website and social media pages. Without a content marketing plan, it is like walking with your eyes and ears closed.
What is good content for a digital marketing campaign?
- It’s content that users want to read because it satisfies their intent or because they find it interesting.
- It’s content that is unique, thorough, and well-researched.
13. Create a content calendar
There is a huge competition for anything you plan to do online, so you have to be ready to perform better than the competition by publishing better and more content than they do.
It’s not exactly a matter of quantity (quality is still more important), but it does play an important role.
14. Promote your content
Publishing good content is very important, but it’s also important to promote your content and bring it in front of the eyes of the right people (these are the people who are likely to become your potential customers and also more likely to re-share your content).
Resources to Learn More About Content Marketing
- Content Ideas - How to find topic ideas for your content marketing campaigns
- Content Marketing Courses - a list of courses dedicated to content marketing techniques and strategies.
15. Use email marketing
Email still converts better than other sources – Despite the dominance of social networks, email still performs better than most digital marketing channels. A targeted email list will likely generate more profit than a targeted social media campaign.
16. Build an email list from the beginning
If you are starting now, ensure an email list is part of your plans. Give incentives to people to give you their emails and make sure that you don’t spam them but send them useful information.
Resources to Learn More About Email Marketing
- What is email marketing? An introduction to email marketing for beginners.
17. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly
Although you don’t have to make your website responsive, a responsive website has more advantages than having a mobile and a desktop version. Google actually recommends it as the best approach to mobile websites, and it is also a hot trend in the digital marketing industry.
First, test your website using the mobile-friendly tool and fix any issues.
18. Don’t forget mobile apps
Besides having a mobile-friendly website, do not forget that your users and potential customers search and download apps (like crazy) from Google Play, Apple Store, and Amazon. If you want to be found in those stores, you must develop and submit your native apps.
19. Buy advertising space
While PPC is the easiest and most effective way to reach customers, sometimes it is just better to find a website that has the traffic you want and contact them to buy advertising space. This way, you keep the middleman out, which makes you and the publisher happy.
20. Keep improving your digital marketing campaigns
Digital Marketing does not have a start and end date. Your efforts should be continuous, and the opportunities are endless.
A PPC or social media campaign may have a start and end date, but your digital marketing efforts don’t. The opportunities for promoting your business online are endless, and the above 20 digital marketing tips are just a very quick summary of what you can do in each area.
The best way to get a complete picture of how to use digital marketing to the fullest is to enroll in a digital marketing course. Good courses will guide you step-by-step on how to take advantage of all online marketing techniques and practices to grow your business.
What else can you add to the list? What do you think are the most important digital marketing tips that a beginner should know about?
