Why Digital Marketing Now is Essential for Future Success

Right now, several companies have slashed marketing budgets to the bone. It’s understandable. For many, even if you did get your message to potential clients, due to lockdown and other laws, they can’t get to you to use them anyway, unless you have made the shift to doing business online. But digital marketing is different, and here’s why instead of shutting off budgets completely, shifting them to digital marketing makes more sense.

The Online Revolution

This global pandemic has taught us several things, including that doing business online and remote work is a viable alternative for many more businesses and workers than we once thought.

That’s a good thing. Being able to reach customers remotely just makes sense, and mobile ordering and pick up is a way that retail stores can still serve their customers. Even when some products are limited, this time is a way to establish and test new systems.

And workers from customer service to traditional office workers are able to work from home. This often results in them being more productive, but it has an added benefit as well. Companies save money, including on infrastructure, power, desks, real estate, and even the coffee and snacks that employees consume while they are actually on site.

We don’t even have to mention toilet paper. That’s a given.

The point is that while your particular company may not be able to do everything online, you can transition some positions and activities to the web, including employee meetings. So if you haven’t done so yet, look at what you do, and how you can still serve both customers and your staff online.

Much of this relates to your marketing efforts and how you get your business discovered. Even in ordinary times, Google ranking makes a huge difference in any business. That is where digital marketing comes in.

What is Pay Per Click (PPC)?

So pay per click or PPC is designed to bring customers to a certain product or service you offer, or a special offer or a lead magnet that gets them into your database as a prospect. So is PPC dead right now?

Not at all. Instead, the focus of your ads needs to focus on a digital product or service you offer or to generate leads for future business. While we don’t know how long a global pandemic will last, we do know that at some point, restrictions will be lifted and business will return to normal. When that time comes, your business needs to be ready.

So how do you use Pay Per Click right now?

• Set up a new online offer.
• Update your lead generators and build your prospect list.
• Engage your community or industry in humanitarian efforts.
• Bring leads to coupons, gift certificates, or other ways that entice customers to visit you in the future.

These are all viable ways to keep you and your brand in front of customers so that when the crisis is over, they think of you first. There are great companies like Linear Design who specialize in this kind of work, and who can also help you with building landing pages.

Technical SEO and Digital Marketing

Of course, getting visitors to your site is one thing, but having a site they can use and that runs smoothly is another. You may have been putting off an audit or some of the technical fixes your site might need because you have been “busy.” If your business is currently slow, you have no more excuses.

So before you sit back to binge Tiger King one more time or catch up on Picard or Frozen 2, instead take the time to look at your website and make sure you are ready for future traffic. What do you look at?

• Mobile-friendliness and Google AMP. More people than ever complete their shopping transactions on their phones. Be sure you make this easy for them by optimizing your site.
• Meta Data, descriptions, keywords, and even code. Your site is about more than what visitors see. It is about what Google sees, which includes things like broken code and links, metadata, titles, and more.
• Broken stuff. Broken code isn’t the only issue. Broken links, redirects, missing or broken pages, and more can all hurt your site’s performance and Google ranking. Now is the time to fix it.

Don’t know how to do these things? Many SEO companies include this as part of their packages, as it doesn’t do any good to build links to a site that is not performing well.

Link Building Efforts

The final thing many people think of when they think of SEO is link building. And if you haven’t done this already, you should be doing it right now. Why? Well, link building takes time to work. By the time Google looks at all those links and it actually impacts your site ranking, you wil have about 90 days before you really start to see results.

And we are all hoping that will be enough time for business to return to a new normal. The best thing you can do for your business is to be ready for that. That means link building now for the gains you will see tomorrow. Of course, there are all kinds of link building you can engage in:

• Content or Guest Posts
• Advertising or Banners
• Directory Link Building
• Citation Link Building

There are several more obscure methods of link building. The most important thing is to know what keywords you can and should rank for. Once you have established that, you can hire someone to help you with this task. Costs are pretty reasonable at the moment, and this is a time when you can monitor efforts and partner with your SEO team to get things just right.

Now is not the time to stop your marketing efforts. But it is a time when shifting to digital marketing may be the answer for you. Have questions about digital marketing, content strategy, or our new SEO packages? Contact us today or check out this page for more information. We’d love to hear from you, and help you get started right away.