Tactics

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimisation (or SEO) means website’s or online store’s optimisation according to the algorithm of search engine to appear higher in search engine rankings.

There are two parts of SEO:

1. Internal SEO

Search engines, for example, Google, requires your website to be optimised in a certain way if you want to appear higher in search engine rankings. For example, the website which has more content will be higher in search rankings than the one with less information; the website which content is structured in headings and paragraphs will be higher than the one which is not structured; the website with tidy meta descriptions will be higher than the one with tidy meta descriptions; the website with responsive design will be higher than the website without such design; the website with set keywords will be higher than the one without keywords. To sum up, the goal of internal SEO is to tidy the website itself according to the algorithm of search engines so that it would appear higher in search engine rankings.

2. External SEO

Search engines evaluate not only your website, but the popularity of your website. This is done by checking such things as: how many websites has mentioned your website (backlinks); how many visitors your website has, etc. To sum up, the goal of external SEO is to create the popularity of your website – put quality backlinks in authoritative websites, bring visitors to your website, etc. – to make it appear higher in search results.

Google Adwords

Google has established its own advertising network called Adwords. Google Adwords enables to advertise businesses using four advertising options:

• Search engine advertising

Your website instantly starts appearing in the top Google results and you pay when user clicks to visit your website.

• Display advertising network

Your advertising banners appear in various websites (news portals, blogs, etc.) and you pay per click as well.

• Youtube advertising network

Your advertising videos appear in Youtube before the video and you pay only when the advertising video is watched or sponsored link to your website is clicked.

• Remarketing

Your advertising banners in various sites or advertising video is shown only for people who have already visited your website.

In Google Adwords options you can set specific targeting, in other words, you can define to who you want to show your ads. For example, if you are selling shaving foam for men, then you want to set your target audience for men (not women), who are shaving already (above 16 years old, not younger), living in your city (because you don’t sell in other cities). There are many different targeting options and picking the right ones makes the campaigns successful.

Facebook advertising

Facebook offers its own advertising network. Let’s say you have your company page on Facebook and put a post in it. Then you can form the budget and boost the post. The post starts to appear in timelines of Facebook users. You pay if they click your post. You can set different type of settings as well, for example, pick gender, age, location of your target audience. Since Facebook is the owner of Instagram, Facebook post can be boosted on Instagram as well.

Content marketing

Content marketing uses content as an attraction of your potential customers. Let’s say you have an accounting firm. In order to attract more customers, you prepare an article “Filing income declaration”. People who are filing the declaration might google how to file them. So they write “Filing income declaration” and they get your website as a result. The more they read the more they understand – to file income declaration they need an accountant. How do you think, who are they going to call? So content in your website is very important, and the more content you will have, the more visitors you will attract.

E-mail marketing

E-mail marketing is a very old digital marketing tactic. The idea is simple – you prepare your offer and send it via e-mail to lots of potential customers. Those who get interested, might contact you.

SMS marketing

SMS marketing is similar to e-mail marketing, just instead of sending e-mail messages, you send sms messages to lots of phone numbers. Those who get interested into your proposal, might contact you or visit your store.

Online PR

PR means “public relations” which is more sophisticated form of marketing. It’s indirect way to advertise your products, to form the opinion about your company. It might be executed with positive testimonials in company’s Facebook page, article in the news portal, etc.

Others

There is a great variety of other tactics how to bring potential or existing customers to your assets, for example, newsletters, forums, etc. It must be highlighted that the number of tactics is indefinite. We have covered the most favorite ones, but have in mind that Google Adwords has alternatives, for example, Bing search engine, Yandex search engine and they have their own advertising networks offering search engine marketing working same as Google’s.