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Website Marketing – The Complete Strategy Guide (Updated)

Learn the best website marketing strategies to boost your traffic, rankings and sales. Includes step-by-step instructions and examples.

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A website is a great marketing tool. It represents your business on the Internet and is one of the most important digital marketing channels you can use to get more traffic or make more sales.

Every business that wants to succeed online must have a clearly defined website marketing strategy. This is no longer optional but a ‘must-have’ for businesses that want to survive in the highly competitive online market.

In this post, you’ll learn what website marketing is, why it’s important to have a website marketing strategy, and the 10 steps to follow to promote your website online successfully.

What is Website Marketing?

Website marketing is the process of promoting your website on the Internet. It is one of the online marketing channels you can use as part of your overall digital marketing strategy. The main goal of a website marketing campaign is to get more visits to your website.

Why Do You Need a Website Marketing Strategy?

As a Digital marketing manager, one of my tasks is to explain to my clients why they need a complete website marketing strategy and how to make it work for the benefit of their business.

It’s not about SEO and Social Media anymore.

A few years back, marketers thought about SEO when someone was talking about web marketing.

Later, that perception changed, and social media came into the picture; it is very common today to associate digital marketing with social media and SEO.

As you can see from the diagram below, digital marketing has many more pillars, including content marketing, PPC marketing, email marketing, and more. Social media and SEO are only part of the equation.

A well-planned digital marketing strategy will help you utilize all available channels for promoting your business online.

You need a strategy and a plan.

If you don’t write down your web marketing strategy that includes what you want to achieve online and how to do it, it’s like driving with your eyes closed.

By preparing a strategy together with a plan, you will know exactly which tools to use, how to use them, and what to expect as realistic results from each tool.

In addition, a plan makes it easier to communicate your goals within your business so that all departments are aligned with your strategy.

Do it before the competition.

Sooner or later, every business will get into the digital marketing game, and things will become even more challenging. To get ahead of the game, you should take your online promotion more seriously, and the best place to start is by creating a web marketing strategy.

To successfully promote your website online, you need a solid strategy to take advantage of all digital marketing channels.

The Ultimate Digital Marketing Course Bundle will teach you how to create a digital marketing strategy from scratch to increase traffic and sales in 60 days or less.

Get Started

How to Do Website Marketing?

Here are the 10 steps to follow for a successful website marketing strategy.

• Perform a Website Design Review
• Optimize Your Website For SEO
• Optimize Your Website For Social Media
• Create a Content Marketing Plan
• Promote Your Website on Social Media Networks
• Use Paid Ads to Reach More Customers
• Utilize Email Marketing to Engage With Your Audience
• Use Remarketing to Get Users Back to Your Website
• Keep Your Website And Content Up-To-Date And Move Forward
• Measure, Analyze, Rinse, And Repeat

1. Perform a Website Design Review

The first step is to create a website that accurately represents your business. This is not directly related to the visual aspect of it (i.e., how it looks) but to the quality of the information provided.

Your website is the same as your shop window. It should look good on the outside, and when customers enter your shop, everything should be organized and in place.

Before starting any campaigns, take some time and review your website and make sure that:

It has a simple hierarchical site structure – A good site structure helps users and search engines navigate a website to find the information they need quickly. As a rule of thumb, any page on your site should be accessible from the homepage in 3 clicks or less.

It’s user-friendly and functional – Evaluate your website’s friendliness using the principles of SEO-friendly web design and try to remove design elements that add complexity or are not needed.

It has accurate information about your company and products – Make sure it provides users with everything they need to know about your company and products. Make use of visual elements to get the attention of your users.

It’s fast and mobile-friendly – The majority of your users will come from mobile devices, so test your website on mobile and optimize the experience of the user in the best way possible.

To learn about website design, consider enrolling in a web design course . It’s a great way to learn the basics and improve website design skills.

2. Optimize Your Website For SEO

The next step is to start thinking about your SEO strategy . A well-defined SEO plan will eventually increase your rankings and traffic from search engines.

SEO is the process of increasing your website’s visibility in search engines, and it consists of several steps:

Technical SEO – Making sure that your website is free of crawl errors and other issues that might keep search engines from indexing your website properly.

On-Page SEO – Make your webpages SEO-friendly and your content easily read by search engine crawlers.

SEO Content – Writing content that satisfies the user’s intent.

Off-Page SEO – Promoting your website to get high-quality links from other websites.

Local SEO – Optimizing your website for location-aware searches and for getting more clients to your brick-and-mortar store.

Besides the above standard SEO practices, you should also optimize your website for modern SEO, like adding schema markup and optimizing your content for rich snippets .

• SEO Checklist – use the checklist to optimize your website for SEO completely.
• SEO Certifications – courses to learn SEO and get certified.

3. Optimize Your Website For Social Media

The next step is to optimize your website for social media. This is not the same as social media marketing (we’ll talk about this in step 5), but it has to do with the following:

• Having visual elements (images, video) on your website that can be shared on social media networks.
• Adding social media sharing buttons on the pages you want to be shared on social networks.
• Ensure that when a user clicks the share button (or shares your URL directly), the generated snippet is well-formatted.
• Adding the necessary open graph meta tags and using image sizes and formats supported by all major networks is recommended.

Many webmasters skip this step, and it’s a mistake that can negatively affect your social media promotion efforts.

While it looks like it’s more technical and not marketing-related, it does play an important role. If your website does not allow users to share your content properly, don’t expect any social media exposure.

• Best Social Media Marketing Courses

4. Create a Content Marketing Plan

The next step in your website marketing plan is to design a content marketing strategy.

When you promote a website online, you essentially promote your website’s content, which is why it is referred to as content marketing .

The main purpose of content marketing is to help you create the right type of content to attract new users to your website and keep them engaged.

To create a good strategy, you first need to:

• Do your keyword research and determine which SEO keywords to target with your content.
• Perform competitor analysis and find out what is working for your competitors.
• Analyze Google search results to determine what type of content Google wants for your target keywords (length of content, images/video, etc.).

Once you have a list of topics/keywords, you should create a content marketing calendar to specify when each piece of content will be published, who will write it, and how it will be promoted after publication.

Companies that manage to have an ongoing content marketing campaign have more chances of succeeding online than companies that publish content occasionally without a plan.

5. Promote Your Website on Social Media Networks

Now that you have a constant flow of generated content, the next step is to start promoting your website on different social networks.

Follow the steps below:

Create Business Accounts on Social Networks

Your first action is creating business pages in the social networks relevant to your business.

These are the networks that your potential customers might be using. The most common suspects are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Complete your Social Profiles

Next, make sure that your business pages are correctly configured and that all information is appropriately filled in.

Link your website and social media pages

Then, add links to your social pages on your website (in the footer) and also add the relevant schema (this will help search engines associate your website and the business pages together).

Grow your social media following

Having a business page with no followers does not benefit your business.

You need to spend some time to find and connect with people who might be interested in your business and also influencers in your niche.

How to Gain Followers on Facebook

Create a social media calendar

Social media success is based on the quality of your postings. You need to fetch your social media networks high-quality content regularly. That’s the best way to get users’ attention and create an audience for your brand.

A good way to start is to create a social media calendar (the same way you did with step 4 above) and specify what type of content to publish and when.

6. Use Paid Ads to Reach More Customers

As soon as you get started with SEO and social media marketing, you’ll realize one thing. It takes time for SEO to work and to get a decent number of followers on social media organically.

This means that if you want results faster, you need to add one more ingredient to your website marketing, and that is paid advertising .

With paid advertising, you can get targeted traffic fast and start making sales or conversions.

There are various advertising platforms you can use, but the most common are:

Google Ads – Target people based on the search terms they use on Google or show your ads on other Google properties (YouTube, Gmail) and websites that participate in Google AdSense.

Facebook Paid Ads – Promote your Facebook page, social media postings, or ads to people using Facebook, Instagram, or Facebook Messenger.

Both methods are very effective, but you should be careful not to waste much money on advertising without a return. Better start with a low budget, measure the effectiveness of your campaigns, and add more money as long as there is a positive ROI.

• Best Facebook Ads Courses
• Best Google Ads Courses

7. Utilize Email Marketing to Engage With Your Audience

One of the most effective sales channels is email.  In fact, one of the goals of your website marketing campaign should be to grow your email list.

Having an active email list is a great way to get people back to your website, let them know of new content, or directly sell them a product. Make no mistake; email is not yet dead.

To make the most of your campaigns, follow these email marketing tips:

• Make it easy for users to subscribe to your list – add the newsletter sign-up box in places that are visible while users are browsing the website.
• Give them incentives (like a free ebook or free resources) – Freebies can make a big difference in how many people will sign up for your newsletter.
• Keep your promises – if you promise weekly updates, make sure that you send an email with new tips weekly.
• Don’t abuse their trust – Users trust you with their email addresses, and while you can use automation to send personalized mass emails, don’t abuse their trust. Everyone’s inbox is already full of promotional emails, so think about when to send them another.

8. Use Remarketing to Get Users Back to Your Website

Do you know what the rule of 7 is?

It’s a rather old marketing rule that states that a potential client should see or hear an ad (or message) at least 7 times before they’ll take action to buy a product or service.

This applies to internet marketing as well. In website marketing terms, you need to get users to revisit your website several times before they proceed to the next step of your digital marketing funnel .

Publishing new content frequently and using social media marketing and email marketing are all great ways to achieve this, but there is one more method that is highly effective, and this is remarketing .

With remarketing, you use advertising platforms (either Google Ads, Facebook, or even Twitter) to re-connect with people who visited your website at least once.

This has several advantages, including more targeted traffic, lower advertising costs, and higher conversion rates.

9. Keep Your Website And Content Up-To-Date And Move Forward

When you do website marketing, you should not forget two important things:

First: To keep your website up-to-date

This means upgrading your website software to the latest version, ensuring that your website is secure and uses the latest technologies.

Second: To keep your content fresh and relevant

Besides publishing new content targeting specific keywords and increasing your organic reach, you also need to go back and audit your existing content.

As your website gets bigger and older, some of your content will become outdated, which is not good for users or search engines.

The first step of the process is to find thin content pages. These are pages that have no rankings, backlinks , or traffic.

Maybe the content on those pages is good, but since they don’t rank for anything, they don’t offer any real value to your website. As part of the audit, you should decide to either:

• Update and republish them
• Remove them and redirect the URL to other related pages on your website
• Merge them with other pages

The second step is to review your Google Analytics and Google Search Console reports and find out which are the most popular pages of your website.

A page with high rankings now does not mean it will maintain those rankings forever. The competition is big, and chances are that new pages are published daily targeting exactly the same topics.

To ensure you will not lose your rankings, you need to review your top pages once every few months and ensure the content is still relevant and up-to-date.

10. Measure, Analyze, Rinse, And Repeat

No marketing strategy is complete without proper monitoring. Everything can be measurable and analyzed in the digital marketing world, so having the right tools and metrics in place is important.

In most cases, you can get the data you want from Google Analytics, so you must ensure that you have Google Analytics installed on your website and properly configured.

The most common goals of a website marketing campaign are to:

• Get traffic to your site
• Increase conversion (makes sales, gets new email subscribers, etc.)

These goals should be tracked in Google Analytics and analyzed so that you can make the right decisions.

For example, if you notice that posts covering certain topics perform better than others, you should focus your marketing efforts on creating content around those topics.

Key Learnings

A website is a great marketing tool; there is no doubt about that.

Before starting a web marketing promotion campaign, review your website and make sure that it represents your business. A good website is mobile-friendly, fast, and has a simple hierarchical structure.

Next, spend time on SEO. This is a critical success factor for any online marketing campaign. If you can get your SEO right and start ranking for keywords that matter for your business, everything else becomes easier.

While waiting for SEO to work, jump into social media marketing and paid advertising. These two channels can drive targeted traffic to your website faster than any other method.

When traffic starts to flow in, it’s time to think about your email marketing and remarketing strategies. Both channels can convert traffic into customers better than any other channel.

Last but not least, don’t forget to go back and review your website and content and ensure that it’s always up-to-date and relevant to satisfy the user intent.

Related Resources

• Best Digital Marketing Courses
• Digital Marketing Certificate Programs

Alex Chris is a digital marketing consultant, author, and instructor. He has more than 18 years of practical experience with SEO and digital marketing. Alex holds an MSc Degree in eCommerce and has consulted with Fortune 500 companies in different industries. He blogs regularly about SEO and Digital marketing, and his work has been referenced by leading marketing websites. Connect with Alex on Twitter and LinkedIn .

Reader Interactions

10 comments.

July 31, 2019 at 11:04 am

Such a knowledgeable blog, as digital marketing is increasing at a very great pace, the best part was “Remarketing to get users back to your website” Amazingly written really appreciable.

October 30, 2022 at 6:36 pm

Thanks for your comment. Glad I could help!

January 14, 2020 at 12:24 pm

great learnings!! I recently started working in digital marketing and I think these will be useful your all step define logical terminology appreciated.

Thanks a lot!

All the best Alex

March 28, 2021 at 7:21 pm

Thanks a lot, Alex for this intelligent post. I have had also learned about digital marketing concepts but actually figuring out step by step what to do next is a crucial part of it. Now I feel confident that I will be promoting my blog using the above strategies step by step succesfully. Bookmarked and taken notes from this for my future blog marketing plan. Thanks again for this wonderful post.

October 30, 2022 at 6:37 pm

Thanks a lot, glad I could help you with building a website marketing strategy.

April 14, 2022 at 12:39 pm

Hi Alex, this guide is wonderful, and I have learned a lot from this piece. I just realized I haven’t been doing my website marketing the right way. With this guide here, I will surely make some improvements to my website marketing, and take it to the next level. Thanks, Alex.

Thank you as well!

April 27, 2023 at 10:42 am

Great article, very informative. Thanks!

October 31, 2023 at 4:02 pm

Thanks a lot! Alex

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10 Website Marketing Strategies to Build Brand Presence Online

Published July 11, 2023

Published Jul 11, 2023

REVIEWED BY: Elizabeth Kraus

WRITTEN BY: Hazel Emnace

• 1 Set Your Website Up for Success
• 2 Optimize Content for SEO
• 3 Create a Content Marketing Strategy
• 4 Boost Online Authority
• 5 Strengthen Local Visibility
• 6 Leverage Social Media
• 7 Network & Collaborate
• 8 Embrace Offline Promotion
• 9 Explore Online Advertising
• 10 Build Brand Reputation
• 11 Best Tools for Website Marketing
• 12 Frequently Asked Questions

Once your site is online, you need to use effective website marketing strategies to attract your target audience, generate leads and sales, and grow your brand’s online presence. The good news is many of the best tactics for marketing a website can be done for free, requiring only your time, like regularly updating your website or setting up listings on directories. To help you get started, here are 10 website marketing ideas and tools you can use.

Website marketing is the use of techniques and leveraging various channels to promote your website to drive traffic. The most common goal of website marketing is to convert site visitors into customers. Without a well-thought-out website marketing strategy, businesses will experience low traffic and struggle to reach their target audience.

1. Set Your Website Up for Success

Part of marketing your website is making sure that your website is up to par. Although each site is different, there are foundational aspects that can generally improve site performance, such as page speed and mobile-friendliness. In fact, website statistics show nearly 40% of users will stop engaging with a slow website.

By making your website accessible and efficient, you set the stage for a successful website marketing strategy. A few things you can do are submitting your website for indexing, making it multi-device-friendly, and ensuring it loads quickly.

Submit Your Website to Google for Indexing

Submitting your site’s sitemap and URLs helps Google find and index it faster. This ensures that your website can be found in online search to organic search traffic as soon as possible. Letting Google’s crawler find it on its own can take months before your website gets indexed. Here’s an overview of what you need to do:

• Launch your site.
• Add Google Analytics code to the header of your website.
• Connect Analytics and Search Console .
• Submit your home page URL and sitemap.

This website marketing strategy is essential for every business, 100% free, and easy to do—so there’s no reason not to help your small business website get found in search faster.

Make Your Site Omni-device-friendly

Does your site provide a good user experience for mobile, desktop, and tablet users? Aim to make your website as user-friendly as possible, no matter what device is used. Over half of all Google searches (56.86%) are performed on mobile devices, so mobile-friendliness impacts your site’s search rankings.

The easiest way to test if your site is omni-device-friendly is to view it on various devices. If your website is currently not mobile-friendly, the solution could be switching to a fully responsive web content management system (CMS). For instance, leading site builders like Squarespace and GoDaddy have 100% responsive templates for different devices.

Even with an omni-device-friendly CMS and theme, it’s a good idea to test all of your site’s pages periodically. Make sure that you can easily navigate menus, fill out forms, search for products or services, complete an online transaction (for ecommerce websites), submit an application, and take any other important actions from mobile devices as well as desktops.

Ensure Your Site Loads Fast

Slow-loading sites create a poor user experience, which is an important Google ranking factor, so they typically do not rank well in search. The larger a site grows, and the more functionality you add with plugins and third-party apps, the more likely it is to load slowly. To test your site’s speed, use one of the best site audit tools , like HubSpot’s free website grader, or get advanced technical data by analyzing any website URL with GTMetrix.

Check your site’s performance and SEO with HubSpot’s free website grader. (Source: HubSpot )

Check your site’s load time and core vitals for free on GTMetrix.com. (Source: GTMetrix )

To reduce website load time, here are a few simple ways you can do yourself:

• Use a fast-loading content management system (CMS): If your website loads slowly, there may be problems with your CMS. Check out our flowchart on how to choose the best CMS and make sure the software is up to date.
• Compress images: Compress elements that take a long time to load, like large images. You can reduce the size of images with a tool like Compressor.io or a WordPress plugin like ShortPixel’s Image Optimizer . Or use a site builder like Wix, which automatically optimizes images.
• Remove unnecessary plugins: Plugins add important functionality but also take up storage space and add scripts that can slow your site down. Check your active plugins, extensions, and add-ons, and deactivate any you’re not using.
• Enable caching: Caches store site elements so when a visitor returns to your site, it loads faster. It may sound complicated, but there are a number of free WordPress plugins that enable caching, such as W3 Total Cache . (Or avoid the hassle altogether and use a site builder like Wix, which automatically enables caching.)
• Enable lazy loading: Fewer image loads equate to faster load times. With lazy loading, only the images within the visitor’s screen view load, and the others only load if and when the visitor scrolls to that point on a page. You can use a plugin like Lazy Load to enable lazy loading on WordPress or build a small business website on Squarespace, which adheres to Google’s standards for core web vitals.
• Use a content delivery network (CDN): The farther a site visitor is from the server’s physical location where the site’s files are stored, the slower it will load. Content delivery networks (CDN) like Cloudflare (often included free in web hosting plans) distribute files across multiple locations so no matter where visitors are, files can be loaded quickly.
• Choose a faster web host: If all else fails, consider upgrading to a dedicated server or moving your site to a web host that ensures fast website load times. To find a better service, learn more about the best web hosting companies .

Pro tip: The best small business website builders make it easy to connect Google Analytics and Search Console to your website, giving it the best chance to get found in online searches.

2. Optimize Your Content for SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) involves different techniques of optimizing your website to help rank better on search engines. This is usually one of the initial steps of website marketing because it directly impacts your site’s visibility—making it more likely to get people to visit your website.

Want to get clear, actionable insights and recommendations on your website’s SEO performance? Use SEO audit tools to help your website perform better.

Understand SEO Basics

Search engines like Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo display websites in search results based on the likely search intent of the user. This is why when you search for a car wash, you get local results and not listings for car washes on the other side of the country.

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps your site get found in online searches. It encompasses a wide range of techniques related to content marketing, such as keyword research , content optimization with target keywords, proper use of headings, content readability, and so on. SEO also includes technical aspects and website authority factors, such as getting backlinks from high-authority websites .

To give your site the best chance of ranking, build it on one of the best website builders for SEO . Then complete the content-related SEO basics you can easily do yourself, such as:

• Page titles: When coming up with a title for a new page or blog article, use the keyword you’ve chosen for the piece in the title—preferably near the beginning if you can do so in a way that sounds natural.
• Subheadings: Search engines also look for subheadings on a web page to decide whether it’s a good answer to an online search query. Use your main keyword in at least one subheading, and use closely related variations in other subheadings.
• Page content : Use a unique main target keyword and closely related variants, called latent semantic intent (LSI) keywords, on each page. This gives Google and other search engines a complete picture of what the content is about and when it would be the best answer to provide in search results.
• Images and video alternate text: Search engines can’t “see” what is in images or videos on a page or blog post, so include a text-based description of each image and video. This not only helps with SEO but also improves accessibility for site visitors who are sight- or hearing-impaired as well.
• Permalink slugs: A slug is whatever comes after the business domain name in a URL. For example, the slug in “www.business.com/services” is “services.” You can indicate to search engines what a page or article is about by including target keywords in the slug.
• Meta tags: The best website builders make it super-easy to add meta tags, including a meta title, description, alt-tags for images, and more. Like the text-based content on a web page or blog article, these tags should include relevant target keywords someone would use when searching online.

SEO is a major part of search engine marketing (SEM), but it’s not the only aspect. If you don’t have the time or expertise to manage your site’s SEM, leave it to the professionals at the best local SEO services . These agencies know what to do to help your site rank higher on Google and manage local online directory listings, reviews, and more.

Update Your Website Frequently

Keeping your website content updated does two major things to maintain and improve your site’s rankings. First, it eliminates outdated information and keeps your site information accurate, providing potential customers who visit your site with a good user experience. Second, sites that are updated frequently often rank higher in Google search results .

Search engines assume that websites being updated frequently are more relevant to site visitors and accurate, which in return helps your site rank in search results. This includes updating web pages as well as blog posts, in addition to adding new content regularly and optimizing content for SEO.

You don’t have to update your site daily, but it’s a good idea to set up a content editorial calendar to ensure you review each page of your website at least once a year. Make updates to web pages whenever information changes and refresh blog articles periodically. This can be an especially helpful website marketing strategy for moving blog posts or web pages that are ranking fairly well into higher-ranking positions.

Project management software like Airtable and Zoho Projects allows you to create a content editorial calendar to ensure your site’s pages are regularly reviewed or updated. But if you’re just getting started with SEO content marketing , a simple spreadsheet could be all you need. Download our free content publishing spreadsheet for Google Docs or Microsoft Excel below.

FILE TO DOWNLOAD OR INTEGRATE

FREE Content Publishing Calendar Spreadsheet

Thank you for downloading!

3. create a compelling content marketing strategy.

Once you’ve optimized your existing pages for SEO, it’s time to create more content for your target audience that will help reach and engage them more effectively. This will both lead and keep them coming back to your website. Key components of a robust content marketing strategy include blogs, emails, whitepapers, and other high-value resources.

Publish Blog Articles

Blogging statistics show that publishing blog articles is an effective website marketing strategy. It works long term to attract your target audience online with content they are likely to search for online. It also allows for the creation of articles for every stage of the sales funnel , from helping with brand discovery and product research to converting sales, getting repeat business, and building customer loyalty.

For example, a company selling travel gear could publish articles on topics like a guide on airline luggage size and weight limits. Then when people search for something like “baggage limit on Alaska Airlines” and see the blog article in the search results, they can click on it and go to the site. This, in turn, creates brand awareness for new site visitors or could be the tipping point for getting the ready-to-buy prospect to make a purchase.

If you want this website marketing strategy example to work, first choose the best blogging platform for your small business.

Offer High-value Resources

Downloadable resources such as e-books, whitepapers, case studies, or ultimate guides are an excellent way to establish your brand as a trusted authority and improve brand presence . They are also a proven way to generate leads and build your email contact list.

Audience research should be the first step in deciding what type of content to create. Try to list your target audience’s pain points and needs, then align your resource toward them. For example, if you’re targeting fitness enthusiasts, creating a generic case study that focuses on a hypothetical individual’s fitness journey may not be as impactful as a comprehensive workout guide tailored to specific fitness levels and goals.

Promote Your Website Through Emails

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to get people to visit your website. It allows you to communicate special offers, incentives, and information about your business to intrigue recipients to click through to your website to buy or learn more.

One of the biggest challenges, especially when you’re just starting out, is finding the best ways to build your contact email list as part of your overall website marketing strategy. Which tactics will likely be the most successful depends on your business and its unique audience. Here are some examples:

• Collect emails at your store’s point of purchase
• Hold an event and collect email addresses during registration
• Add a call to action (CTA) to ad landing pages asking for email addresses
• Exchange emails when participating at a trade show
• Hold a social media contest or giveaway with email registration
• Host a webinar with email registration
• Send referral emails to your existing clients

Setting up a custom professional email signature with a hyperlink to your site is another way to use emails for website marketing. For maximum impact, make sure it’s both visually engaging and clickable by using a free email signature generator, like that offered by HubSpot.

Bring attention to your site’s URL with a custom email signature. (Source: HubSpot Email Signature Generator )

For example, you could include your logo and make it clickable so a reader can click on it to go directly to your website. Alternatively, you could insert a brightly colored button linking to a landing page on your website with a special offer or where the recipient can set up a demo.

As daunting as setting up a fancy email signature might sound, it’s actually surprisingly easy, thanks to email signature generators like WiseStamp.

Not sure what to include in your company’s email signature? Check out our list of more than a dozen professional email signature examples for design inspiration and to learn what makes each one effective.

Pro tip: The best email marketing software makes it easy for you to track how your email performs and optimize future campaigns so they are even more effective. Mailchimp, for example, provides insights into campaign performance as well as optimization guidance, even in the free plan.

4. Boost Your Website’s Authority With Search Engines

Improving your website’s domain authority is a website marketing strategy that focuses on increasing the perceived value of your site in terms of being helpful and authoritative. If search engines determine your website as authoritative, it will get more visibility in online search and help you build brand presence online. In addition to the content marketing strategies above, gaining backlinks is a key way to increase domain authority.

Start a Link Building Strategy

Backlinks are anchored links that lead from one website to another. Link building refers to acquiring backlinks from other websites, preferably sites with high domain authority. Search engines like Google consider these as a signal of trust. For example, if a blog website links to one of your resources as part of their content, Google sees that as a sign that your website is credible enough that other people “vouch” for it on their own sites.

Some ways to build backlinks include:

• Publishing high-value content like downloads, reports, and infographics
• Publishing studies or statistics articles
• Publishing helpful articles like step-by-step “how to” checklists
• Guest posting on other websites
• Building thought leadership by writing content on LinkedIn or Medium

The most direct and immediate effect of a link building strategy on website marketing is that it improves referral traffic by leading people to land on your website. At the same time, link building improves your site’s authority, leading to higher organic rankings. To learn more, review our strategies for getting backlinks on high-authority sites .

Write Articles for a Medium Publication

Increasing your site’s search visibility by blogging will take time, especially if your website is brand new or in an industry where competitors have strong content marketing in place. One way to amplify your efforts is to write content for other high-quality websites, such as guest posts linking back to your website or by contributing to a Medium.com publication.

Medium is a popular blogging platform with monthly traffic of over 130 million as of 2023. There, you can apply to write for existing publications, which essentially act as their own blogs or media channels. Because these publications already have a reader base, your blog posts will automatically get views, giving your business another source of online exposure.

Build authority for your website by contributing to topic-based publications on Medium. (Source: Medium )

5. Strengthen Your Local Visibility

Ranking well on search engine results pages (SERPs) usually means your content is highly visible to anyone online searching for the keywords you rank for. These people can be anywhere in the world. Now this might work well for exclusively online businesses, but that’s not the case for businesses that need people in their area to come through their doors (e.g., restaurants, boutiques, or any physical store).

To market your website to people in your service area, utilize business listings to reach people actively searching for businesses in your area.

Set Up Your Google Business Profile

When a user searches for a business on Google, Google often displays local search listings ahead of all other search results. When searching for a specific business by name, the Google Business Profile is displayed at the top of results on mobile devices or to the right of search results for desktop users. For your business to land within these types of search results, you need to first create a free Google Business Profile .

Your Google Business Profile is a free digital marketing tool. There, you can also provide more details, such as a link to your website, pricing or menu, location, hours, photos, videos, and reviews. Your Google Business Profile can even shorten the buying process. For example, in 2019, Google reported that 60% of consumers contacted a business using the “click to call” feature on the Business Profile.

Create a Bing Places Account

Creating a Bing Places account helps local businesses and companies that provide services at customers’ locations get found on Bing. As with a Google Business Profile, using Bing Places is free, and it’s a website marketing strategy that can help your site land at the top of Bing search results, making it a smart investment of a little time.

To learn more, read our article detailing how to use Bing for business , including setting up your Bing Places listing.

Add your business listing to Bing Places for Business to be displayed on Bing search maps and in results. (Source: Bing )

Add Business Listings to Online Directories

Online business directories are to the internet what white and yellow page-filled phone books were in decades past. They’re used for finding business listings and often illustrate a business’ quality of service, given that most include user reviews.

There’s most likely a suitable business directory to list your business in, no matter which industry your company represents. When people use those directories to search for businesses, your organization will be listed in search results, potentially generating traffic to your website, incoming leads by phone, email, online app, or producing in-person customer visits.

Here are a few of the most popular online directories for small business listings:

• Yelp : A directory for everything local—from restaurants and hotels to auto body shops, plumbers, electricians, and pet groomers
• Tripadvisor : For businesses within the travel and tourism industry
• OpenTable : For food service providers like bars and restaurants
• Houzz : For just about any residential home-related business, from home builders, architects, and interior designers to remodelers, real estate photographers, roofing companies, swimming pool installers, and wine storage manufacturers
• Angi (formerly Angie’s List) : Geared primarily toward local home services, such as electricians, repair services, remodelers, handy persons, and pest control

There are also hundreds of niche industry-specific directories. For example, wedding event planners, venues, photographers, videographers, and others list services on sites like WeddingWire or TheKnot, while those who sell vintage goods should be listed on AntiqueTrader.com.

It’s worth adding your business listing to niche online directories that serve your industry. In most cases, it will be free, and many platforms also offer advertising opportunities to give you even more ways to reach your target audience.

Add your listing for free to popular local online directories like Yelp, Tripadvisor, OpenTable, Houzz, or Angi. (Source: Yelp )

No time to submit and monitor listings? Use Semrush’s Local SEO Listings Management tool to automatically submit business listings and monitor them, ensuring your organization’s listings are accurate and up to date across the internet. Alternatively, submit listings manually and monitor them automatically using BrightLocal for as little as $29 per month.

6. Leverage Social Media Marketing

In this day and age, nearly every business has a social media account used for marketing. In fact, almost 92% of marketers say they use social media marketing since it helps achieve a wide range of marketing goals. These include improving brand presence, boosting customer engagement, and generating leads or conversions. Another fantastic use of social media marketing is to drive website traffic. Here are some options on how to do it:

Add Your Site URL to Social Profiles

While this may seem obvious, some businesses overlook the website marketing strategy of adding their site’s URL to social media profiles. If you’re using social media marketing to promote your small business (e.g., with a Facebook Business Page, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Pinterest account), include a link to your website in your profile or bio. It makes it easy for followers to get to your website and increases brand awareness.

Facebook is the largest social channel, so if you don’t already have a Facebook Business Page , be sure to set one up. It’s another way your business can get found online in search results as well as on Facebook—a great opportunity as Facebook alone has over 2.99 billion users worldwide and more than 243 million in the U.S. alone. Learn more about how to use Facebook for business marketing and growth.

Add your site’s URL to your social media profiles so followers can easily visit your website. (Source: Facebook )

Post Website Promotions on Social Media

Aside from having your website link on your profile for easy access, make sure to incorporate content that can direct your followers to your website. It doesn’t have to be high-effort posts—just make sure that you take the time to craft a call to action that compels the reader to visit your website.

The content of the post itself can range from a quote from your blog to giveaways or an upcoming sale on your site. Incorporate this type of content into your calendar or develop a social media plan. To get started, use our free social media plan template , which already has website promotions incorporated into it.

Promote your blog or other type of content on your website with a social media post. (Source: Facebook )

Participate in Online Forums & Discussions

There are countless online forums and discussion boards that cover just about any imaginable topic. Whether you’re a dog food manufacturer or a corporate event planning business, there’s a relevant forum where people talk about subjects you’re likely an expert in.

By getting involved in these conversations, you’re building brand awareness and demonstrating thought leadership. Moreover, these discussions can spark traffic to your website through comments or links on your profile page or bio. Here are a few popular online forums:

• Facebook groups
• LinkedIn groups

Starting or participating in LinkedIn groups is an effective way to develop thought leadership and drive traffic to your website. (Source: LinkedIn )

While forums such as Quora and Reddit cover nearly every topic you could imagine, there are also forums built specifically for certain industries and niches. To find those, simply search the web for forums in your niche (e.g., an organic supplements business might search for “holistic nutrition forums”).

In addition, you can build online engagement on your own website simply by adding a forum. Read our guide on how to build a forum website to see if this website marketing strategy could help boost engagement with your customers and followers.

7. Network & Collaborate With Like-minded People

Hellen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” The same goes for marketing. Collaborating with other brands is a powerful website marketing strategy that can elevate your progress faster than by doing it alone. Building connections with other people in your industry allows you to tap into a collective pool of knowledge, experiences, and resources outside of your own business.

To use networking and collaboration as a website marketing strategy, you have to understand who you’re working with enough to leverage each other’s strengths. This can help both businesses reach a broader and more diverse audience.

Join Associations & Business Networks

No matter which industry your business is in, there’s likely an association related to it that you can join, as well as local business networking groups you can belong to, such as a local Chamber of Commerce membership or Better Business Bureau accreditation . This gives your company additional exposure through networking, trade publications, and industry or business member listings.

BBB accreditation engenders trust, offers a high-quality backlink, and builds your site’s authority. (Source: Better Business Bureau )

Joining organizations like these also increases your company’s credibility, as many have standards representative of best practices for businesses like yours. Also, by joining local business networking groups, you demonstrate your investment in the local community and economy. Most associations provide digital badges members can add to their websites, further creating a sense of trustworthiness with site visitors and providing a high-quality outbound link.

Collaborate With Influencers

Influencer marketing has skyrocketed over the past few years, making it one of the most used marketing strategies among businesses. Branding statistics show that 41% of brands collaborate with influences to increase brand awareness.

When dabbling in influencer marketing, it’s important to do your research first and ensure that the people you’re collaborating with are aligned with your brand goals and values. Influencer marketing is a team effort that is built on genuine relationships. Here’s a quick rundown of how to do influencer marketing:

• Research potential influencers: Look at their social media profiles, blogs, and other platforms to assess the quality of their content, engagement rates, and overall brand alignment.
• Establish the relationship: Reach out to the influencers by following their socials and engaging with their content. Personalize your interactions and show genuine interest in their work.
• Define your objectives together: Clearly define what you expect from the collaboration and set expectations early on. Determine the type of content you want them to create, the timeline, and any specific messaging you want them to express in their content.

8. Embrace Offline Promotion

It’s easy to be caught up in online website marketing, especially since what you’re marketing (your website) is already online. However, offline marketing will allow you to tap into a large and diverse audience that you may not reach effectively online. Even in this digital age, 39% of marketers find offline promotion is vital to their marketing campaigns.

Promote Your Website In-person

Getting customers to visit your website in between trips to your business is an effective website marketing strategy. For example, when customers visit your website to join or check the status of loyalty program rewards , it provides an opportunity for customer retention marketing and can help with upselling and cross-selling.

Get customers to visit your website by making it the way to participate in your loyalty program or join an online forum. Let them know it’s where they can get incentives like promotional codes for special discounts or notifications on member-exclusive sales. For more ideas, check out our guide on how to use coupon marketing to increase sales and grow your business.

Get customers who shop in person to visit your website to check loyalty rewards or see how to level up for more rewards. (Source: LoyaltyLion )

Add Your Website URL to Print Marketing Materials

Include your website URL or a QR code to your business card to promote website visits. (Source: Vistaprint )

If your business has a physical location or a physical presence (e.g., a home cleaning service), there are many ways to market your website in person. This could be as simple as handing out flyers or business cards that include your site’s URL to adding them to receipts, invoices, and signage displayed inside your business.

Printed marketing materials, whether brochures, menus, signage, postcards, T-shirts, trade show giveaways, or anything else you print your business name and logo on, should also include your web address. This helps build awareness and generates traffic to your site.

There are also ways to be creative with this website marketing strategy. For example, a bar could include its URL on coasters and invite patrons to go online to vote for the next brew of the month, and then extend that product at a discount in an upcoming promotion.

Not sure where to start? Get all the information you want about using digital and printed marketing materials to promote your small business.

9. Explore Online Advertising Opportunities

Online advertising is a surefire way of amplifying your website marketing efforts. Instead of just letting your marketing campaigns perform organically, you can drive your content to the right people at the right intervals with paid ads. Google search statistics show that paid ads generate more revenue than organic content.

For marketing your website, focus on two major types of online advertising: paid search and paid social media:

Use Paid Search to Generate Traffic in Online Search

Blogging and optimizing your site’s content may provide some results in the short term, but is generally more of a long-term website marketing strategy. It takes time to move up in organic search rankings on Google and other search engines, especially if several of your competitors already have high-ranking content.

However, you can appear in online search results immediately using paid search advertising. Paid search is a form of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising where you create ads on search engines (e.g., Google or Bing) that appear as a top search result. It allows you to get your website into the first results a user sees, even if your site doesn’t yet rank in search organically.

Put your content at the top of SERPs through paid ads. (Source: Google )

Find out more about how to advertise on some of the top paid search platforms:

• Google local service ads
• Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads)
• Yelp for Business Ads
• Advertising on Angi

Reach Your Target Audience With Paid Social

PPC search ads aren’t the only way to promote your website using paid search. For example, social media advertising allows you to generate website traffic among your ideal customers through highly sophisticated and advanced targeting, making it very cost-effective.

Search and social ads are both pay-per-click (PPC) website marketing strategies—they just come at the goal from different angles. Search ads help you actively reach people searching for a business like yours, while social ads allow you to target social media users who match your customer personas . This allows you to introduce your brand to new prospects, creating brand awareness and often generating sales either immediately or in the future.

Social media ad campaigns create interest in your products and services, sending those who click on them to your website. There they can take several types of actions, such as learning more, subscribing to updates, reaching out to a sales agent, or buying from you online, for example.

Facebook advertising is an extremely popular website marketing strategy since the platform enables you to potentially reach billions of users. However, LinkedIn is better for business-to-business advertising, while you might reach niche audiences more easily with ads on sites like Reddit or Pinterest. Read our guide on social media advertising to learn more.

Paid social ads drive brand awareness and send interested prospects to your website to learn more. (Source: Facebook )

There are several social platforms for advertising affordably with paid social ads, from Facebook and Instagram to Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more. Get statistics for each of these paid social platforms so you can determine which offers the most reach to your target audience.

10. Build Your Brand Reputation

Nurturing people’s trust in your brand is a good way to keep them coming back to your website. It should establish trust, credibility, and customer loyalty. Brand reputation is critical enough that Google search statistics show more than half of searches include a brand name.

Here are some website marketing examples that are based on building brand reputation:

Hold Contests & Giveaways

A unique strategy to market your website is to host competitions or giveaways on the platforms you already have a decent reach in. For example, you can post about the competition on Facebook if you already have a good following on the platform. To lead these users to your website, post the winners on your site.

A more popular version of this strategy is by encouraging participants to share their experiences about your brand on social media platforms using a dedicated hashtag or tagging your business page. Finally, highlight the winners and their entries on your website. Not only does this direct people to your website to find out who won, their posts will also help strengthen your brand visibility on social media.

Use Online Marketplaces to Build Exposure

If you plan to sell online, a good way to start getting seen on the web is to first start selling through an online marketplace like Amazon, Etsy, or even Facebook Marketplace. These platforms have millions of users searching for products your business sells, giving your brand another way to be recognized online.

This can create repeat business and referrals who then search for your business online so they can purchase from your website directly. Driving more sales through your ecommerce website increases your profits since marketplace platforms take a share of each sale.

Bringing traffic directly to your site also greatly improves your ability to build email marketing lists to generate repeat site visits, customer retention, referrals, and brand loyalty. For example, you can use splash pages to get sign-ups for first-time buying discounts and set up pop-ups to get people to subscribe to email and text notifications for flash sales, time-limited offers, announcements of new products, and so on.

Publish Press Releases

Media outlets are on a constant mission to find stories and content to share with both massive and niche audiences. Your small business can get a lot of publicity if you get your story on the news , providing your website with additional traffic and backlinks to build its authority. This, in turn, leads to higher rankings in search results for increased brand visibility online as well as increased brand awareness, lead generation, and sales.

Get your story out to the masses and drive traffic to your website using press releases. (Source: Newswire )

Hiring a public relations (PR) agency or consultant can be expensive, but it’s not necessary to land press coverage. There are several low-cost services if you lack the expertise needed to publish your own press releases. For example, you can hire a PR professional on Fiverr to write your press release for as little as $10 to $25. Many also offer press release distribution services in addition to writing.

Alternatively, you can save time in vetting freelance PR professionals and opt for affordable press release writing services with experienced writers. Some of these firms even have industry-specific experts, which is ideal when writing for niche audiences. Learn more about how you can effectively market your business with press releases .

Best Tools for Your Website Marketing Strategy

There are countless tools for website marketing strategies you can use to increase traffic and get more conversions and sales. Some are integrated into your site, such as analytics and organic search visitor tracking, email sign-up forms, and site audits that monitor your site’s ability to rank in online search.

Others are used independently. For example, paid search and social ads drive traffic back to landing pages on your website, as do email marketing and listing your business in online directories. To help you find the best tools to promote your website, here is a quick list of some of the most effective tools and resources:

• Google Analytics: To check website traffic , site visitor data, and other analytics for free
• Semrush: Free keyword research , site audits, and competitor research
• Best local SEO services : Outsourcing website optimization
• BrightLocal: Local ranking and reviews management along with other local SEO tools
• Google ads and local service ads : To land in the top online search results
• Paid social media advertising : Drive targeted traffic
• Mailchimp: Easy-to-use, free email marketing software and ad landing pages
• Leadpages: Create high-converting landing pages for downloads as well as advertising and marketing campaigns
• Digital marketing agencies : Outsource building and marketing your website

Frequently Asked Questions

How are websites used in marketing.

A website serves as the online hub for your brand’s online presence and can even produce leads and sales on its own. It works to convert traffic sent from paid search and social media advertising channels. It’s the destination for those who click on links in your email marketing updates to learn more about your company, set up a demo, or take advantage of a special offer. It can also capture lead contact information and help the site visitor navigate the buying journey.

Which is better: SEO or PPC?

SEO (search engine optimization) is best for small businesses that want to grow organically and businesses with modest budgets since a single piece of content can produce multiple site visits over time. PPC, or pay-per-click advertising, is better for instant results. However, it requires constant reinvestment since the cost is based on interactions (cost per click).

Learn more about how to use PPC advertising and which type is best for your business in our head-to-head Facebook Ads vs Google Ads comparison.

Do you need to build a website on WordPress to get found in search?

Today, leading all-in-one website builders like Squarespace, Wix, and GoDaddy have built-in search engine optimization tools to help your website rank. This means you no longer need to have a WordPress site to rank in online search. For more information and to find the best platform for you, check out the best website builders for SEO .

Bottom Line

Building a website is easy, but marketing a website is easier said than done. To boost traffic to your website and build your brand online, start with an SEO-friendly website builder like Wix or Squarespace, then deploy the website strategies listed above. Set your site up for success with on-site website marketing tactics and use offline strategies to amplify your efforts.

Have you implemented the marketing strategies for websites above, or simply don’t have the time to? If you aren’t getting the most from your website, outsourcing to a top digital marketing agency like Straight North could be the answer. Many businesses find that their return on investment increases when they turn the work over to experts.

Visit Straight North

About the Author

Find Hazel On LinkedIn

Hazel Emnace

Hazel Emnace is determined to provide all businesses an equal opportunity to thrive in the digital world. Her background of experience includes digital marketing in the USA, Australia, South East Asia, and New Zealand. Driven by a thirst for growth, she enjoys writing helpful articles on marketing strategies and tools. She strengthens her expertise by consistently researching and assessing social media algorithms, AI marketing software, and marketing trends.

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The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Strategies & How to Improve Your Digital Presence

Discover how to create a successful marketing strategy for your business to seize growth opportunities and boost revenue.

FREE MARKETING PLAN TEMPLATE

Outline your company's marketing strategy in one simple, coherent plan.

Updated: 08/24/23

Published: 08/24/23

Would it be correct to assume a major part of your marketing strategy today is digital? Probably.

Consumers and businesses alike are almost always online and on the go – and you want to be able to reach them and observe their behavior where they spend their time.

But when you're growing a business, this ever-changing digital landscape can quickly become an overwhelming one. With a number of other responsibilities and tasks that you need to do, how can you also efficiently create, fine-tune, and maintain an agile digital marketing strategy?

We've put together this guide about marketing strategies to help you improve your digital presence and grow better.

What Is a Marketing Strategy?

What Is a Digital Marketing Strategy

What Is a Digital Marketing Campaign?

Create a Digital Marketing Strategy

Types of Digital Marketing Strategies

Digital Marketing Campaign Examples

What is a marketing strategy.

A marketing strategy is a plan for reaching a specific marketing-related goal (or goals) in a focused and achievable way. It takes into consideration what your business is currently doing well and what you're missing in regards to the objective you set, then developing tactics to help you meet your goal.

Digital Marketing For Small Business

Everything you need to know to get started with digital marketing. You'll learn about:

• Content Marketing
• Marketing Analytics

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

If you‘re a small business and you’re unsure how to jumpstart your strategy, this digital marketing strategy template will help you get there. It includes actionable tips and templates to set you up for success.

Now back to this — are you confused about the difference between a marketing strategy and marketing tactics? We cover that below.

Strategy vs. Tactic

The difference between a strategy and a tactic lies in their scope, level of detail, and time frame. A strategy is a high-level plan that guides your direction and long-term goals and how you plan on accomplishing them. Tactics, however, are specific actions and methods used to implement your strategy and achieve short-term objectives.

Characteristics of a Strategy

Marketing or not, there are three parts of any strategy :

• A diagnosis of your challenge
• A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge
• A set of targeted actions that are necessary to accomplish the policy

Depending on the scale of your business, your marketing strategy may include several moving parts, each with different goals. With that said, working on your strategy can become daunting at times.

So, if you're ever feeling overwhelmed about your marketing strategy, refer to these three steps to keep you focused on achieving your objectives.

Characteristics of a Tactic

While strategies provide a framework for your overall vision, tactics determine the specific steps taken to execute that vision.

A good tactic should:

• Be specific, actionable, and measurable
• Align with the overall strategy
• Have a relatively short time frame

Depending on your marketing strategy, your tactics may include email marketing campaigns, publishing a blog, or organizing an event.

Now, let's look at digital marketing strategy.

What is digital marketing strategy?

A digital marketing strategy is a plan for using online channels to establish an internet presence and achieve specific marketing objectives. These channels can include organic search, social media, paid ads, and other web-based mediums such as your website. Ultimately, the goal is to boost your business’s visibility and attract new customers.

A strong digital marketing strategy helps your business achieve specific digital goals through carefully selected mediums. Similar to marketing strategies versus marketing tactics , “digital marketing strategy” and “digital marketing campaign” are also often interchanged. So, how do they differ?

We cover that in the following sections.

What is a digital marketing campaign?

Digital marketing campaigns are the building blocks and actions within your digital marketing strategy that move you toward a specific end goal.

For instance, if the overarching goal of your digital marketing strategy is to generate more leads through social media, you might run a digital marketing campaign on Twitter. You may share some of your business's best-performing gated content on Twitter to generate more leads through the channel.

How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy

• Build your buyer personas.
• Identify your goals and the digital marketing tools you'll need.
• Evaluate your existing digital channels and assets.
• Audit and plan your owned media campaigns.
• Audit and plan your earned media campaigns.
• Audit and plan your paid media campaigns.
• Bring your digital marketing campaigns together.

1. Build your buyer personas.

For any marketing strategy – digital or not – you need to know who you're marketing to. The best digital marketing strategies are built upon detailed buyer personas , and your first step is to create them.

Organize your audience segments and make your marketing stronger with templates to build your buyer personas.

Buyer personas represent your ideal customer(s) and can be created by researching, surveying, and interviewing your business's target audience.

It's important to note that this information should be based upon real data whenever possible, as making assumptions about your audience can cause your marketing strategy to move in the wrong direction.

To get a rounded picture of your persona, your research pool should include a mixture of customers, prospects, and people outside your contacts database who align with your target audience.

But what kind of information should you gather for your own buyer persona(s) to inform your digital marketing strategy?

That depends on your business — it‘s likely to vary depending on whether you’re B2B or B2C, or whether you sell a high-cost or low-cost product.

Here are some starting points that you can fine-tune and tailor to your particular business.

Quantitative and Demographic Information

• Location: Use web analytics tools to easily identify what location your website traffic is coming from.
• Age: Depending on your business, this may or may not be relevant information. But if it is, it's best to gather this data by identifying trends in your existing prospect and contact database .
• Income: It's best to gather sensitive information like personal income through persona research interviews, as people might be unwilling to share these details via online forms.
• Job Title: This is something you can get a rough idea of from your existing customer base and is most relevant for B2B companies.

Qualitative and Psychographic Information

• Goals: Depending on what challenge your product or service solves, you may already have a good idea of the goals of your buyer persona. Cement your assumptions by speaking to real customers and internal sales and customer service reps.
• Challenges: Speak to customers, sales and customer service reps, and any other customer-facing employees to get an idea of the common challenges your audience members face.
• Hobbies/Interests: Ask customers and those who align with your target audience about their hobbies and interests. If you‘re a fashion brand, for example, it’s helpful to know if large segments of your audience are also interested in fitness and well-being to inform future content and partnerships.
• Priorities: Talk to customers and target audience members to find out what‘s most important to them in relation to your business. For example, if you’re a B2B software company, knowing your audience values customer support over a competitive price point is very valuable information.

By combining all of these details, you'll be able to create buyer personas that are accurate and highly valuable for your business.

2. Identify your goals and the digital marketing tools you'll need.

Your marketing goals should always be tied back to the fundamental goals of your business.

For example, if your business‘s goal is to increase online revenue by 20%, your marketing team’s goal might be to generate 50% more leads via the website than the previous year to contribute to that success.

Use a high-level marketing plan template to outline your annual marketing strategy, identify top priorities, and more.

Download the Template

Whatever your overarching digital marketing goal is, you must be able to measure the success of your strategy along the way with the right digital marketing tools.

For instance, the Reporting Dashboard in HubSpot brings all of your marketing and sales data into one place, so you can quickly determine what works and what doesn't to improve your strategy for the future.

3. Evaluate your existing digital channels and assets.

When reviewing your existing digital marketing channels and assets to determine what to incorporate in your strategy, it's helpful to first consider the big picture — this will prevent you from feeling overwhelmed or confused.

Gather what you have, and categorize each vehicle or asset in a spreadsheet, so you have a clear picture of your existing owned, earned, and paid media.

Owned, Earned, Paid Media Framework

To do this effectively, use the owned, earned, and paid media framework to categorize the digital “vehicles,” assets, or channels you‘re already using and decide what’s a good fit for your strategy.

Owned Media

This refers to the digital assets your brand or company owns — whether that's your website, social media profiles, blog content, or imagery. Owned channels are what your business has complete control over.

This can also include some off-site content you own that isn't hosted on your website (e.g. a blog you publish on Medium).

Earned Media

Earned media refers to the exposure you earn through word-of-mouth marketing. Whether that‘s content you’ve distributed on other websites (e.g. guest posts), PR work you‘ve been doing, or the customer experience you’ve delivered. Earned media is the recognition you receive as a result of these efforts.

You can earn media by getting press mentions and positive reviews as well as by people sharing your content via their networks (e.g. social media channels).

Paid media refers to any vehicle or channel you spend money on to catch the attention of your buyer personas.

This includes things like Google Ads, paid social media posts, native advertising (e.g. sponsored posts on other websites), or any other medium through which you pay in exchange for increased visibility.

Since you have a better grasp of what this framework entails, let's look at an example.

Owned, Earned, and Paid Media Framework Example

Say you have an owned piece of content on a landing page on your website that's been created to help you generate leads. You know you want to incorporate different parts of the framework rather than just working with owned, earned, or paid media alone.

To amplify the number of leads the content generates, you make an effort to ensure it's shareable so your audience can distribute it via their social media profiles. In return, this will increase traffic to your landing page. This is the earned media component.

To support your content's success, you might post about the content on your Facebook page and pay to have it seen by more people in your target audience.

This is how the three parts of the framework are able to work together — although, it's not necessary for success. For instance, if your owned and earned media are already both successful, you might not need to invest in paid. So, evaluate the best solution to help you meet your goal, and then incorporate the channels that work best for your business into your digital marketing strategy.

Now you know what's already being used, you can start to think about what to keep and what to cut.

Keep track of your paid media efforts with this free Paid Media Template.

4. Audit and plan your owned media campaigns.

At the heart of digital marketing is owned media — and it almost always comes in the form of content. That‘s because nearly every message your brand broadcasts can be classified as content, whether it’s an About Us site page, product descriptions, blog posts, ebooks, infographics, podcasts, or social media posts.

Content helps convert your website visitors into leads and customers while improving your brand's online presence. And when this content is search engine optimized (SEO), it can boost your search and organic traffic.

Whatever your digital marketing strategy goal is, you'll want to incorporate owned content. To start, decide what content will help you reach your goals.

If your goal is to generate 50% more leads via the website than last year, your About Us page is most likely not going to be included in your strategy, unless that page has somehow been a lead-generation machine in the past.

Here's a brief process you can follow to work out what owned content you need to meet your digital marketing strategy goals.

Audit your existing content.

Make a list of your existing owned content, and rank each item according to what has previously performed best in relation to your current goals.

For example, if your goal is lead generation, rank your content according to which pieces generated the most leads over the last year (such as a blog post, ebook, or site page).

The idea here is to figure out what‘s currently working, and what’s not so that you can set yourself up for success when planning future content.

Identify gaps in your existing content.

Based on your buyer personas, identify any gaps in the content you have.

For example, if you're a math tutoring company and know through research that a major challenge for your personas is finding effective ways to study, create some.

By looking at your content audit, you might discover that ebooks hosted on a certain type of landing page convert really well (better than webinars, for example).

In the case of this math tutoring company, you might make the decision to add an ebook about “how to make studying more effective” to your content creation plans.

Create a content creation plan.

Based on your findings and the gaps you‘ve identified, make a content creation plan outlining the content that’s necessary to help you hit your goals.

This should include:

• Promotional channels
• Why you're creating the content
• The priority level of the content

This can be a simple spreadsheet, and should also include budget information if you‘re planning to outsource the content creation, or a time estimate if you’re producing it yourself.

5. Audit and plan your earned media campaigns.

Evaluating your previous earned media against your current goals can help you get an idea of where to focus your time. Look at where your traffic and leads are coming from (if that's your goal) and rank each earned media source from most effective to least effective.

You can obtain this information using tools like the Sources reports in HubSpot's Traffic Analytics tool.

Online Marketing Benefits of Paid Advertising

• Targeted Campaigns: Platforms like Google, Facebook, and Instagram enable you to target your ads to specific audiences based on their demographics, interests, behaviors, and more. This helps ensure that your ads are seen by the right people who are more likely to be interested in your products or services.
• Measurable Results: No matter which platform you advertise on, you’ll be able to track the success of your ad campaigns by analyzing performance metrics such as impressions, clicks, and conversions. By analyzing this data, you can identify which ads and targeting strategies are most effective and make informed decisions to improve future campaigns.
• Flexibility: Paid advertising gives you the option to adjust your campaigns, targeting options, and budget based on your marketing goals and audience preferences. This can help you stay agile and responsive in the fast-moving digital marketing landscape and ensure that you are getting the most from your advertising budget.

3. Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Account-based marketing is a strategic approach in marketing that focuses on targeting and engaging specific high-value accounts or key decision makers within those accounts. Rather than casting a wide net to reach a broad audience, ABM personalizes marketing efforts to cater to the needs and preferences of specific target accounts.

This strategy is particularly suitable for B2B organizations and industries with complex sales cycles, where forging strong relationships with specific key accounts is critical.

For instance, let’s say your software company wants to target a specific enterprise account, XYZ Inc. Instead of using a broad marketing approach, your company decides to adopt an ABM strategy to tailor their efforts specifically to XYZ Inc.

To do this, you would need to use tactics such as researching and understanding XYZ Inc.’s pain points and business objectives, developing personalized content tailored to their needs, engaging with decision makers and nurturing relationships with them, and coordinating your marketing and sales efforts.

Featured Resource: How to Implement an ABM Strategy

Online Marketing Benefits of Influencer Marketing

• Brand Exposure: Partnering with influencers allows you to tap into the influencer’s existing audience and reach, which can significantly boost your brand’s awareness. By leveraging an influencer’s platform and following, you can expose your products or services to a larger audience and gain visibility among potential new customers.
• Authentic Content Creation: Influencers are skilled in creating engaging and authentic content that resonates with their followers. By partnering with influencers, you can tap into their creativity and expertise to develop compelling content that promotes your brand’s offerings in an organic and relatable manner. Plus, user-generated content created by influencers can showcase real-life experiences with your brand, which can influence buyer decisions and foster trust.
• Trust and Credibility: Influencers are seen as trusted authorities within their niches. When they endorse or recommend a brand’s products or services, it adds credibility and trust. This can positively influence consumer perceptions and increase the likelihood of potential customers trying or purchasing from your brand.

Influencer Marketing Strategy Checklist & Template

Influencer Marketing Campaigns to Inspire and Get You Started With Your Own

The Top Channels for Influencer Marketing

7. Podcasting

Audio marketing has been on the rise — all you have to do is look at the ways Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces have gone head-to-head to earn market share. While platforms such as Clubhouse are different from podcasting , the idea is the same: You get to educate and engage an audience while they’re on the go. All they need is a device that plays audio.

For inspiration, check out the HubSpot Podcast Network :

By making video an integral part of your digital strategy, you’re able to showcase your brand’s creativity and explore more content formats, such as product demos, explainer videos, expert interviews, customer testimonials, and more.

Online Marketing Benefits of Video Marketing

• Boosts SEO: Since Google tends to prioritize video content in its search results, implementing video as part of your marketing strategy can improve your search engine visibility. Plus, video content can be optimized with relevant titles, descriptions, and keywords, making it easier for search engines to understand and categorize the content.
• Better Retention: Video is easier to remember than text-based content because it allows you to use storytelling techniques and communicate important messages more effectively. Video has the power to invoke emotions and create a connection with your audience, making it easier for them to consume and remember your content.
• Enhances Reach: Video is highly shareable on social media due to their easily digestible nature. As people share your video content with their own social media networks, it exposes your brand to new audiences.
• The Ultimate Guide to Video Marketing
• The Best Video Marketing Channels to Grow Your Brand
• The Video Marketing Playbook

Now it‘s time to bring all of this together to form a cohesive marketing strategy document. Your strategy document should map out the series of actions you’re going to take to achieve your goals, based on your research up to this point.

Let's discuss how our digital strategy template can help.

Digital Marketing Strategy Template

While a spreadsheet can be an efficient format for mapping your digital marketing strategy, that approach can quickly become messy and overwhelming.

To plan your strategy for the long-term – typically between six to 12 months out, you need a reliable digital marketing strategy document. But, where to start? With our free digital marketing plan template.

This template will walk you through your business summary and initiatives, help you build your target market and competitor information, and flesh out your marketing strategy — including your budget and specific channels and metrics.

In addition, they also emphasize their credibility by mentioning how long they‘ve been in business and how many people they’ve helped.

By addressing negative perceptions head-on, brands can not only change how consumers view them but also show that they are in tune with their target audience.

Grow Better With Marketing Strategies That Improve Your Digital Presence

Your strategy document will be very individual to your business, which is why it's almost impossible for us to create a one-size-fits-all digital marketing strategy template.

Remember, the purpose of your strategy document is to map out the actions you‘re going to take to achieve your goal over a period of time — as long as it communicates that, then you’ve nailed the basics of creating a digital strategy.

If you're eager to build a truly effective strategy to help grow your business, check out our free collection of content marketing templates below.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in October 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure to learn more about how we use AI.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Blog Beginner Guides

Website Marketing for Small Businesses: The Ultimate Guide

By Bronwyn Kienapple , Aug 13, 2020

Plus, customer buying habits are quickly changing in the current business environment.

You need to know what your customers are searching for right now and how you can make sure these people find your website.

In this guide, I’ll teach you how to bring more people to your website. No marketing mumbo-jumbo, no expensive software, no confusing techniques.

Just simple strategies, free tools and clear examples you can use now to get a lot more visitors to your website and boost your bottom line.

Table of Contents:

• What is a marketing website?
• What is a website marketing strategy?
• What is the best online marketing strategy?
• How can I start marketing my website with no experience?
• Create content to bring in new customers
• Make amazing visuals for your website
• Get your site on Google’s first page
• Website marketing examples

1. What is website marketing?

Website marketing means promoting a business website in order to bring in more visitors. These visitors should be people who are likely to purchase the business’s services or products. More visitors means more opportunities to try to convince potential customers to buy.

Website marketing usually means getting on the first page of search results.

You can get on the first page of search results by:

• Putting great content on your website
• Using tips and tricks to get search engines like Google to find you better
• Social media posts

A marketing website often has the following:

• A sales page where visitors can book services and lists reviews, benefits and features
• And/or an online store
• A blog that builds authority and promotes your product
• A social media plugin that visitors can use to share your posts
• Links to your social media pages
• An about page that creates confidence in your company
• Supporting visuals that inspire emotions and show clearly what you offer

Case studies

• Free downloads like an eBook or white paper in exchange for an email address
• Mobile optimization

For example, the sales page or landing page. Small businesses need them to “close the deal,” whether you’re selling software or other digital products, a service, physical items or selling products online .

A landing page should be focused on features, testimonials, money-back guarantees and other selling points, like in this simple landing page example :

2. What is a website marketing strategy?

A website marketing strategy is a plan to reach a goal based on what your website is already doing well, and what it’s lacking.

For example, let’s say the visitors who do visit your site usually book a free consultation. But, you don’t have that many visitors to begin with.

So, your website marketing strategy needs to be focused on getting more people to your site in the first place.

A website marketing strategy can include:

• Optimizing your website for search engines so more people find you
• Publishing blog posts
• Running a contest or giveaway
• Promoting your website on social media and/or in your email newsletter
• Offer downloadable educational resources like white papers, eBooks, ultimate guides etc.
• Offer downloadable sales resources like brochures or posters
• Offer a webinar or sales demo (live or recorded)
• Offer information about services you offer in blog posts or articles
• Advertise on social media platforms (Instagram or Facebook ads etc.), including retargeting people who already visited your site. These Instagram marketing tips will help you get started.

For example, this eBook template can be customized to discuss a solution to a common problem your customers have. Make a landing page using a program like Instapage to collect email addresses before people are able to download the eBook.

This problem your eBook tackles could be anything from “how to get your first 10,000 Instagram followers” to “ how school districts can adapt to remote learning during the pandemic.”

You can also use bold graphics to quickly explain key selling points and repurpose the content to promote your ebook on social media platforms. That way, you’ll be able to get more people coming to your website.

For example, this simple  mind map  template can easily be edited to explain the benefits of your business. You can add to your sales page, downloadable one-pager, webinar and more.

Create a formal content marketing plan for your website marketing strategy. This is great if you need to present it as part of your business plan to potential investors. Or you want to share it with business partners and/or employees.

3. What are the best online marketing strategies?

The best online marketing strategy is content marketing , which means creating and sharing online content such as blog posts, videos, and infographics like this one:

Content marketing is the best online marketing strategy because it is a timeless tactic (not a trend) that both introduces possible new customers to your service or product and establishes you as an innovative thinker in your field.

Innovative thinkers often have their content shared online, meaning your company gets more potential exposure to new customers.

For example, you can customize this list infographic to deliver tips based on your expertise and place it on your blog or Pinterest. Or ask other related sites to post it.

The most effective online marketing strategy is creating content that addresses the specific needs of your potential customers. You can provide personalized information to your audience with a quiz maker in the form of interactive content that encourages interaction. Adopting a website personalization strategy is important if you want to maximize your conversions.

This strategy goes beyond just getting people to your website, but making sure they actually engage with your business via valuable, highly relevant content.

In sum, valuable content should:

• Speak to your audience’s main problem
• Show how your product or service can solve this problem

Further Reading:

• Our post on growth strategies digs into other ways to grow your business.
• Learn how to conquer social media with our social media plans

4. How can I start marketing my website with no experience?

The key to website marketing is useful content that potential customers will want to read and share.

You also need a plan to reach people beyond your existing audience.

That means no emailing your newsletter subscribers again and again, no relentless posting on your social media accounts.

So, you need to know what content to create and how to get it in front of more people. Which is why you need a website marketing strategy.

How to build a website marketing strategy:

• Figure out who your buyers are
• Look at what’s working on your website, and what isn’t
• Choose goals and what tools you’ll need to reach them
• Plan the campaigns you need to meet your goals

Here’s an example: a tree removal company based in Ontario, Canada.

Pretty slick website. I’m wondering if they’re getting as much traffic (visitors) to their website, as they’d like. It looks like their blog hasn’t been updated since 2018.

Writing new blog posts based on what their customers are searching for on Google would help bring in new potential customers.

The next section shows you how you do just that.

5. Create a website content strategy

To create content your customers actually want, you need a website content strategy. You should:

• Research what words your customers use when they’re Googling for solutions
• Make sure your website pops up in Google when they do so

To do this, you need to know first who you want to sell to and what their problem is–and how that relates to your business.

Let’s start with a checklist that summarizes what we’re going to cover. You can also edit this content marketing checklist and put in your own priorities:

Who is your audience?

First, let’s do the groundwork for your website content strategy. You need to find what sort of people you actually want to bring to your site. Because you don’t want all your hard work poured into bringing in people who won’t buy what you’re offering!

You can use this simple user persona template to help inspire your research:

Let’s explore some simple research options.

Check who’s already visiting your website

Website data tools will help you track who’s already visiting your website, giving you an idea of who your customers are.

Google Analytics gives you a lot of data but it can be a pain to learn if you’re new to website marketing.

W3Counter is a great, free alternative that lets you see:

• Where your visitors are located
• How they find your website
• What content on your website they visit the most

For example, in the audience report you can find where your site visitors are coming from (even what states or cities) and what language they speak primarily.

If you’d like a more advanced, but still user-friendly website data tool these 25 Google Analytics alternatives are a good place to start.

Snoop online forums and groups

Spend time in the groups and forums your customers frequent. Listen in on their conversations to understand their problems. Write down any issues you see over and over, as well as any words or phrases you see repeated.

Here are some places to start:

• Facebook groups
• LinkedIn groups
• Angie’s List
• Google Business reviews
• Amazon reviews

For example, let’s go back to my favorite tree removal company example. Angie’s List is a site that lists home-based services like landscaping and roofing.

You can search by zip code and check out reviews of your competitors:

Here are some key phrases and points you could use from the above results in your website marketing:

• “A quote was provided the same day I called” >> form for same-day quote on your website, with link on homepage. Promote in social media, newsletter , ads.
• “Haul away the debris for extra payment” >> add as a feature on your “about us” page
• “Stump grinding” >> same as above
• “Neat” “left the yard all clean” >> add reviews like this to your website
• “Price was very fair” >> add “fair prices” to your social media ads

Ask your customers yourself

This is assuming you’ve already launched your business, though you can poll potential customers too.

Here are some options:

• Use your email list to send a survey. You can make one for free using SurveyMonkey or Google Forms . Or you can post the survey in one of the social media groups your customers frequent, but make sure you check the group rules first and clear it with the moderator.
• Ask past customers for a 15-30 minute phone call. You may have to compensate them for their time–a $20 Amazon gift card should work. You can also approach your friends and connections on social media, or ask them to connect you to mutual friends who might be a better fit.
• Add a pop-up poll to your website. Here’s a simple question: “what were you looking for here that you didn’t find?” We use Hotjar Polls on this site and it’s given us some valuable insights on what our blog posts and other pages are missing. The basic plan is free so there’s no reason not to give it a try.

If you’d like to dive deeper into who your customers are so you can make better informed decisions about how to market your product, then creating user personas is a good idea.

User personas are representations of your customers. They include information like:

• Pain points (problems)
• Demographics

If you want to get really in-depth, this template should help inspire you to dig into who your ideal customer is:

Essential Reading : our guide to user personas with tips, examples and templates.

What content would your audience be interested in

Now you have an idea of who you’re writing for and what they want. Now it’s time to make or update content these people want.

Here are the types of content you can make:

• Landing (sales) pages
• Charts or graphs
• White papers

Don’t have a lot of content yet to choose from? Just starting out? Click here to skip ahead.

Find your top-performing content

Creating content can take a while to research, write, edit, publish and promote.

So, if you have existing content that’s already getting lots of site visitors, you can just spin it into a different format.

Or, you can use that top-performing content might inspire you to write related blog posts etc.

Task : Look through your blog posts from the past year and find the content that your audience loves.

How do you do this? You’ll need to peek under the hood of your website using a tool like W3Counter or Google Analytics , as I mentioned above.

You can see what pages are visited most often and what keywords people use on Google most frequently to find your site. This is perfect to figure out what pages you should update or topics you should write more of.

Here’s an example on W3Counter:

“Landing pages” are where your site visitors initially “land” most frequently. “Keywords” are the words people use on Google or other search engines to find your website.

Task : Take a peek at your most popular social media posts.

How do you do this? You can scroll though your feed and see which ones got the most likes, shares and comments.

Or use a tool like BuzzSumo . Enter your domain in their Content Research tool and see what posts got the most engagement (likes etc.) on all your social media accounts.

Their “Most Shared” report tells you what content reached the most people on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest. This will help you decide what to post about on social media and other platforms, like your blog.

I entered my domain and filtered by “past year” and “English.” And voila – here’s my most engaging content by social media channel!

Check what your competitors are doing

This is a great strategy for new business owners who don’t have much (or any) content to look at. But, anyone doing website marketing will benefit from it.

Make a list of your top three competitors. Check out their blogs and social media channels. Write down what they post about most frequently.

What can you add to the conversation or how can you improve it? This is where your unique expertise comes in. Many blog posts are also dry and boring. I’ll include tips for adding amazing visuals below to make your posts stand out from the pack.

It’s okay to write about the same topics your competitors do–just don’t copy their work, obviously, and add your own unique perspective.

Essential Reading : our guide to competitor analysis reports will help you do a formal review of your competitors.

Research what your customers are searching for

Ideally you have an idea from your surveys, online research, calls etc. However, you can also make an educated guess about what your customers search for online.

Let’s say you run a local baby and kids store in Toronto. Clothes, toys, that sort of thing.

Open your browser (I like Chrome) and enter words related to your business. As you type you’ll see other options pop up in the drop down menu–these are related search terms people are searching for. Gold!

I started with the location (Toronto), then entered “baby” and lo and behold:

Now you can start planning your social media posts, digital newsletters , blog posts etc. around popular topics like baby gift baskets and baby clothes .

Or simply put in what your business is about. Lawn care? Type it in. Lawn care services is an option, so type “services” and you’ll see even more specific options:

Some ideas from this:

• Create a page on your site called “Lawn Care Services List” and list out all your services
• Write a blog post titled “How much should lawn care services cost?”

I’m going to give you some options for how to search. The “keyword” is a word directly related to your business.

• Keyword only ex: Lawn care
• Location + keyword ex: Houston plumber
• New + keyword ex: New pet food
• Keyword + delivery ex: Book delivery
• Keyword + tips ex: Lawn care tips

There are some great free tools you can use to dig deeper into what your potential customers are searching for:

• Answer the Public : Put in a keyword like “house painting” and get topics like “is house painting tax deductible” and “what makes a good house painter.”
• Keywords Everywhere : This Chrome extension works within Google. It shows related keywords like “house painting colors” and “house painting ideas.” You’ll need to upgrade to see how many people (on average) search for these terms per month.

Finding trending keywords

During this pandemic, consumer behavior has changed a lot. Search trends are changing on a dime.

In this case, Google Trends is your friend. It’s a free tool from Google that sees what search terms are more popular right now. You can filter the results by location and time frame, too.

I searched for “landscaping” in Arizona over the past 30 days:

Shrubs are a popular topic. So perhaps you could write a blog post about top shrubs fit for the Arizona climate. You can even see what regions in Arizona where landscaping is most popular!

6. Website graphics: create amazing visuals

Visuals such as infographics, screenshots, stock photos, videos, graphs and charts make the content on your website easier to read and digest. It’s an easy fix to improve your website design .

Need inspiration for what website graphics to use? Look at this post!

Don’t underestimate the power of visual communication . Visuals such as infographics, data visualizations , videos and charts allow your customer to understand what you’re communicating faster. They also keep people on the page longer.

In fact, 40 percent of marketers agreed that infographics performed best out of all their content in 2019.

Infographics are particularly useful because you can use them in a variety of ways:

• At the top of your blog posts to summarize your post and make people want to share them.
• In social media, especially Pinterest where a longer graphic works better, and you can link back to your site.
• To pitch to other sites: guest posts and infographics.
• On your sales page to summarize your offerings.
• On your company’s About page to explain your company history or mission.

Here are some templates you can use as website graphics:

Company about page

Use these timeline infographics to show a visual history of your company.

Blog post infographic

Edit this template to summarize the main findings of your blog post.

Design Tip : click on any of the icons to open our in-editor library. Select a new option and the editor will automatically replace the old icon.

Social media infographic

Publish tips relating to your business on Pinterest, such as “plumbing tips for new homeowners.” Pinterest isn’t just a social media platform. It’s a search engine and it can drive major traffic to your website.

Design Tip : Our post on the formula for the perfect Pinterest infographic will help you master this platform. You can also take this one hour free masterclass from Pinterest expert Jenna Kutcher.

Guest post infographic

Guest posting on sites your ideal customers visit is a great way to not only gain visibility for your company and get links back to your website.

Getting links from websites can also get you on the first page of Google’s search results.

Why is this? Here’s how the magic happens:

• Let’s say you run a dog walking company.
• You search on Google for “dog walking tips” since this is a topic you’re obviously an authority on.
• Puppy Leaks is the number one result. It’s obviously an authoritative website.
• You pitch and write a guest post for Puppy Leaks on another topic, maybe “how to walk a dog that pulls.” You include a link back to your website in the guest post.
• Google sees this and decides that if an authoritative site like Puppy Leaks is linking to your website, then your site is probably also authoritative!
• You might then see your website ranking higher in Google’s search results for keywords related to your business.

Make your guest post pitch more attractive by proposing to include a custom infographic they can include in the post and that summarizes your main points.

These templates make it easy to round up your key findings:

Design Tip : Our business plan lets you apply your company colors to any template with one click, by importing them from your website. The feature’s called My Brand Kit .

Sales page infographic

Use this flyer template to show what you business offers and add it to your sales page. Skip the coding and use ready-made website graphics that you can easily import as images.

Design Tip : You can easily change the stock image in this template. Just click on it, click “replace” and then browse our in-editor library of free business stock images. Make your selection and we’ll replace the image for you and automatically resize it.

Essential Reading : My post on how to create viral infographics that drive backlinks and press mentions.

Sales pages

Your sales page is a perfect opportunity to showcase what features or services you provide, include a demo video, list positive reviews etc. The whole point is to drive the visitor towards an action: signing up for a demo, a free consultation, a trial plan or simply to buy buy buy.

Here’s one template you can use to make a captivating sales page:

Design Tip : Click any of the photos to replace them–we have thousands of free, professional stock images to choose from in our in-editor library. Or you can upload your own photos. Add your brand colors, change the text, swap out the icons and more.

This simple sales website graphic can be added to an existing landing page:

Browse more sales page templates .

Case studies are a great way to show potential customers how other customers use your product or service in order to meet their goals.

It’s worth your time to create a stunning case study that you can download from your website. This is one of our most popular case study templates:

Design Tip : Apply your brand colors to this template with one click using My Brand Kit ( business plan required).

Browse our post on professional case study examples for more templates and advice.

Webinars are a great tactic to reach new audiences. You can promote them via a banner on your website, social media ads or by asking other businesses to promote it via their newsletters (and you can do the same for them).

That said, webinars require a lot of prep work, which is why you should use a slide template to make your job easier. It’ll also help keep the attention of participants.

Edit this webinar template to make it about whatever topic you like:

Design Tip : If you don’t like the gradient color, our online editor will let you select other gradients. Or choose a solid color or a variety of background patterns.

Think branding is just a fancy exercise for big companies with money to throw around?

Think again. Studies show consistent branding online can increase revenue by 23 percent.

So, it’s worth your time to make sure your website, social media channels and anywhere else you are online have the same look and style.

Create your brand by picking out three styles:

• Company colors

You can click any of the above links to read our authoritative guides on the topics (with templates).

Short on time? In this video, we explain branding in three minutes:

Blog Headers

If you don’t have time to design an infographic for your blog post, just insert a header instead. This way, the header image may also appear in Google searches.

Here’s a simple blog header you can customize for any topic:

Design Tip : Change the background color with one click by clicking “Background” in the editor and choosing a color. Then click the text box to edit it and click the typewriter icon to choose another icon from our library, if you like.

You don’t need to be in the travel industry to use this blog banner. Swap out the photo and text to fit your topic. It’s a simple way to add graphics to your website without too much work.

Design Tip : Click the photo in the template and then “replace” and upload your own photo or choose a photo from our free stock photo library.

7. Website SEO marketing: optimize your website so you appear on Google’s first page

The next step is to optimize your website for search, something called search engine optimization ( SEO ) or website SEO marketing .

You now have a list of keywords your customers search for most frequently. Some of these keywords you may already rank for. And some you won’t. You can’t find out unless you Google these keywords yourself.

Make sure you use Incognito mode in Google so your personal search history doesn’t influence the options!

I personally use Ahrefs’ Site Explorer Tool to check my rankings. It’s a bit more advanced but it’ll save you from scrolling through endless Google search results. It’s not cheap, but you can get a seven day trial for $7 and do all of your research at once.

Divide the keywords into two lists:

• Keywords you already rank for and need to optimize for
• Keywords you don’t rank for you need to write new content for

I’ll tackle each task separately.

Ranking higher for existing keywords

Let’s take Toronto Dog Walking, a company I have no affiliation with and have never tried.

I looked at their homepage in Ahrefs and they rank for some great keywords like “dog walker toronto.”

But, if there’s other keywords they don’t rank for like “dog walker north york” and “dog walkers near me.”

I used Keywords Everywhere  (a free browser plug in) to find these other keywords:

They’ll probably want to add these words to the copy on their homepage so they start ranking for them.

Here are some easy wins to add keywords in a way Google will recognize:

• This is the title and description you see on Google. Yoast is a WordPress plugin that helps you do this. Or Google “tools to change meta description + your website host”
• SERP Simulator will help you don’t make your title and meta so long they get cut off.
• Two or more headings on the page should have the keyword
• For example, the target keyword for this post is “website marketing” and the URL is: venngage.com/blog/ website-marketing
• Obviously this is not possible for your primary domain!
• Include links to well-known industry or news sites in your content (blog posts are best for this).
• Include links to other pages on your website. It’ll help the page rank.
• Make sure your image alt text and descriptions contain the target keyword. Yoast has a good guide if this sounds like Greek to you.
• Don’t create multiple pages covering the same topics and with the same keywords. You’ll split your traffic in half and pull both pages down in Google.

Seems like a lot of work? This easy checklist should help. You can customize it too, to add your own notes and priorities:

Design Tip : Click and drag to select multiple text boxes to change or delete them. Then click “Settings” in the top right of the editor to resize the page, if you want.

Getting links to your website

Pages with the number one spot on Google search results get five to 14.5% more links from new websites each month, says a recent Ahrefs study .

So, if you want to get more people to your website, you need more links to your website.

You can ask for links to your:

• Homepage Sales page

When a site that’s well-known in your niche or directly relates to your business’s niche links to your site, Google considers your content to be valuable and will likely bump your site higher up in the search results.

The more relevant links you get, the higher your site should rank–as long as you’ve made valuable content that has all the right keywords.

Here’s how you can get more links to your website:

• For example, my audience is small to medium businesses in the USA. I wrote a guest post for DIY Marketers about search engine optimization for small businesses and linked to our homepage on the words “infographic maker” because this is a Google search term we compete on. And yes, we are the #1 result for this term!
• Create infographics and pitch them to websites that cover your niche. This is a great strategy to get links to your sales page, which can be harder to get.
• Partner with influencers in your niche and have them insert a link to your content in their blog content. You can get a free trial for Mention to find these influencers more easily.
• Make sure you’re listed in business directories like Business.com and Google Places for Business .
• Discover brand mentions by Googling your brand name. If the site mentions your company but doesn’t actually link to your site don’t be shy! Click that “contact” button on their site and ask them for a link.

8. Website marketing examples

Building trust or “social proof”.

Jobber’s blog post about the 10 best examples of arborist websites tackles a very specific problem: how professional arborists can show potential customers that they are trustworthy.

This means they need a website that showcases customers reviews and testimonials, their business accreditations, insurance etc.

Jobber’s post includes a handy checklist unique to arborists plus real examples of arborist websites that work, with screenshots:

Content that adds value

Melinda Emerson is a Philadelphia-based entrepreneur and author who runs a marketing consulting firm. She’s a go-to for small business advice and has been featured on MSNBC, the  Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Fortune and more.

This is her advice on the best website marketing strategy:

The best way to market a website is with good quality content that is published on a consistent basis.

And the proof is in Melinda’s site: succeedasyourownboss.com . When you enter her site, a pop up appears with an offer that’s very useful to her audience: an eBook for small business owners on how to weather a recession:

Once you click the download button, you’re directed to a landing page that tells you that your PDF will arrive by email. It also suggests blog posts to read, helping your new visitor become even more invested in your site.

Why This Works : A direct sales pitch is a bit much for a new visitor to your website. Instead, build loyalty with content that’s useful and interesting. Plus, a download allows you to collect an email address and follow up with a series of automated emails introducing herself, her company, her best tips … and her sales pitch.

Offer free advice to help with a problem  

Terri Levine is the founder of Heart-repreneur and a business and executive coaching expert who has coached over 6,000 clients over 25 years. This is her advice on website marketing:

Today there is so much noise when trying to establish your business presence and engage prospective customers. While having a website is essential, blogging is a no-cost way to drive traffic to your site and generate high-quality leads. Blogging IS marketing for your website.

When you enter Terri’s homepage, you immediately see a big, friendly picture of Terri and a call to action that promises to deliver new leads for your service business.

Click through and you’ll get a landing page offering a free training that comes with glowing recommendations and media mentions.

Why This Works : The training addresses how you can drive massive growth with an online business during a recession–something her audience of small business owners are likely struggling with big time .

Content that meets a need

Here’s an example from Red Stag Fulfillment, a US-based company that warehouses, picks, packs and ships online orders for online retailers. These retailers work across state lines and once the pandemic hit, they needed to know what states defined what businesses as essential.

So Red Stag created an interactive map that pulled all this data together in an interactive format. The data pulled from a spreadsheet that was continually updated with new details.

You can do the same thing with this template to show data by state in the US:

Design Tip : Click the map and a spreadsheet opens. Enter your data or import an Excel spreadsheet. The states will be colored according to the results. Or check out our map templates for more states and countries.

Website marketing: the takeaway

Website marketing is ultimately about creating content that your customers need and then working to make sure as many potential customers hear about this content over time, consistently.

The strategies I’ve listed above won’t result in overnight success.

You need to put in the time to research your customers’ pain points and make content that addresses those issues in a way that’s in-depth, highly useful and unique–plus, that’s optimized for Google search.

But, if you do the background research and don’t just shoot in the dark, you’re sure to start attracting the right kind of customers to your website–and more of them.

8 Best Website Marketing Strategies to Increase Organic Traffic

March 16, 2023

by Mara Calvello

In this post

How to create a website marketing strategy

8 best website marketing strategies to convert prospects

The world favored the one who dared to think differently.

Till the 2000s, no one thought the massive internet wave would sweep the 21st century.  Things have been no different for branders and marketers, who sought online channels, like websites, to connect with their targeted prospects. 

A brand's website is the go-to destination for the entire consumer market. When built using an apt website marketing strategy, it validates your products and spikes consumer interest. While standard BTL advertisements work,  there is always a need for an online presence. Consumers expect B2C-like assistance from even B2B vendors, which throws the entire marketing gambit for a toss.

The foundational block of a great website is a team of a talented workforce. Content writers, marketers, designers, and advertisers unite and brainstorm. In association with a great team, a great landing page builder with drag-and-drop elements can get your website up and running in no time!

Let’s break down exactly how to go about getting your website out into the world.

What is a website marketing strategy?

Website marketing strategies are planned to drive a brand to success. It is used to increase organic traffic coming back to the brand's website, decrease sales objections, and push customers down the funnel all the way to the final deal.

Deciding what goes into a website marketing strategy requires cross-communication between marketing and product teams. The better you understand the reason behind your product's existence, the better you will activate the brand for your ideal target group. No doubt, you can run paid marketing website campaign and better your return on ad spending ( ROAS), but even today, nothing beats creativity.

Selecting the right website marketing strategy isn't limited to tangible resources, content, and design of your website. It requires you to understand your prospective market size, product fit, and business model in detail. Once you have perspicacity for what your business does, you can develop a better framework.

Gather your teams and walk them through the parameters of the right website marketing strategy.

• Be well-versed with all your company products: Go neck-deep into your company research. Connect with team stakeholders across departments like research and development, quality assurance, data engineering, and product management to understand product approvals, updates, project sprints, and add-ons or integrations your product has recently received. 
• Guide your users: Take your website experience up a notch by guiding your user at every step of their journey. If they are looking for a few quick reads, lead them to downloadable resources. Keep a navigational tab at the extremetop of your website with sub-menus like blogs, testimonials, our products, events and gatherings, and so on. 
• Make it interactive:  Suit your brand's design, colors, and logo standards while developing the back end of your website. Follow the company protocols and do not go all out on colors, extravagant fonts, themes, or background gradients. Decide on a stout website structure, section headers, images, and description of features. Add interactive visuals where you see an opportunity. 
• Cater to  search queries:   Keep your web content tailored to the user's intent and Google's search query rater guidelines. Don't duck from your core product differentiators. Highlight them through testimonials, success stories, and vision and mission. Frame your website as a problem-solution approach and shed light on burning industry problems. 
• Personalize your website :  Add your creative spin to the traditional layout of a website. Use an audience analysis tool to gauge the frequently typed keywords to arrange your website content accordingly.  Give personalized suggestions to your target audience and lead them to a cleaner, crisper user interface.
• Gain a competitive edge: Always be one step ahead of your competitors on the SERP . But at the same time, don't portray your website as a plagiarized content source. Seek inspiration, and then take a plunge into a world unknown. Unique content always bewitches people as they get to access different options.  
• Give author credits: Discrepant author details may result in second-guessing your business's credibility. Give enough credit to your writers who create content for your website or engage in guest posting or ghostwriting strategy. Dedicate an "experts column" on each contributed blog or ebook that goes onto your website. No piece of your website content should go unnamed and uncredited. 
• Lead with PPC:  Sponsorships can bring a huge chunk of paid traffic to your domain. Whether you launched a new product or have a webinar on the cards, promoting it via sponsored Google ads or Facebook ads makes you a community creator. Bidding on trending keywords can fetch you more website visits, and registrations, which increases the scope of conversions. 

You can have the most amazing website in the world, with crystal clear graphics and a fast load time, but that doesn’t mean anything if no one knows about it. Make sure the public sees your website with these eight strategies.

1. Write original content

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times. Content is King . Your website needs to offer free, unique, and competitive content that brings in visitors and ranks well while also setting you apart from the competition. Whether you start a blog or contribute to a guest blog, it’s a great way to get traffic to your website and increase the name recognition of your business and its brand. Using a tool to check plagiarism can help ensure your content is unique and not copied from other sources.

If you choose to guest blog, include a link to your website, either in the copy or in your biography at the end of the post, to ensure to draw in visitors from a new source.

2. Share updates on social media

Gone are the days when social media is just for your friends to show off pictures of their vacation or their newborn baby. Over 3 billion people are using social media, and that number grows each year. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to convert those people into your customers.

Whether posting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn, or a combination, posting great content is a great way to build your community. Remember that your audience on Twitter is going to be different than LinkedIn, so your advertisements and posts should reflect that difference. And, of course, don’t forget about including hashtags.

Did you know? 78 percent of businesses have dedicated teams for managing their social media.

If you haven’t already, ensure that your website clearly displays social media icons on the navigation bar so visitors can easily find you on all platforms.

3. Take advantage of email marketing

One of the best ways you can reach your customers is through email marketing. It’s important that you take this form of marketing seriously, as it top's the inboxes of prospective customers. 

For instance, don’t count out the power of a good subject line. In fact, 35 percent of recipients open emails based on the subject line. Your email newsletter needs to set you apart from the rest so your customers not only open the email you’re sending but also engage further by clicking through to your website.

Make your content something that stands out, make your CTAs prominent and easy to click on, and make your tone urgent (but not too urgent). These emails should be as personalized as possible and offer valuable promotions. If you need help sending the perfect message to your customers, invest in the right solution like Unbounce or Mailchimp with free email credits to help you step up your email game.

4. Utilize SEO

Follow the best-in-class practices to increase the reader's experience and appeal. Mark cumulative shifts of content in a way that doesn't seem overwhelming. Embed anchor texts on complex topics that lead the user on a dedicated blog post. Make sure Google doesn't crawl on foreign domains. Include a "robot txt." and "XML sitemap" to increase the ranking streak of your website. Rake up a good number of primary and secondary organic keywords, but at the same time, do not stuff your website. Unlike SEM (Search Engine Marketing), utilizing SEO is free , making it an opportunity you can’t pass up.

Tip: Learn more about the difference between SEO and SEM and why they are important to your marketing strategy.

There are a lot of factors that go into SEO, from keywords to alt tags, page speed, load time, meta tags , RSS feed, keyword canonicalization, competitive analysis , and header formatting, no element should be overlooked.

5. Invest in PPC Ads

PPC ads (pay-per-click) are when you use internet advertising to bring traffic to your website from search engines like Google. Essentially, you pay a fixed price for every click your ad gets on the search engine results page, with the goal of maximum conversions.

If you choose to use Google AdWords, there is no spending requirement, so that you can set your price to as little as $5 a month or as grand as $5,000 a month. No matter your budget, you need to aim for at least twice the amount of lead acquisition as your investment to receive the best ROI. Your ad, the offer, and the landing page the ad leads to must all work towards the same goal - converting customers.

Tip:  Check out the 4 ways to enhance your PPC system with artificial intelligence!

Consider the keywords and phrases a user would search for, target those within your ads, and then the search engine will help get your ad in front of your target market.

6. Create a Google My Business page

If your business isn’t taking advantage of sharing its information on a free Google My Business page, now is the time to do so.

This is where your customers can find not only a link to your website but also your business address, phone number, hours, Google reviews, and more. You should also register on Google’s business directory for even more visibility on the search results page.

Source : dribble

7. Cohesive branding

Your brand, the color scheme, and the type of logo are all ways people recognize your company. Invest some time (and money) to work on making your brand easy to recognize and eye-catching enough to grab anyone’s attention.

Think of ways you can better incorporate these elements of your brand. Maybe you can revamp email signatures or create a banner to use on social media. Regardless, make sure your branding is the same no matter if a user is viewing your website on a desktop, mobile, or on a social media platform. Be synonymous with brand colors, sans-serif font, and primary call to action, and harmonize them in a way that appeals to the user.

8. Word of mouth

When you’re looking for a new nail salon or barber, you ask your friends or people you trust. Or maybe an online resource to discover the best-rated and highest-reviewed options. Don’t forget about these sources that drive traffic to your website.

Build these connections and relationships, whether it be face-to-face or through social media, as a way to gain positive reviews and recommendations. A robust word of mouth gets you known among your low-hanging prospects, who go by others' experiences. Sharing of customer experiences can rake up more organic traffic, increase visibility and make you a success story. 

Put your customers first

Whether your business just launched or you’re already a household name, building a continuous relationship with brand cohorts is important. People look up to your brand and keep tabs on new products that hit your website. Be wary of what you put at your reader's or consumer's disposal. Don't just engage in marketing full tosses, but try to bring value and sustainability to the table.

Your website is up and live. Now what? Ensure you never lose sight of your branding initiatives and be a top consumer choice by tracking website KPIs .

This article was originally published in 2019. The content has been updated with new information.

Sculpt your brand in the way you want!

Build appealing, interactive landing pages from scratch and personalize brand experiences for your audience with landing page builder.

Mara Calvello is a Content Marketing Manager at G2. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Elmhurst College (now Elmhurst University). Mara's expertise lies within writing for HR, Design, SaaS Management, Social Media, and Technology categories. In her spare time, Mara is either at the gym, exploring the great outdoors with her rescue dog Zeke, enjoying Italian food, or right in the middle of a Harry Potter binge.

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Website Marketing: The Definitive Guide (Infographic)

Websites are pretty much the gold standard in the world of marketing, the one-stop-shop for all product and service information, FAQs and one of your primary methods to connect with your customers. From the primary home page to the ‘Meet Us’ pages describing business owners and their history, you should rely on your website to communicate everything that makes up your brand. Not only would your ideal website capture your brand voice, assets and intention, but it should be high on every target Google SERP to attract the most visitors.

We know that’s a lot of elements to consider and quite a bit of pressure, but don’t let website marketing intimidate you. There are quite a few strategic steps you can take to optimize your content and visibility on every landing page, webinar, case study and blog.

Ready to learn more? Let’s get into it.

In this guide:

What Is Website Marketing?

Your website is your best marketing tool, how to promote your website, building an effective website marketing strategy, types of website marketing services, content and online marketing.

Website marketing is the strategic promotion of a website to drive relevant traffic to the site. The goal is typically to attract people who may be interested in a company’s products or services. More traffic coming to a site means more opportunities to put your value proposition in front of potential customers.

The goal of most website marketing strategies is to rank highly in search engine results pages (SERPs) through the implementation of search engine optimization (SEO) tactics, content marketing, social media engagement, and other digital and offline efforts.

In the majority of industries, pages that rank in the first SERP position get more than 50% of the traffic for their target keywords . There’s a steep drop-off for pages ranking in the second and third positions, and pages in positions 5-20 compete for less than 5% of traffic.

Properly managed, a website marketing strategy can help your business attract new customers and ultimately expand your business’s share of the market.

These days, your brand’s website is the primary channel in which users can learn about your brand and take actions that directly contribute to the growth of your business.

Inbound digital marketing strategies are shaped like a funnel. Your customers are on the internet, using search engines, browsing articles and using apps. It’s the job of your inbound strategy to pull people toward your website where they can read and view your content and ultimately make a purchase decision.

An optimized website provides a branded customer experience that answers questions and demonstrates the unique value of your offerings. Every aspect of your brand’s online presence radiates out from your website.

Brand Assets and eCommerce

Not only should each landing page work to attract outside visitors , but your brand assets need to work to keep them engaged. This means every header on every single landing page should be consistent with the fonts you’ve chosen, and that your online business represents your product right down to the final CTA.

Every business owner should consider how their website design works with their marketing plan , acting as the online store that many expect it to be. Think about how walking through an Apple store gives customers a minimalistic, design-forward and curated experience, and then compare it to their website — see the similarities?

Your local or national SEO strategy shouldn’t begin and end with website promotion to social media platforms or through other internet marketing plans. We’ll get into these internal content elements a little bit later, but when it comes to internet marketing it’s always a good idea to use those brand assets to increase user experience.

Keep reading to learn more about how to maximize your website marketing strategy externally.

To the uninitiated, website promotion can seem like a daunting task.

With an estimated 1.6 billion registered websites in 2019 and more than 4 billion active internet users, standing out feels like an impossible task.

The good news is that there’s nothing impossible about it.

When you understand what your audience is looking for and how search engines identify quality websites, the internet is your oyster.

SEO is a mix of onsite and offsite metrics to help you rank. Onsite metrics include things like how seamless it is to crawl and index the various pages and elements of your site, how quickly the page loads, the absence of outdated content or broken links, etc. You can use free tools like CWVIQ to keep tabs on your core vital metrics. Offsite metrics primarily include backlinks from trusted third-party sources. This help elevate your site’s trustworthiness in the eyes of Google.

“SEO is the set of methodologies used to make websites both accessible to search engines and appealing to readers.”

Modern ranking algorithms like those used by Google are designed to sniff out dozens of signals that make websites useful and trustworthy.

Moz has done a great job summarizing the critical needs of SEO :

If you need a comparison to traditional marketing strategies, then think of SEO like supercharged business listing in a phone book. Rather than paying for a large ad in the yellow pages, SEO tactics can help your business listing reach the top of the page where interested customers can easily spot your information. When customers have a need, one of the first things they do is turn to a search engine. SEO ensures that your business is front and center, enabling a steady flow of traffic to your website.

2. Backlinks

Never forget that the web is a network, and movement between network nodes (websites) is crucial not only to digital marketing, but to the modern global economy as a whole.

If you think about website traffic as a form of currency, it makes sense that you would want to receive it from reputable sources. Just as you wouldn’t want to take money from a shady lender, you don’t want traffic from irrelevant or disreputable sources.

Backlinks – which drive traffic from another site to your own – are extremely important promotional tools. Credible backlinks signal to search engines that your content is trustworthy and relevant .

3. Social Media

Nowadays, social media platforms are so numerous that marketers have their pick of strategies. From a brand’s facebook page to a company TikTok, publishing content on other sites is a powerful way to get customers clicking back to your website. There are great processes for lead generation on these sites, including using case studies, fun — and relatable — content and even memes (maybe you will even want to go the humorous , or the bizarre and eye-catching route).

4. Influencers

Influencers are connectors; they are people who have established reputations as knowledgeable experts, trendsetters and entertaining personalities. They have large audiences of social followers who enjoy the influencer’s content and actively participate in online conversations.

Influencers can help you to spread brand awareness to people who may not be exposed to your digital marketing messages in other channels. Plus, getting to know your brand through a trusted third party can accelerate movement through your sales funnel.

            View this post on Instagram                         A post shared by Adriene Mishler (@adrienelouise)

Brands partner with influencers to appeal to new audience segments and extend the reach of their messages. In 2019, influencer marketing spend is predicted to more than double 2017 figures , with 69% going toward B2C campaigns.

5. Email Signatures

The average worker sends and receives 121 emails per day , so why not put those outgoing messages to work promoting your website?

Any email that comes from your brand’s domain name should include a link back to your website. That way, any reader who is interested in learning more about your offerings can easily get to your site without any extra steps.

6. Quality Content

Some have said that content marketing is the only type of marketing left . And while there’s certainly room for disagreement there, it’s true that content marketing is more relevant than ever.

Content provides site visitors with immediate value in the form of new knowledge and insights. For many visitors, it’s the sole reason to view your site. Keep in mind that web design plays an important role here. Great content surrounded by an unappealing user interface (UI) could cause potential customers to head back to the search results page before they can get to know your brand.

If you want people to stay on your site long enough to absorb your messages, you need highly engaging content.

We’ll talk more about that farther down.

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Marketing your website effectively requires a deep understanding of several disciplines, including analytics, modern mobile technology trends, human psychology, inbound and outbound methodologies, and more.

1. Conduct a Site Analysis

Everything you do to increase the amount of traffic coming to your site should be measured. It’s the only way to know how effective your strategies are and the only way you’ll be able to identify new opportunities to attract more visitors.

For example, if you implement a content marketing strategy, you’ll want to measure traffic coming to your blog articles, the number of click-throughs each one produces, the amount of time visitors spend reading the content and more.

Thankfully, Google Analytics is free and fairly intuitive to use, though certain types of site analysis are best left to professionals.

But there is more good news: By setting up a Google Analytics account for your website and running monthly reports, you’ll be ahead of 49% of B2B marketers . 😮

2. Consider Mobile Optimization

The internet is quickly becoming a mobile-first environment.

More people are conducting searches, reading content and doing business from their smartphones every day. In Q1 2019, mobile search accounted for 64% of organic traffic , up from 57% in 2018.

To rank highly, webpages must be able to load fast on mobile devices and display their content in a manner that is mobile friendly. That means image optimization and dynamic site markup are essential for SEO moving forward.

Managed properly, search marketing can increase web traffic significantly without raising costs exponentially.

3. Map the User Journey

How do users move through your website?

Do they find you organically through a blog post and then browse your product pages?

What about when they arrive from your social media page?

Asking these and similar questions will inform your website design and help you develop a user experience that encourages visitors to stay longer and read more.

You may want to consider developing multiple user journeys for distinct buyer personas. Your Google Analytics dashboard can show you where users are currently leaving your site so you can optimize those pages.

In addition to thinking of site utilization as a journey your users take, consider other models, such as the marketing flywheel , that seek to build SEO momentum over time.

Conducting keyword research will help you understand how potential customers seek out information related to your offerings. This step is crucial for getting your website to rank highly in SERPs. You may be surprised to find that your customers use different words and phrases than your sales team. Understanding these fundamental differences can you craft engaging content. If your main goal is conversion optimization, you’ll need to ensure you’re hitting the right keywords at each stage of the buyer’s journey.

4. Develop Email Campaigns

Email marketing is one of the most popular and useful forms of web marketing currently available.

From small businesses to the enterprise, email lists are the lifeblood of sales. They can also help you pull in returning visitors with engaging content, special promotions and more.

Cold emails – messages sent to prospects with whom you have no prior relationship – require a personal touch, and a little humor, to fully engage your target audience. Your subject lines should be eye-catching and succinct . The best strategies use content to capture visitor emails , then reinforce that relationship with additional, more relevant content.

5. Leverage PPC

Pay-per-click ads can be an effective way to drive more traffic to your site , but they require a more substantial investment.

As the name implies, businesses only pay when someone clicks on the ad.

These days, PPC is most effective when used in tandem with another effort like content marketing, because visitors need more information than can fit in an ad before they make a purchase decision. Consider targeting different audiences with unique appeals, such as calling out unique value propositions or promoting blog posts that address different audience needs.

6. Create High-Value Content

High-value web content is the opposite of fluff. It provides your audience with meaningful takeaways. Your efforts to promote your website could be in vain if visitors leave immediately. To keep them engaged, you need high quality content that educates, informs, entertains or inspires.

Often, marketing campaigns are structured around a central piece of content such as an in-depth eBook or flipbooks . For example, digital marketers might develop an ebook full of researched data and thought leadership. Then, they will build a campaign of blog posts, paid advertising, email drip messages to build awareness and encourage eBook downloads. Everyone who downloads the asset will provide their email address, providing the sales team with valuable new leads.

Website marketing is a full time commitment.

Brands big and small often outsource some or all of their digital marketing efforts to agencies because they lack the internal resources to run effective multichannel campaigns.

Here are some examples of what might be shopped out:

Google and other search engines are constantly updating their algorithms that identify which webpages are most relevant to keyword phrases and various other site factors. Marketing agencies maintain an updated working knowledge of SEO best practices to ensure their clients comply with the latest standards and methodologies.

Content Production and Optimization

It’s easy to hire someone to write a few hundred words of blog copy, but marketing agencies can do so much more. Agencies will conduct market and subject matter research, develop written and visual content, promote web content and update assets as needed.

Email Marketing

Though many aspects of email marketing campaigns can be automated with the right technology, someone still needs to write and format engaging content. Agencies can help businesses develop and implement end-to-end email campaigns based around unique campaign objectives.

Managed PPC

Marketing agencies can help businesses create PPC campaigns with eye-catching headlines and text. Consultants can fully manage bidding strategies to maximize the reach and ROI of every campaign.

Content marketing and website marketing go hand in hand.

Once you’ve attracted readers through your promotional efforts, you need something for them to engage with. After all, if users come to your site only to find a few paragraphs of sales messages, they’re likely to bounce.

However, when relevant users come to your site and find useful information, they’ll not only stick around to read it, but they will also be more likely to take an action, such as signing up for a newsletter or contacting your sales team.

Content Development and Publication Requires a Scientific Approach

The content you publish on your site needs to be highly relevant to your readers’ needs; it also needs to be visually interesting and easy to parse. Indeed, there are so many factors at play, and site owners need to take a scientific approach to content production and publication.

Considering 1.2% of all indexed pages are responsible for 68% of all website traffic, it should be clear why a scientific approach is necessary to attract people to your site .

The best content marketers consider many things when approaching every piece of content, including:

• Target audience: Who will get the most use out of the content? What are their pain points? Where are they in the buying process? What content formats do they prefer? What social media marketing channels do they respond to?
• Commercial goals: What conversion action should readers take? How can we measure the impact of our content?
• Keywords: Does the content use language that users actually search for? Do pages competing for similar keywords offer greater depth and breadth of subject matter expertise?
• Tone and branding: Does the content conform to the brand voice?
• Visuals: Does the imagery and typography reflect the brand? Does it align with the written content?

In addition to these considerations, content marketers also think strategically about which platforms to publish content to, what social channels to promote that content on, the best time of day to publish content and much more.

Your website is probably the most important and powerful marketing tool you have. With plenty of care and strategic thinking, it can become your biggest source of business growth. Take what you’ve learned here and put it to good use. Let us know how it goes in the comments!

Editor’s Note: Updated February 2022.

By Alexander Santo

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