The internet will be forever ingrained into our daily lives, which makes internet marketing popular among businesses. In 2019, the average person spent more than six hours on the internet each day. With so many people on the internet for hours at a time, it is critical for businesses of all sizes to market to consumers.
There are several different types of internet marketing, but a handful of techniques are used more than others. These marketing methods vary from business to business and have specific industry standards that need to be met for success. Here are the five primary types of internet marketing we believe you should consider for your marketing efforts.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine marketing is split into two categories: organic and paid. SEO or search engine optimization is organic search engine marketing. This is the process of improving your website to be more user friendly and increase your search engine ranking. Many factors go into SEO, and no one person can do all of them. Google has its own algorithm that helps determine what search results rank where.
This algorithm Google uses is not public knowledge, but that doesn’t mean we are entirely in the dark. The company often puts out updates about changes coming and has specific guidelines for images, videos, web design, content, and everything else associated with your website. There are a lot of factors that go into an optimized website:
- website load times
- mobile-friendliness
- keywords
- content
- bounce rate
- user-friendliness
- internal and external links
- social media
This list is nowhere near complete, but it is a good indication of the wide variety of factors that go into SEO. It can be hard for small businesses to tackle this beast of an internet marketing strategy. It is usually recommended to have a specialized team tackle the job.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
Paid search engine marketing is known as pay-per-click advertising. PPC is when a business pays a publisher (usually Google) to post an advertisement at the top of a search result page for a specific keyword. The only time the business pays for the keyword is when the ad is clicked on, hence the name pay-per-click.
When searching for “internet marketing” the first four results are PPC ads.
Like SEO, PPC has its benefits and drawbacks. The biggest benefit of PPC is the ability to work overnight. You can instantly start ranking your ad at the top of search results in a day. The ad is clearly labeled, but it’s there at the top. Now, a large percentage of people avoid clicking on ads, but PPC is extremely good at catching missed leads.
Furthermore, PPC is highly measurable, unlike some other internet marketing methods. Google has created a great dashboard on the back-end for advertisers to measure their success. Plus, you can make changes to your campaign directly from the dashboard. Overall, PPC is not for every business, but it can have drastic effects on creating new leads.
Social Media Marketing
There are 2.4 billion users on Facebook. YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok follow in user count. On average, 6,000 tweets are sent each second on Twitter. With massive amounts of users and activity on social media, it has served to be one of the best marketing methods. Social media marketing comes in all types of shapes and sizes. You can run paid advertisements on each of these platforms, but you can also advertise without spending a dime.
First off, opening a social media account on any of the aforementioned platforms is free. It doesn’t take long to open a page on Facebook or start a Twitter account. Optimizing your social media account is easy too. Optimization for each platform is different from the last, but they are similar.
Secondly, you can engage with customers and potential new leads with social media. Follow industry leaders, retweet their content, respond, and like. When you get a mention or someone responds to your tweet, respond to them. This sort of engagement on social media is critical for the success of social media marketing. Also, use hashtags! Hashtags are more popular on Instagram and Twitter, but Facebook also utilizes them.
You can optimize your social media account by adding a profile picture, banner image, bio, location, and website.
Finally, promote your business on social media with frequent posts. Announce a new product, post a coupon, or share a video about your business. Visual content such as videos and images get more engagements than any text post. Social media is one internet marketing method that all businesses can benefit from.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a unique internet marketing method compared to other types. Having a list of current and potential customers gives you the ability to market directly to their inbox. Setting up an email funnel helps keep consumers interested in your business. At the same time, it can eventually be the reason they make a purchase.
Marketing via email is super beneficial because it’s extremely cheap too. You’ll pay little to nothing to market to your consumers. In fact, a study performed by the Direct Marketing Association and Demand Metric found that email had an average return on investment of 122%. That is higher than any other marketing channel!
So, email marketing is extremely successful for businesses, but you need to know what to send. You can do a lot with email. Send your email listings a recent blog of yours or a newsletter with tidbits about your new product. Either way, you can take advantage of this lucrative internet marketing method.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is the process of developing engaging and informative materials for consumers. Content usually considered anything written, but videos, graphics, podcasts, and other non-written materials are also considered content. The biggest goal of content marketing is to be informative and interesting. If content does not provide something to the consumer, then it will fail.
The more user-friendly your content is, the better ranking it will receive with Google. It is always better to create content for real people rather than search engines. By writing and developing content for people, you are, in turn, creating content for the search engine. So, it becomes a win-win for your business. There are a lot of different content materials you can develop for your business. The list below features a few examples:
- blogs
- newsletters
- videos
- podcasts
- press release
- infographics
- social media posts
Evaluate each of these mediums to determine which is best suited for your content. Then, start developing informative and interesting content to entice consumers to purchase products or services.
Which Internet Marketing Strategy Is Right for You?
Choosing the right internet marketing method for your business could serve to be a challenge. However, ASAP Marketing Solutions wants to help. We specialize in each of the previously mentioned internet marketing types. Our team is comprised of SEO specialists, web developers, content writers, and other talented professionals. Contact us today for a free consultation and to discuss these services in further detail.