Digital marketing involved process and encompasses much more than a few paid advertisements and basic SEO packages. While setting up shop in a major city like Houston or Dallas grants access to hundreds of thousands of potential customers, it also means competing with dozens of other businesses. That means any company that doesn’t establish itself online is going to get left behind, especially in a city that is as economically strong as Houston. With so many businesses flush with advertising dollars, rest assured that there are competitors out there right now firming up their approach to online marketing.
What digital marketing is available?
Web design and development firms often offer various initiatives to help improve a site’s rankings and traffic numbers. While most business owners are familiar with search engine optimization, or SEO, it is just one component of a successful online outreach program. Content marketing and social media outreach are the other two major factors, and a business will need to execute all three at a high level to rise in the rankings.
SEO is focused on working with Google algorithms and standards to make the site as attractive as possible to search engines. In general, good SEO practices include establishing a simple navigation tree, placing the proper tags, smart keyword usage, building links, and producing the site using design principles that Google favors, such as responsive web design. As Google is by far the biggest giant in the search engine world, it makes sense to adapt the site to what it looks for. For example, if Google’s bots crawl a site and discover little content or an overuse of keywords, Google will flag the site for poor practices and will damage its ranking as a result. The goal of an SEO firm is to minimize or eliminate bad practices and maximize effective ones.
Digital marketing also means producing relevant content. The importance of content generation is twofold. It is, of course, better for potential clients to be met with interesting content that keeps them on the site and adds value to their experience. This helps the business convey it’s knowledgeable and thus more trustworthy and professional. Google also places an enormous emphasis on content, assumes that 8o%of all searches are informational. As such, regularly updating a site with strong, relevant articles and blog posts will signal to Google that it is a site worth bumping up for people to see.
Social media is a little harder to quantify, as there are some connections between it and SEO, but because most people are plugged into social media now, including massive groups of potential customers, it is always a good idea to go after them. Social media can also provide secondary SEO benefits if people share links and respond to social media content favorably.
Nailing down a diverse and effective advertising portfolio takes a great deal of expertise, as well as a squad of professionals who know what they are doing. These days, it’s no longer something that an individual can handle on their own, nor is it a good idea for most companies to handle in-house. Fortunately, there are reputable experts in the Bayou City ready to help.