Where To Start With Digital Marketing

The modern-day customer expects more from businesses than ever before. It’s no longer enough to rely on word-of-mouth or a sticker on your car, with most successful businesses having invested in at least one form of digital marketing.

This blog post is your step-by-step guide on where to start with digital marketing - some of which you can do yourself and it won’t cost a penny! 

1. Create A Social Media Page

Probably the most obvious item on the list, creating a social media page.

It’s a great place to start, doesn’t take long to set up and will allow you to show on social media platforms if someone searches for your business. I would recommend setting up both a Facebook and Instagram account as you can post on both of them at the same time using Meta Business Suite.

Don’t be discouraged in the early days when you have a small follower base and don’t get much traction with any of your posts - every new business goes through this.

Start banking photos of completed projects and ensure your profile is set up correctly and looks good. Have your phone number and email easily accessible and create highlights on Instagram so you can save stories. 

Investing in a professional photoshoot and video is a great way to get the ball rolling, giving your profiles a professional look from day one. This content will also be useful when you eventually get a website up and running.

2. Claim Your Google Business Profile Listing

A Google Business Profile is potentially the most underrated digital marketing tool and I know businesses where all their leads come from their Google Business listing.

These are free to set up, don’t take long and all you need to do is follow the prompts. You may be required to verify your account via a text message code or a video, however it’s all in the prompts. 

I recommend listing your business address and making it publicly visible as Google favours showing accounts with an address when someone is searching for specific services in their local area.

As soon as your Google Business Profile is live, start banking reviews! The more reviews you get the higher your profile will rank. It’s also a great way to build trust with new customers as it’s one of the first things people look at when investigating your business.

There is a button in the Google Business Profile that says ‘get more reviews’ and that will provide you with a link you can share to send someone directly to your review page.

Keep in mind that a customer will need to have a Google account and be logged in to leave a review - unfortunately, there is no way around this.

Tips For Getting More Google Reviews

When we work with businesses, we’ll create a QR code they can put on business cards, their work vehicles and email signatures that take customers directly to their Google Review page.

The easier you make leaving a review, the more people that will do it.

Another tip is to reply to all your Google reviews. This shows you take the time to read them and respond, which tells people you care about your customers and clients.

3. Invest In A Website

Every business needs a website. A good website not only adds a level of credibility to your business, but it brings in leads and helps you get new customers.

Your website should be a digital representation of your business and showcase your services, photos, projects etc.

We recently built a website for a roofing company and they told us they lost a massive commercial roofing job because they didn’t have a website with reviews and their competitor did.

Since getting their new website live, they’ve landed several new jobs and now show up for search terms in their local area.

Without a website, you might be losing jobs without even knowing it.

What Should My Website Include?

A good website should have - at the very least - a home page, about us page, services page and contact page. 

Across these pages, a customer should be able to find all the information they need to make a decision. This includes Google Reviews, photos of projects and the team, information about the business owner and their experience and information outlining the services offered. 

It should also be SEO optimised, and I recommend only using a web designer who also has expertise with SEO. This will lay the foundations for the long-term success of your website. 

When choosing a web designer, look at their portfolio and reviews. One of the most important elements of a website is the content, so working with a good website copywriter will also be beneficial. 

If you’d like to see a few examples of websites that include everything required to get a customer over the line, check out our portfolio page. 

We have built websites for clients that bring in around 30 jobs a month, every month, without spending any money on Paid Ads. This is the power of a well-built and SEO-optimised website. 

4. SEO

SEO is optimising a website to get it to the top of Google so it gets more traffic and ultimately conversions. It’s often referred to as a long-term strategy as it can take quite some time before your website hits the top few spots in the search engine. 

SEO is a great investment because the results are evergreen - once you get to the top few spots on Google you generally stay there and the leads should keep flowing through.

As with paid ads, once you turn them off and stop paying for them, the leads stop and your business goes quiet. 

One of the most important parts of an SEO strategy is the content on your website and the layout in terms of how easy it is for Google and a customer to navigate.

When working with an SEO agency, the main metrics worth understanding are keyword positions and conversions. 

SEO can seem overwhelming and some people will try and pull the wool over your eyes with confusing statistics about clicks and impressions, however all you need to focus on is:

Keywords - Where does my website show up on Google and are my keyword positions improving?

Conversions - Is my website bringing in leads, whether by phone calls, emails or form enquiries? 

At the end of the day, the goal with digital marketing is for you to get a return on investment and the only metric that relates to that is leads and booked jobs. 

5. Paid Ads

Paid ads can skyrocket your business and put you in front of new audiences in new locations. It’s one of the quickest and most powerful ways to scale a business, however it can be expensive and take some time before it starts to generate leads.

Meta Ads

Meta Ads are a great way to generate exposure and leads for your business, however the space is competitive so it can be challenging to stand out. 

Pay a professional videographer to create a video and photos you can use for your ads - as the creative is the most important part of running meta ads. 

Test a few variations of different ads, for example, photos of a finished project, video testimonials, a project video or a static image ad with an offer. There’s plenty of options when it comes to ad creatives and it’s a bit of a test process until you find a creative that drives results for you.

Once you find that creative, double down on it and put more money into that specific ad or campaign. 

With Meta Ads, you pick your monthly budget and that gets spent across the various ads you are running.

Google Ads

Another form of paid advertising, Google Ads can be a great way to grow your business. 

What I like about Google Ads is that people only see your ads when they search for terms related to your services. For example, I would only see an ad for a website copywriter if I Googled website copywriter.

This means as an advertiser, you’re already halfway there as the person seeing your ad is already interested. 

With Google, you only pay per click, which means you only pay when someone views your ad.

You have a lot of control with Google Ads to where and what search term your ad shows up for and if you know your audience well, you can have great success with these ad campaigns. 

Conclusion

Regardless of what stage your business is in, digital marketing plays an important role in your growth and overall success. 

If you follow the above tips for getting started in digital marketing, you’ll be able to grow your business, increase your revenue and enjoy being a business owner. 

If you need help with any of the above, get in touch with On The Move Marketing.