Marketing your business online is important. But hiring digital marketing companies can be costly, especially if you’re just starting up. Thankfully, there are many ways to handle your own digital marketing easily and affordably.
Web design
You don’t need to fork out money on a web designer. Many companies nowadays are using website builders such as WordPress that require no coding knowledge and have easy customisation features, allowing you to create a website precisely to your image. You’ll need to first pay a hosting provider to buy a domain name (your website address) – which is generally very cheap. This guide http://uk.pcmag.com/web-site-hosting-services/8310/guide/the-best-web-hosting-services-of-2017 offers a few sites that offer domain hosting.
SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a way of raising your rankings on search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Having high rankings (such as the first page of Google) will encourage more people to click on your website, choosing your business over others that rank more lowly. The process behind SEO isn’t as complex as you might think. Writing guest blogs with links to your website in can increase your rankings, as this guide https://www.guestposttracker.com/blog/how-to-write-a-guest-blog-post-for-blogger-outreach/ explains. The keywords you choose to place on your website can also affect your search rankings. Avoid keyword spamming as this can actually negatively affect your rankings – incorporate keywords strategically but naturally.
Analytics
Companies are paying digital analysts to research their market by collecting huge amounts of data on the internet and turning it into graphs. This field of data analysis is becoming more important, allowing companies to see who their audience are and where to target their marketing through use of raw data. Fortunately, you needn’t hire an analyst as a small business – a Google Analytics plug-in is all you need. This plug-in will give you graphs showing you the age, gender and location of your audience as well as where they visited your site from and at what time. This allows you to know your audience more and tweak your marketing methods to fit this demographic.
Online Press
Paying a PR company to get you into local newspapers and on radio can be costly and not always effective. Instead, why not approach one of the thousands of bloggers and podcasters on the web that would quite happily run a feature on you for free. Others may want you to pay them a few quid for a review or for a feature, but it will be a lot less than hiring a PR company or approaching an official publication/radio station, plus you’ll be guaranteed coverage.
Video advertising
Okay, so there is no cheap way to get an advert for your business on TV. However, there is the internet. Video sharing services such as Youtube can allow you create your own vlog, where you can promote your business through any means you desire. Alternatively, you can pay popular Youtubers within your trade’s niche to endorse your product on their channel. It’ll be much less costly than paying for a TV advert, and quite possibly just as effective as it will be more targeted.
