We often find ourselves brushing off digital marketing as if it’s some unnecessary add-on, like buying a top-of-the-range coffee machine when instant will do. We set up a business, maybe we even get a shiny website, and then we assume the customers will just pour in like they’re magnetically drawn to our brilliance. Well, the reality is a little different, and digital marketing, despite being slightly irritating to deal with, is more essential than we might like to admit.
Starting with a Bare-Bones Website and Calling It a Day
So, we’ve got a business idea and we know that apparently a website is necessary. Fair enough. We whip one up with a static home page, maybe a few lines about what we do, and we think, “Job done, right?” Not quite. While that’s a great start, it’s like setting up a shop in the middle of nowhere and not bothering to put up a sign or advertise in town. A static home page might look clean and neat, but without SEO titles, relevant keywords, and some well-structured pages, it’s about as useful as a chocolate teapot when it comes to attracting any traffic.
Now, we don’t have to be SEO experts or spend months learning the craft—although, if we want to, good on us. A simpler and faster method? Take a peek at what our competition is doing. In fact, why not go a step further and, well, borrow their blueprint. Yes, it sounds cheeky, but competitors can be the perfect guide on how to structure our site, use keywords, and make sure we’re ticking those digital marketing boxes. Once we have the basics in place, we can tweak a few things to improve upon their efforts. This gets us in the game without wasting time figuring it all out from scratch. It’s not reinventing the wheel—it’s just giving it a fresh coat of paint.
The Myth of “Being Everywhere” on Social Media
Social media feels like the land of opportunity, right? Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn—if we just get on all of them, surely, we’ll cast a wide enough net to catch everyone! Turns out, that’s about as effective as trying to fill up a bucket with holes in it. Spreading ourselves too thin doesn’t just mean we won’t have time to properly engage with any one platform, it’s also a massive waste of resources, especially when starting out.
Instead, it’s smarter (and way less exhausting) to test the waters across a few platforms first. Throw out some content and see where it lands. Maybe our audience prefers Instagram’s visual appeal, or perhaps LinkedIn’s professional tone is a better fit. By focusing on one or two social media channels, we can build a proper strategy and engage with potential clients rather than shouting into the void. Sure, it’s tempting to try to go viral everywhere, but unless we have a whole marketing team ready to go, it’s not going to happen. Stick to the platforms that work and save the energy for something more important, like running the actual business.
SEO Articles: A Long-Term Investment That’s Actually Worth It
Here’s the thing about SEO articles: they don’t feel glamorous, and they certainly don’t give us instant results. But they are, in fact, one of the best long-term investments we can make for driving traffic to our site. Writing a handful of articles with SEO titles and carefully chosen keywords? Yes, it’s a bit of work upfront, and it might seem like nothing is happening for weeks or even months. But these articles sit there quietly, like little digital employees, bringing in traffic day after day, long after we’ve forgotten we even wrote them.
We don’t need to write dozens of them, and they don’t have to be groundbreaking think pieces. Just a few solid, well-researched pieces that answer common questions or explain something useful in our field. This is the digital marketing version of planting seeds—we won’t see the garden bloom right away, but in time, we’ll be glad we did it.
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