Driving Website Traffic using Digital Marketing

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing is the art of communicating an idea to possibly millions of people with just a click, and with the explosion of the internet, and the number of active users on it, the avenues of growth provided by Digital Marketing is immense, and in this article, we are going to understand how Digital Marketing can be leveraged to drive traffic to your website. 

But before we dive deeper into the world of digital marketing, let’s introduce the different ways which one can use to actively drive traffic to the website. 

One should note that these digital marketing tactics are used differently based on factors such as – 

• Business Goal – What is the goal that we desire to meet with the use of Digital Mediums? Is it that to drive sales, and generate revenue, or is to spread awareness about the brand, or is to drive app installs, or is to increase the number of followers on a particular social media handle?
  
  The choice of the business goal is the predominant factor that helps the digital marketing expert or agency determine the choice of channel(s).
  
• Cost – Are we willing to spend money to drive traffic, or do we want it Organically? This is one of the primary identifiers that helps a Digital Marketer decide on the choice of the digital medium to run their digital marketing campaigns.
  
• Returns on Investment – Do we want to see results quickly, or do we have the luxury of time to wait for the results to deliver?
  
• Resources Available – Running a 360-degree Digital Marketing campaign often involves the usage of a variety of resources in terms of human resources, design assets, landing pages, etc. Therefore having an idea of what resources are available can help narrow down the choice of Digital Marketing strategies. Moreover, you can also assign a digital marketing agency firm to help you devise these strategies.
  

Based on the permutation, and combination of the above factors, one can come to the conclusion of using any of the following digital marketing tactics – 

Paid ADs (Performance Marketing)

This is perhaps one of the fastest ways to drive traffic to your website by spending some money on any of the available platforms such as – Facebook / Instagram ADs, Google ADs, Twitter ADs, Reddit ADs, Quora ADs, etc

To run Paid ADs there is a multitude of platforms as mentioned above that a business owner can use to drive traffic to their website. But the choice of these platforms will depend on the customer persona. For example –

1. If someone runs an Interior designing company and wants to drive traffic to their website- They may choose Pinterest ADs over TikTok ADs as the desired target audience for engaging with Interior design, and related products will be more active on Pinterest.
   
2. A B2B SaaS company that wants to sell their chatbot software will choose to advertise on LinkedIn over Instagram because the audience’s intent to make business decisions is higher on LinkedIn than Instagram. 

Now the category of Paid ADs can be further categorized into 2 broad sub-categories – 

1. PPC – Pay per click – Here businesses pay based on the number of clicks.
2. Display ADs – In this case businesses are charged based on impressions, and not clicks.

1. (PPC – Pay Per Click ADs) 

PPC stands for Pay per Click. It refers to a specialized marketing model where advertisers pay to drive traffic to their websites or apps to increase conversions. PPC campaigns are usually facilitated by search engine giants like Google, Bing, and eCommerce platforms like Amazon, Etsy where businesses bid on clicks, hoping to get traffic that amounts to conversions.

Running Performance ADs includes doing a lot of things. Therefore, PPC experts provide multiple services which can be any of the following or a combination of some of these. 

1. Keyword Research  – Running ADs can involve performing keyword research, allowing a brand to identify their user intentions and build on them.
   
2. Landing Page designs – Although this is majorly the task of web developers, there are ways in which PPC experts can design custom landing pages and Landing Page Forms with the intent to convert.
   
3. Writing copies & Designing ADs – An essential part of the ADs is designing it right and writing copies that catch the attention of the use that makes them click. A PPC expert can help write copies and design graphic ADs that convert.
   
4. Running Campaigns – An essential step towards is executing based on the research that’s been done. A PPC specialist can run ADs on Google, Amazon, Bing, etc.
   
5. Competitive Research – PPC experts usually check on similar businesses before they start running ADs. This provides insights for their campaigns, and many tools facilitate this process.
   
6. PPC Budget Estimates – PPC experts can help estimate costs required to run ADs with the desired intent.
   
7. Optimizing campaigns- All profitable campaigns are optimized as they run. At times, there is the need for external PPC specialists to consult and help improve an already existing set of campaigns. 

2. Display ADs 

Tech giants like Facebook, Google, Twitter etc have 100s of millions of active users who actively scroll through these platforms spending a lot of time opening up an unique opportunity to serve these users with ADs embedded in their social feeds. 

For example, every 5th story, and every 7th post on Instagram is an Advertisement, and Instagram boasts a behemoth 1 billion active users across different demographics that speak different languages. Now can you imagine the potential of displaying ADs with just Instagram? 

Now expand this, and increase the scope to other internet networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest? Display ADs are ways to serve ADs to users passively i.e the ADs are shown to these users while they are surfing through their social feeds. This implies that if these ADs aren’t personalized as per the interest of the users these social media networks risk losing their users. 

Therefore these platforms are data-rich and offer a variety of interesting tools that allow businesses to run their ADs based on their choice of user demographics. Let’s take some examples to understand this better –

1. A diaper company can choose to run ADs that target only people who fall under a certain age group, say 25-35, and target users in a specific location.
   
2. A content writer may choose to run ADs that are visible only to business owners who are interested in content writing, and related services.
   
3. An Ed-tech startup may choose to target only parents.
   

With the multiple businesses operating with many use-cases, these tech giants offer a variety of permutations, and combinations that have allowed people to target their users with laser precision.

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Search Engine Optimisation 

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), is the process of increasing a website’s visibility on Search Engines such as Google, Bing, etc thereby driving organic traffic. SEO is a time taking process and usually involves various techniques such as writing blogs, generating backlinks, optimizing the website, etc. 

Example – If you search for “Website developers near me” on Google. You are most likely to click one of the first few results, and this drives organic traffic to the websites. 

Therefore website developers and website development companies compete to be visible at the top. This process of ranking a website on top for certain keywords, or a combination of searches is called SEO – Search Engine Optimisation, and in this highly competitive world of advertising, SEO is still one of the most reliable sources of Organic traffic. 

An SEO Expert can help you create a unique SEO strategy that allows you to meet your business goals with the required strategy, and work in place.

The Algorithms of search engines like Google, Bing, etc determine the positions of web links based on a combination of 1000s of identifiers, but some of the known factors that affect SEO are – 

1. Page speed – How fast does the web page or landing page load? People hate slow websites, and if you want your website to rank, make sure it loads fast.
   
2. Content Quality – Relevant content that helps the website visitor, and adds value to their lives is what helps
   

Using Social Media

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, and dozens of other social media platforms have 100s of millions of active users, and social media offers a way to reach to this audience without spending any money.

A Social Media Expert can help devise a unique strategy that allows businesses to create content such that it reaches new audiences, engages with them, and hopefully leads to a transaction.

Social Media is a vast field to operate in, and with the advent of so many social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, Squarespace, Snapchat, TikTok, etc There are a lot of things that falls under the Social Media Category, here are some of the things –

1. Creating Social Media accounts – There are so many social media platforms where one can post content. But is it important to post content everywhere? Or should one just focus on a few? But then how does one decide which platforms are relevant to the brand goals?
   
   Therefore, before creating any social media accounts, it’s important to decide the business goals and choose the social media handle(s).
   
2. Create and design posts for Social Media accounts – The basics of Social Media management include writing copies, and designing. With the presence of amazing tools like Canva and Figma, even non-designers can design aesthetically appealing designs.
   
   One must be consistent while creating content on Social Media, as it takes a lot of time to drive results, and often the results are compounding in nature.
   
3. Build and engage an online community – Brands are actively investing in building communities, and one can, and should use social media actively to build, and engage with a community.
   
4. Hashtag research – Hashtags are why people discover content on social media, and choosing the right hashtags is super important for reach and discovery. Popular platforms like Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn use hashtags to categorize content, and one should research hashtags prior to use.
   
5. Preparing a content calendar – A content calendar is a document that stores information about the posts that are to be posted on social media. With the increase in the number of social media handles and the posts that go out, a content calendar is a great way to organize, plan and execute content. 
   
6. Influencer Marketing – There are many influencers with huge audiences that can be tapped to increase brand awareness, and reach. A social media expert can help a brand achieve its business goals with influencer marketing. One way to find the best influencer marketing agencies is by conducting thorough research and considering their track record, client testimonials, and industry reputation.
   
7. Generating Leads – Social Media is a great palace to generate leads through content or outreach posts on blogs, forums, and groups, and there are multiple companies that have grown just because of their brilliant use of Social Media Handles.
   
8. ORM(Online reputation management) – ORM(Online reputation management) includes engaging with tweets, comments, and messages of potential customers and users. Social Media is a great way to publicly engage with your audience, and users.

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Summarizing

We can note that there are many forms of Digital Marketing that are in use, and the choice of the channels will be dependent on factors like time, money, and business goals.

• SEO – Search Engine Optimisation is a time-taking process that involves a lot of work, therefore this isn’t employed by companies looking for instant results.
  
• Paid ADs – Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc have millions of active users, and these users can be targeted based on a complex combination of interests, and demographics. This channel yield returns fast.
  
• Social Media – Creating content on Social Media, and doing it consistently for a long time allows businesses to build a virtual relationship with their users, which in turns can flourish to a regular source of organic traffic, and engagement. But one has to be very careful about their choices of social media.

Overall, we can conclude that digital marketing is a great tool that has levelled the playing field by allowing businesses of all sizes to advertise freely irrespective of their budget constraints.