The digital marketing industry feeds on innovation. It is impossible to master since it changes ever too quickly. To succeed here it is imperative to achieve a balance between a clear understanding of the trends, deciding a good action plan and taking a measured stride in the right direction.

The following are a few strategies that can help in getting a grip on digital marketing for a short-term:

• Google and other options

Google might have dominated the scene for over a decade, but there are other choices available. Duck Duck Go is one of the many new options that are being explored by consumers. Marketers should opt for search engine optimization through other means. Interaction with the target market can be achieved through other direct forms of marketing.

• Mobile marketing

Everybody uses mobiles nowadays. They have become a common thread of accomplishing connect with the masses quickly and on a large scale. They can play a big role in forming and applying modern marketing techniques. Marketers should consider this a priority.

• Social conversion

Social conversion hasn’t been given its full due. It helps lead generation and e-commerce sites find opportunities that can get better conversion rates and increase new conversion channels.

• New payment methods

E-commerce sites will benefit from the advent of new online payment methods like EVM credit cards. Digital marketers have the responsibility of ensuring that their customers’ privacy issues are handled with care by educating and reassuring them.

• Paid advertising

The effect of paid advertising can never be overstated. It has changed its form with alternative methods that are coming up, like video ads, but it is successful nevertheless. Money is spent, but this trend is growing as brands are also using it.

• Marketing automation

Once only a bastion of big companies with famous brand names, marketing automation has now become immensely important for any business that wants to soar high. Any marketer can now consider going for it due to its ease and affordability.

• Content creators

Content creators have become more important than ever. Content is king and plays a crucial role in digital marketing. There is a huge demand for content creators, like writers, and they aren’t easy to find. Marketers don’t need just a great writer, but someone who knows and understands their niche. His knowledge of the subject matter should be thorough, if possible from experience.

• Changing algorithms

Search algorithms can never be the same. Other than Google, there are algorithms like Facebook, Bing and Twitter’s mashup. Their search engine results page displays the content which ranks highest as per their decision.

• Conversion optimization

Instead of taking expensive measures to increase traffic, it is advisable to achieve maximum conversion from site visitors by understanding them and their browsing patterns. Conversion rate optimization helps in achieving this and improves sales.

• Growth hacking

Growth hacking is evolving and will continue its determined growth in future.

There are various ways to promote your website online, some of which just need a bit of your time, while others burn a small hole in your pocket. Needless to say, if you can own and build a website, promoting and marketing for it online won’t be much of a pain.

So basically, my online marketing strategy revolves around these few points:

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to an internet marketing technique that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages. It basically involves two methods:

a> Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising

b> Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Pay Per Click is a method of paying a search engine to show your website more frequently in search results as a user searches for a content, while SEO is the method where you actually modify or rewrite your websites’ content manually to achieve higher rankings in the search engine result pages.

CONTENT MARKETING

It is a form of marketing where media and contents are created and published in order to communicate with and acquire prospective customers. The content may be in the form of images, newsletters, how-to-guides, case studies, etc. The main aim of content marketing is not to sell a product directly, but to keep in touch with existing and to-be clients and provide them with needed and helpful information so as to earn their loyalty. The most common and traditional way of content marketing is to write descriptive articles or ad-content on sites like EzineArticles, Squidoo, ArticlesBase, GoArticles, etc. Some of them even pay for writing articles.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social Media Marketing is a way of popularizing an event, product, service, brand or a company with the help of social networking sites. It is an unpaid marketing method because it depends upon the quality of the content and the how much the readers share it. The most common platforms of social media marketing are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, MySpace, etc. Most of these sites offer a dedicated page for your business that can be used to promote your company, product or service. Furthermore, words of mouth and shares by the users play important role in doing the same.

MOBILE MARKETING

Mobile Marketing, as it’s obvious from the name, is the form of marketing where cell-phones are the bridge between a company and their clients, or future clients most of the times, where customers are provided with personalized and customized information, offers, or deals about the product or services. There are quite a lot of ways of mobile marketing, but we will keep it just to the most common and most effective methods here.

a> SMS: There are a lot of bulk SMS providers that, unlike the telecom companies which have a cap on the maximum number of SMSs sent, allow users to send a large number of SMS and guarantee a delivery. So this bulk SMS service may be used to send messages related to products and services to a large number of users in a very short time, plus, it is highly cost effective.

b> App-Based Marketing: As the usage of smartphones increases, use of mobile applications have also increased proportionally. So the concept is to make mobile applications for iOS, android and symbian platforms and distribute them free over the online apps market. Sending Push notifications adds to the advantage as the users receive alerts and notifications on new products, services or information instantly.

E-MAIL MARKETING

It is a method of direct marketing where commercial messages are sent to a group of people using e-mails. The mails may be sent to a database of existing or potential customers with a view to promote a new or old service or product, or to provide a deal or offer so as to solicit repeat business, or instant business. Most of the times, companies send out promotional e-mails where a deal is provided for a limited time and the customers get a discount if they avail of the services or products within that period. Sending online newsletters at periodic intervals also brings a sense of loyalty into the existing customers.

ONLINE CLASSIFIEDS

There are a number of online classified sites where we can post advertisements about our products and services for a very small or no price at all. The classified sites may be recognized or active on a local, national or international level. Keeping in mind the Indian online market, the ones that come to my mind are Quikr, Click.in, Olx… and the list never stops. Locanto and Craigslist are two of the giants in international online market, needless to mention that there are a lot more in this category. Each of the ads that you publish in these sites remain active for a certain period and then you have to either renew/repost them, or publish another ad if still required.

LINK EXCHANGE PROGRAMS

Link Exchange refers to the method where the administrators of two(or more) websites agree to display each others advertisement or link on their own site for their mutual benefit. The method also implies to the process where a number of administrators, or Webmasters register their site on a central website that serves as the host and provides reciprocal links to the participating websites to show on their pages, So, if you register yourself for link exchange programs on such a site, the link to your website will be placed in a number of other similar ranked websites, and in turn, you need to place their links in your own site, simple, isn’t it? Generally, this service comes free of cost as it runs on the principle of reciprocity, both of the parties benefit mutually and almost equally, but at times it needs a bit of your fortune if you opt for premium and fast services.

FORUM DISCUSSIONS

Discussion forums are a great way of advertising yourselves to a group of targeted customers. Online discussion forums/boards are present for almost every topic you can think of, so at this place you get a group of people that are actually(and only) interested in the same topic, product or services that you are offering. Thus, all the people present in that discussion are your potential customers, pitch high and bang at the right moment is all you need to do. Google and yahoo also have their own dedicated discussion/Q&A forums, writing and promoting your articles where can fetch good results.

VIDEO UPLOAD

Written, printed or messaged media are good ways of marketing, but short videos on your services or products are great way of marketing. Here, people just need to look at your video for a few seconds, or maybe minutes, and understand what they are actually meant to. In this way, they quite easily omit the traditional and comparatively boring way of reading the advertisement, newsletter, or promotional messages. The most common platform is YouTube where you can upload your own custom made videos for free, or opt for paid promotion where very short promotional videos are inserted(by YouTube) between other videos which may already be a bit known to people and thus there are more chances of people seeing the promotional videos.

DIRECTORY LISTING

Web directories or link directories are the directories on the world wide web(www) that link to other web sites and categorize the websites according to their content. In simple words, directories are not search engines, but just an online directory showing the list of websites based on categories and sub-categories. There are a large number of web directories that offer free, paid, reciprocal and affiliate linkings depending upon your choice. If categorized correctly, directory listing is a great way of online marketing. DMOZ, Yahoo, Digg are some of the most famous directories online.

ONLINE DEALS

Discounts always attract customers, even if they have not much to do with the product. They stop to have a look on what is being offered. Sometimes this paves the way for the person to think deeply and consider availing the deal just because they are getting it at a great price. There are a lot of websites where services/products are offered at discounted rates. Consider visiting Snapdeal, Groupon, Timesdeal and few others.

AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

After all these efforts, if there is still a hitch left in the sales process, affiliate marketing is always there to promote direct sales of the product or services where a small share in the profit is given to the publisher or vendor that promotes sales. It is a performance based marketing system and the affiliate gets a percentage of profit for selling or helping in selling an article by applying any of the above listed or his/her own marketing techniques. One of the common ways is to place advertisement links or banners on others’ sites upon their permission, and if a sale occurs from their website, we need to pay them a definite amount or percentage.

Having a bit of experience in publishing and promoting websites, I hope these factors may be actually helpful when you try to do some marketing for you new website. Forgive me if I forgot to mention something important, of course you can comment and rectify if I have committed any errors. Good day.

It is prudent that any organization, regardless of type or size need to continue adapting the best marketing strategies for them to have any relevance in this ever dynamic market. In other words, the organizations need to ensure that they recognize the online nature of modern customers thereby introducing and then establishing a formidable Digital Marketing strategy.

Without the best Digital Marketing Strategy, your business may end up missing some very potential and essential sales as well as online sales opportunities. This is a significant problem especially bearing in mind that the highest number of vital customers in the modern world will start their search for a product on the internet.

Below are ten top Digital Marketing Strategies that need to be followed by all the serious entrepreneurs and they will remain relevant in the market today.

1. Make Your Homepage Visual

Studies have shown that most web users will determine whether to stay or to leave a web page within just 10 seconds after the page has opened. Today, web users no longer go through paragraph to paragraph in search for a text. This implies that if you were so much focused on communicating your message only through your linguistic prowess, then you may have no chance of showcasing your skills.

To combat such problems, it is paramount that you follow what other web users are doing to retain customers whom they have really struggled to attract through Optimization of their websites. The use of images together with videos is today essential for effective website communication. More can be communicated through the visual communications and within just a short space of time. This is in fact very essential especially in retention of the very impatient users who have visited your site for the first time.

Remember that 90% of all the information that is transmitted to the brain normally is visual. In the brain, the same visual messages are always processed sixty thousand times faster than texts. Decrease the website bounce rates as you increase search engine rankings by posting visual centric homepages.

2. Make Your Message Mobile Friendly

The number of persons accessing the internet has constantly been on an increase in the last few years stretching back to a decade. Those accessing the internet via their smart phones have also been on a constant increase especially in the last five years or so. This increase will keep on being on the rise hence the need for businesses to factor the mobile devices in their strategies. In a nutshell, to remain relevant, you must have a mobile responsive website.

3. Focus on Content

It is worth noting that advertisement or rather marketing through the traditional methods such as magazines, newspapers, TV among others is becoming irrelevant. It is therefore important that you divert a great deal of your resources to ensure that your websites give the customers and potential customers the very best. Ensure that you give the desired content to the latter. There is some specific information that customers will always either need or be attracted to. Ensure that you capitalize on that. It is also worth mentioning that content is one of the features that are used in SEO. For your website to be highly optimized, it has to have the right content organized in the right way.

4. Harness Online Video Power

Videos are among the top most marketing tools the modern marketer has at his disposal. Online videos have been used in the last few years and they have become a must have for any serious websites. In case you haven’t still employed the use of these videos, then probably you may be lagging behind in this stiff competition.

5. Multi Channel

It is no longer prudent to spend all your time only in one channel, however perfect you may do it. Today, you have to express your ideas in several channels. Ensure that you advertise your ideas and products through the websites that your potential customers visit the most such as numerous social media websites. From here, you can direct them to your site.

6. Get Social

As mentioned above, you have to get in to the social media marketing so as to get the best out of your Digital Marketing Strategy. Create a page on the website, Twitter among other social media and have a link that will direct the users to your website. There are so many people visiting the social websites today. It is therefore easiest to create a network and direct it to your website through the social media than by any other means.

7. Add Some Rich Snippets to the Google Search Results

Rich snipes are credited for giving standout results with a great percentage of audiences having a likelihood of clicking the site. The use of a professional video hosting service to post a video on your site is the easiest way you can generate the rich snippet to the Google search results.

8. Focus on Top Quality Back links

High quality back links play an important role in giving you’re a greater score in listings within the search engines. Without using these, you may end up losing quite much. Ensure that as you create a back link to your website, it ought to be from a website that is highly visited or that which is of a high domain authority.

9. Implementing Sign up forms On One’s Website

Sign up forms will help you identify your visitors. From these, you can be able to contact the frequently with newsletters, coupons, discounts among other features that may end up attracting a good number of them back to your website and to your business.

10. Ad Re-targeting

A meager 2% of web visitors will convert on their very first visit to any site. Together with sign up forms discussed above, web owners will need to use ad re-targeting in order to remind the visitors of the products they once viewed but took no action about them. Ad re-targeting works through the use of cookies so as to track the website visitors and possibly redirect them back to the site. After leaving the site, they will keep on being shown the products they viewed through ads on the other sites they visit.

Hybrid marketing has only recently made its way to the forefront of social media marketing campaigns. It is a fairly new term that describes a collection of marketing models. Hybrid marketing is used as a way to combine traditional models of proven media, including print and television advertisements, along with social media marketing methods.

The advantages of traditional media marketing, are that most of us are more familiar with it. This type of marketing strategy generally includes a variety of media, including radio and television commercials, as well as, printed advertisements in magazines and newspapers. Even billboards and other street signs can be incorporated when describing traditional marketing strategies. It is still highly active in the promotional world, however, many companies are quickly discovering that their customers tend to spend less time in direct contact with traditional strategies, and are now converting to social media.

Only with the introduction of the Internet has digital media marketing started to fully materialize. It is this type of marketing strategy that is found on banner ads, personal webpages, and company websites. It usually provides the basic user information without much communication from possible customers. It is to the degree, that this type of digital media marketing is only a one-way opportunity for distributing the message that illustrates promotions much like traditional marketing. It only uses a different delivery system, but it is essentially transmitting the same message.The online user is seeing the advertisement on the computer screen, rather than viewing it on TV.

With the new age of social media marketing, likely customers are really seeing the progress of digital media marketing. It is actually the combination of traditional marketing with new digital media, however, it supports two-way communication. Instead of just pushing the message to the possible customer regarding services or products, social media marketing strategies entice the possible customer to become interested by communicating with the company online. This is used as a productive tool, where the possible customer can collaborate one-on-one with the company, and leave feedback, reviews, and comments about products they have used or would like to use.

Hybrid marketing, as its name suggests, is nothing more than a combination of all three elements of marketing strategies. It takes traditional marketing, and combines together with digital marketing while using the two-way communications opportunities of social media marketing.

An effective hybrid marketing campaign never depends on one single advertisement like those found on radio, print and television advertisements. It finds unique and various ways to deliver a collection of messages all focused on the same products and services.

Hybrid marketing is so extremely powerful because of its two-way communication. It enables greater input directly from the possible and current customers, and can be used to deliver exact messages to direct targeted audiences and demographics. Due to the fact that the Internet continues to develop, social media marketing tools have found a concrete place by generating greater income for companies, through two-way communication with their possible and current customers.