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Five digital marketing tips to get noticed online

Uncover five great digital marketing strategies to help grow your presence online and get noticed by your target market.

4 minute read

Five digital marketing tips to get noticed online v2

The internet has created a whole new digital world of opportunities for Kiwi businesses. Knowing how to make the most of these opportunities could give your business a boost, and in turn help you grow your customer base.

Here are some great ways to use online advertising to help bring in new customers.

1. Make sure your website is fully optimised

Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is the process of designing every element of your website with its Google search ranking in mind. It’s about making sure your website is easy for Google to scan, index, and rank. And ultimately, easy for customers to find.

Good SEO is one of the most cost-effective ways to advertise your business and should be a major consideration – whether you’re redesigning an existing website, or building a new one from scratch.

Recent studies have found that 79% of New Zealanders access the internet via their smartphones. So, when your customers are searching for your product or service, there’s a good chance they’re using a mobile device. That’s why Google tends to favour sites that are built with mobile in mind - and if you want your site to rank highly, being mobile-friendly is a must.

2. Create a clear and effective content strategy

Good website content makes it immediately clear what your niche is as a business. For brick-and-mortar businesses, a focus on the suburb or geographical area is also key. Make sure your industry and offerings come across loud and clear by working them into the page title, and possibly even your domain name.

It’s also worth considering optimising your metadata. Metadata is the term for content that’s designed to be read by search engines, rather than people. A ‘meta-description’ is the piece of text that appears in the search results, right under your web domain. And ‘metatags’ are the range of keywords that help Google categorise your site.

When coming up with effective keywords, put yourself in your customer’s shoes, and that will give you a good idea of what sort of keywords you should include in your metadata.

3. Use search engine marketing

Getting the SEO basics right will help boost your chances of being found in unpaid or ‘organic’ Google searches. The next level up is paying to advertise on Google, which is known as ‘search engine marketing’.

Search engine marketing is like speed dating for your business, so making a great first impression is key. With billions of searches conducted every year, and 90% of consumers using search engines to make purchasing decisions – getting your search marketing right is critical.

Google search result pages generally include up to four pay-per-click (PPC) ads, which appear just above the organic results. This is where your business can pay to show up. With Google AdWords, you can bid for search terms that you want your online advertising to pop up alongside.

Your SEO marketing strategy and digital advertising strategy should complement each other. For example, you could widen your business’s exposure by bidding on keywords that your business isn’t ranking as highly for in organic searches.

4. Make the most of social media

Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn™ are all great opportunities for a business to create a compelling content marketing plan.

Facebook is social media’s biggest player. It’s a ‘pay-to-play’ environment, which means that in order to reach people – even those who follow you – you’ll need to put money into boosting your posts.

Private Facebook groups can be a great opportunity for small businesses. Join active, local groups where you can engage with the other members. LinkedIn™ is also a great place to share industry information, participate in groups, and start discussions.

The power of social media advertising reaches far beyond selling a product, to creating communities and building trust and authority around a brand.

5. Measure your success

Finally, a major benefit of digital marketing is the ability to measure its success, so make sure you think about how you’ll measure your online advertising, and work this into your marketing strategy. That way, you can constantly review and update your online advertising plan, based on what’s working best.

At the end of the day, understanding your customers is still at the root of all marketing, including digital. So before you launch into creating a full-blown digital marketing strategy, make sure you know exactly who you want to reach, and why.

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When you understand what data means and begin to utilise it, you’ll be on the path to better understanding your customers and tapping into what makes your business stand out from the rest.

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This material is for general information purposes only and does not constitute, and is not intended as, personalised financial advice or as a replacement for legal advice. BNZ strongly recommends you seek advice specific to your personal financial or legal situation from a qualified adviser.