5 tools for effective DIY digital marketing

You don’t need to be a master mechanic to change a flat tire, but if your automotive repair skills stop there, it might be a good idea to let an expert tinker under the hood for more complex problems. The same applies to your ecommerce website. There are some things you can do yourself to promote your website if you don’t have the capital to hire an expert.  All you need are a few simple tools.

Contact and Location information

If you are a brick and mortar store with an online presence, this is especially useful. You will want to make sure that the name of your company, contact phone number, and address are listed on every single page of your website. If you are a purely online business, you will still want to have this information on your website because it will let search engines know that this specific information found on your website is directly associated with your business.

Additionally, if you have a physical location that is open to the public such as a store or corporate headquarters, adding a Google Maps widget showing this location is another excellent way for search engines (especially Google) to help better index your site and improve your rankings.

Responsive Design

Some people refer to this as mobile optimization but we feel that responsive design is a better term because it means more than just mobile-ready.  Websites that are designed to be responsive will naturally adapt to fit the screen size of the device someone is using to access it.  In this world where mobile is quickly becoming the dominant form of digital communication, it is imperative that your website displays optimally for any type of device a potential customer might be using.  If your website is not responsive, reach out to an expert that can help.

Simplicity

Check out this very early snapshot of Google.  Now, take a look at Google. What’s changed?  Not much, really.  Long gone are the days of websites littered with clipart, blinking advertisements and other gimmicks that often caused your web browser to crash and disorient the user. Yes, these things attract people’s attention, but for all the wrong reasons. Google caught onto this fact early and saw no reason to reinvent the wheel 15 years on.

Clean, simple, easy-to-navigate websites with a healthy balance between visuals and text are the ones that will survive well into the foreseeable future.  Users want to be immersed and informed from a website, not irritated.

Strong web(site)

They are called websites for a reason.  Creating internal links to other parts of your website act as reinforcements to your site’s structure as well as boost your SEO.  This is especially useful if you have a few pages of your website that are particularly important or useful to your customers.  Not only does linking to these pages help alert search engines, but it also helps your customers find what the information they need much faster.

Communication

The Internet has allowed the advertising industry to explode.  Ads and things that may-not-be-ads-but-are-definitely-ads are everywhere.  Emailing your customers a weekly ad for your online store may not be the best option considering the fact that they are already overexposed to advertisements on a daily basis. Instead, offer customers the ability to opt-in to your email list to receive information about deals, promotions, and specials.  By allowing customers to opt-in, your emails, while obviously focused on sales, do not feel as invasive because your customers chose to allow them into their inbox.

Another great method for  communicating with your customers is through social media.  Sites like Facebook and Twitter have become so user-friendly that one of the fastest-growing adopters of social media are senior citizens, a population who have long been considered to be among some of the most resistant to using new technology.  That being said, having a presence on social media is a no-brainer because (just about) everyone that has access to the Internet is using at least one social network on a regular basis.  If your grandparents can send a tweet, you can too.

Other than ease-of-use, social media is particularly accessible to ecommerce business owners because a lot of it is integrated right into most of the major ecommerce platforms.  In fact, we offer a great guide on how to utilize the social media integration options for a Volusion store.

These are just a few tools you can have handy to maintain your digital marketing campaign.  If you are looking for some professional advice, don’t hesitate to reach out to our digital marketing experts here at 1DigitalAgency.  We’re always here to help!