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What are the most important things to take into account when hiring a high-quality digital marketing company for SMEs?
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What steps did you follow to jumpstart your email marketing campaign?
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Hatty Bell, Community Manager at SavvySME
Thought you might be interested in this question @Mick Winnie @Mark Reiken @Vanja Stace @Kaylene Grieve @Daniel Martin @Steele Walster
What success has your business seen as a result of using SEO, PPC and/or social media? I'm looking to hear testimonials about what worked and why within the world of online marketing.
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Geoff Crain at Kingstar Media
Hi Melissa,
To make SEO successful we have found that backlinks from credible online sources have pushed our organic listings higher. Google uses a pagerank algorithm to analyze a website's backlink strategy. Companies that are able to generate backlinks from websites with a high page rank will see their organic ranking improve.
For an effective PPC strategy, it is important to have conversion tracking set up properly. Google's algorithm is most effective when it has a KPI to optimize to. Whether it is a lead form submission or down funnel page view it is important to set up a conversion tactic that you can optimize the search campaign to. In addition, building a strong negative keyword list will allow companies to only spend dollars on search terms that drive results for their business. These lists can be built up over time by analyzing search terms and seeing which keywords drive spend but do no produce conversion results.
Finally, social media is a great way to improve SEO. Google will give credit to companies who consistently post on social media and drive engagement through these posts. Any blog that is posted to your site should be reposted on social media. Use social media posts to create conversations with your consumers or business partners.
Hatty Bell , Community Manager at SavvySME
Thanks @Geoff Crain ! Interesting to hear about how social media can support SEO
I've been told for example, that for Facebook marketing, there is no way I can grow my page significantly without investing in paid advertising. Is this true?
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Paige Arnof-Fenn, Founder & CEO at Mavens & Moguls
There are lots of options for online marketing. Using SEO and SEM together is ideal as main search engines are constantly changing their algorithms for rankings so stop thinking of SEO and SEM as rival forces. When used together they are complementary services that help boost your marketing strategy and increase brand exposure. The key is to build brand awareness and trust in your brand or business which begins by getting your business name to appear in prospect’s searches. Seeing your brand name appear twice, both on organic and on paid results, creates more brand awareness and intensifies your businesses’ trustworthiness. Research shows that if there are two brands that have apparently the same products, people will be more likely to choose the one they are familiar with. When a brand is shown in organic results alone it only gets 60% of clicks, whereas a brand that appeared in both organic and paid search results, attracts 92% of total clicks. When paid listings are shown beside organic, the click-through rate of paid ads increases. This means that clicks increase for both organic and paid listings when they are both featured and do not detract from each other.
I'm looking to find the best resources to learn about SEO, SEM, SMO, etc. Does anyone have any recommendations?
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Yee Trinh, Cofounder at SavvySME
Hi @Opal Daniels
As @Jennifer Lancaster and Uttam have mentioned, you can read all of the books and articles and do all of the courses, but the only way to properly learn digital marketing is to get stuck in and learn by doing. You’ll find that once you start working across different online channels and platforms, the things you learn in books and online will solidify.
That said, there are many great and free resources available to start learning about the different areas within digital marketing - many of which are free! Below is a list of some of the top picks:
Google Ads certification: A professional certificate awarded to those who demonstrate proficiency in Google Ads (from basic to advanced).
Google Analytics for Beginners: Google has a free video course created specifically for newbies to Analytics. It has 17 lessons and teaches you how the platform works, menus, reporting, dashboard functions and more.
SEMrush Academy: SEMrush is an all-in-one platform for digital marketing with over 40 tools in content marketing, reporting,SEO, social media and more. They have an awesome set of free courses and resources, AKA the SEMrush Academy which teaches you how to work the platform.
Moz Academy: MOZ offers courses in Keyword research, SEO and site auditing. At the moment the courses are free due to COVID-19, so it’s definitely worth taking advantage of!
SavvySME: We have some great articles written by our community members - many of which are experts in their field. It’s definitely worth browsing through various topics within digital marketing. If you get stuck, the community is also here to clarify any questions you might have.
Good luck!
Cliona Elliott, Senior Editor at SavvySME
This is a Premium Business member
As Cate noted, choosing the right digital marketing course really depends on what you’re looking for. For example, do you want to gain a thorough understanding of a particular area of digital marketing? Or do you want to learn the basics so you can start rolling out different marketing strategies for your business?
That being said, some of the best digital marketing courses for small businesses today are:
Australian Academy of Digital Marketing
Google Skillshop
HubSpot Academy
Udemy
Coursera
WordStream’s Growth Academy
If you’re looking for more bitesize learning, podcasts are a great option as you can learn on the go. Some of my personal favourites are:
Marketing Over Coffee
Social Media Marketing Podcast
Marketing School Podcast
The Hustle & Flowchart Podcast
Marketing Director at PupDigital
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Brand & Marketing Consultant at The Learning Community
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