MARKETING
This article discusses the critical elements of a successful and efficient digital marketing process for small and medium-sized enterprises. Effective use of relevant components, proper planning, continuity, and stability play an essential role in this process. These proposed activities consist of activities that significantly affect the ranking of a website in search results. This process aims to provide insight into how brand value and reputation can be developed progressively, starting from establishing a website.
Starting from the planning stage, from domain name registration to server selection, from design to content, the steps in the digital marketing process of a website are included in this article. In addition, essential aspects of internet publishing, such as the correct visualization, text power, editorial process, and obtaining references, are also mentioned. Suggestions on how a company can utilize social media, e-newsletters, and other publishing tools are included in the following lines. In addition, here are some ideas on how to adapt your company presentations to your digital marketing activities.
Before moving on to the main topics of the article, we think it would be helpful to give a brief overview of how a website’s value, marketing power, and performance are measured. For this purpose, it would be very productive to start with a website analysis, which shows the presence of a web venture on the internet and the level of its marketing power.
Analyzing a Website
In this process, which aims to strengthen your digital marketing, the current state of your website should first be analyzed in relevant criteria and metrics. This analysis gives an average idea about the current status of your website, its reputation, promotional power, and value on the internet. The initial data will enable the benefit to be measured by comparing it with the current data of the same importance in the process. Thus, mathematical data will be brought about on how accurately the structure of your website and the content you offer are created. Analyzing this data will allow you to see how much benefit you get from the effort spent on your digital marketing.
For example, your website’s ranking, authority value, speed, and performance status; values at reference points that show the strength and success of a website should be recorded at the beginning. The difference between the development and the benefit gained will become measurable and observable by comparing this initial data with new data in the same metrics. It should not be forgotten that a successful digital marketing process is a set of measurable multi-layered activities.
In this process, which activity will be carried out at which stage should be foreseen with the annual digital marketing plan? After the analysis, measurement, and preliminary preparation stages, the phased execution of the activities in the proposed activity plan will enable your company to achieve its marketing power.
We hope the basic steps recommended for successful digital marketing will broaden entrepreneurs’ horizons and support companies’ promotional strategies. We expect the information listed below will contribute to the awareness of entrepreneurs operating in all sectors of the UAE and companies that want to strengthen their marketing.
Annual Digital Marketing Plan
1. How Should Domain Name Registration and Server Selection be Made?
2. How to Plan a Web Site?
3. How Should the Website Design Be?
4. Why is editorial review necessary on a Web Site?
5. Why is it Important for a Website to be Fast?
6. Why is it important to get references with quality external links?
7. How to Use Social Media and E-Newsletter?
8. How to Utilize Publishing Tools?
9. How Should Company Presentations Be?
10. Why Should the Website Be Up-to-Date?
How Should Domain Name Registration and Server Selection Be Made?
Each website is an investment made on the internet. The domain name’s registration period indicates the duration of this investment on the internet. The longer this period is, the higher the opinion of search engines that the website in question is a long-term investment. Therefore, the website’s domain name should be registered for at least five years. After planning, domain name and server selection is the second important step of the digital marketing process.
In the meantime, a powerful and fast server hosting service should be selected, and the relevant setup and server optimization should be carried out carefully. Settings related to the server’s maximum performance, speed, security, power, and efficiency should be configured as required. In addition, the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) security certificate, which has now become a standard for websites, should also be adapted at this stage.
It should not be forgotten that the website is an essential investment of a company. The domain name’s registration period and the hosting server service’s strength and quality are this investment’s first and most important steps. Making search engines feel this investment will mean fulfilling one of the most critical factors affecting the ranking in search results.
How Should a Website be Planned?
Essential elements such as the purpose of a website, what it contains, what it offers, and to whom it appeals form the basis of a successful digital marketing plan. The website should be mapped in line with the determined purpose and content. It should ensure that the content offered is clear, understandable, and easily accessible to users. Links on the website should be in a natural flow and structured by the page hierarchy. The sections, categories, and all other pages that make up the website should be determined in this process. According to the determined structure and the resulting site map, content information, texts, and visuals should be organized according to the purpose.
When the information planned to be published on the website is collected, the database or inventory of the company’s marketing content will also be revealed. The information in this database will be ready to be used in the company’s subsequent promotional activities (e.g., catalogs, presentations, proper preparations, etc.).
During the planning phase, the need to develop, update and strengthen the content in the process should also be considered. In addition to solid text and the right visuals, it should always be remembered that continuity and stability are the key elements of a successful digital marketing process.
How Should the Website Design Be?
The visual structure of the website should be correctly designed according to the purpose of the company, the sector, the service it offers, and its target audience. The content information previously created within the framework of the determined visual structure should be organized in line with the planned purpose. The information intended to be published on the website should be placed according to visual rules and importance hierarchy, and the determined corporate language should organize all pages.
The website’s balance of visuals and text, the distribution of information, sorting, spacing, typography, use of color, etc., should be carefully applied according to all other graphic design elements. In addition, the necessary adaptation regarding the screen compatibility of the website on different devices, which is essential for search engines and users and has now become a standard requirement, must be realized at this stage. In digital marketing, it should always be remembered that your website is your brand’s face and your company’s representative.
Why is Editorial Review Necessary on a Website?
Every website on the Internet is a publication. Therefore, all edited pages should be analyzed in publishing criteria and through an editorial review process. Each text and each line on all pages that make up the website must be carefully reviewed editorially. Readers should be edited for meaning and grammar. The content of the text should be strengthened, coherent, understandable, and robust. A website draws its strength mainly from the quality of the writing. If the texts on your website are written carefully and correctly, it will increase the respect you show to your readers. Accurate writing and strong text obtained with a careful editorial service will increase your level of competition in the digital marketing process.
In addition, at this stage, the relationship of the images used on your website with the subject should be reviewed. The text and images on the pages should be optimized so that Google can understand. For example, Google can essentially understand what is in the photos on your website. However, for it to understand more accurately, the meta-information describing the image should be set for each image. An image’s meta information and alt tag are like its identity card. It should be stated in short words what the pictures on the website are, for whom and what they describe.
Considering that some visitors come to the website through image searches in search engines, the importance of this effort to describe the images in detail becomes apparent. If the website is published in multiple languages, it should be applied separately for each language on the website. Editorial review and text optimization at this stage are one of the most critical activities in the digital marketing process. Content information and texts on the website should be improved and updated regularly.
Why is it essential for a website to be fast?
One of the most critical factors affecting the ranking in search results, which is highly valued by search engines, is the opening speed of your website. The faster your website opens, the more preferred it is by search engines and users. The shorter the navigation between your pages, the sooner your visitors can access the information they want.
Another reason why a website needs to be fast is that the speed of internet access varies according to various locations and devices around the world. Internet access speed is not the same in every part of the world. In some countries, the internet can be accessed at very high rates, while in others, it is prolonged. Likewise, the internet access speeds of devices that can connect to the internet vary according to a year of manufacture and technology.
Your website speed should be above average to appeal to most users who fall between these points in terms of fast and slow internet access. Your website should be easily accessible anywhere and with any device. A website that reaches its users quickly fulfills one of the essential criteria in the digital marketing process.
How to Increase Website Speed?
To minimize the opening time of the website, all components that make up the website should be handled separately, and the relevant settings should be performed by targeting the best performance. All the work in this process is carried out under the website acceleration of SEO optimization activity. For example, technical files (JS, CSS, etc.) in the software infrastructure of the site, the images used, and all other elements that make up the site should be optimized, their sizes should be reduced, and thus the website should be loaded quickly.
In a successful digital marketing process, the frequently mentioned optimization activity does not only mean speeding up a website. The concept of optimization is also referred to as the whole of the development efforts that permeate the entire website, and all activities carried out for this purpose. For example, the editorial analysis and strengthening of an article on your website also fall within the scope of optimization.
Another factor that significantly impacts the fast opening of a website is the performance and features of the server on which the website is hosted. Websites hosted on a powerful and fast server have much higher opening speeds than others. Having a fast website is one of the essential gains of server investment.
Why is it important to get references with quality external links?
After your website goes live, the content and structure should be developed gradually. During this development process, your website should be linked to other websites on the internet. Internal and external links are essential for your website’s authority value and publishing reputation.
If your website is referenced by a different website that is more powerful than yours, it means that your product or service is recommended by someone who is respected. For this reason, the development in the process should be analyzed, and it should be ensured that the website is fed and strengthened from reputable external points where it will gain strength when necessary. Obtaining references from reliable people will improve your hand in the digital marketing process.
Getting and linking from other websites with high authority and publishing reputation will strengthen your website. Thus, your website’s rise in search results will be significantly accelerated. Acquiring reputable external links or links plays an active role in achieving the planned goal earlier by saving considerable time in this process.
How to Use Social Media and E-Newsletters?
Social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc.) should be created with corporate integrity, and the relevant visual areas should be organized in line with the existing brand identity. Relevant posts should be made from social media accounts at regular intervals and in corporate language, and efficient and accurate use of social media should be ensured.
By reaching the e-mail boxes of the customers connected in the process through e-bulletin publishing, users should be regularly informed about products and services, developments, and valuable content. The proper use of social media and e-bulletin publications aims to increase visitor traffic on the website and raise the brand reputation. Adequate planning for social media posts and e-newsletter publications will significantly support your digital marketing process.
How Should Company Presentations Be?
Your company presentations should be in the corporate line of your brand, fit for purpose, informative, short, and precise. Presentations designed with these features can be prepared in PowerPoint, Keynote, or PDF format. Professional presentations, one of the most influential and essential marketing components, should be designed according to your brand’s visual identity. A corporate video library can be created on Youtube or similar platforms with the video versions of the prepared presentations. In the meantime, of course, it should be ensured that the texts on each video page are accurate and robust. Links from your video page to your website will also increase visitor traffic.
Publishing PowerPoint, Keynote, PDF documents, and video content produced for this purpose on the relevant pages of your website will contribute significantly to your digital marketing process. These documents or videos will also contribute to your website’s content and informative power. In addition, presentation files can be archived on online document hosting and sharing platforms. You can use Google Drive, Yandex Disk, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Zoho platforms for cloud storage services.
Why Should the Website Be Up-to-Date?
All the suggestions on this page, which you have read up to this point, covering the corporate website and all other supporting tools, are presented as a guide to increasing your company’s brand reputation in the digital environment. It is essential to update the content, software infrastructures, and all promotional activities carried out in these steps to enable you to create a successful digital marketing process.
These activities, which are created to strengthen your marketing, need to be updated as necessary according to today’s ever-changing and evolving rules. Standing out from the competition, staying in the field of view of users and search engines depends on the effort you will make to maintain your up-to-date.
In this sense, it should not be forgotten that a website should show what the business is currently doing and what it offers its customers, not what it did when it was first established. Staying up to date means being visible and being found.
