When embarking on digital campaigns how long does it take is a common question. It is more likely in this climate especially, for the customers to make as use of online and digital technologies and devices, rather than visiting a shop physically. So many changes have been prevalent in our lives currently and the internet is a constant that can be looked to as a perfect marketplace for your product or service.
Every business is looking at the bottom line and the pressure to make each element of your business as profitable as possible is clear when investing in any form of marketing. Having a clear idea of how long expected results may take is needed to have a realistic expectation on results and forecast against this activity.
SEO
This is a long term and essential function for your website and should not be viewed as a tick-box activity. This will not provide a quick result as such, but remarkable gains can be made that ensure you are steadily progressing for visibility, visitors and your keywords, appearing ahead of the competition and ultimately gaining revenue from this stream if you can appear well in Google. Once an initial audit has taken place, it is then down to the implementation and continued monitoring of your site and its hygiene in order to gain results.
Influences:
So many things can affect your site – be it site speed, broken links, duplicate or missing content and so to influence the results, paying attention to these areas will put you in good stead for the future and organic growth.
Working with an agency that has a firm strategy and the capabilities to complete the recommendations is key. A clear list of the work needed, the order and who is responsible for what task will mean smooth implementation which should, in time, lead to better SEO.
Content:
Content relevance is an area that can be controlled. As Google rewards you for how relevant you content is to keywords searched, as well as the quality of your site, making your content as relevant as possible will give you results. Add relevant keywords to you content without stuffing it full as this seen as a negative signal for Google.
Quality is measured on many factors but making sure some fundamentals are in place – good spelling and grammar, concise content, and providing comprehensive content on your subject matter which covers what will be a very varied set of search queries.
Technical work:
The technical work that can go into SEO is often overlooked, but in short, its affecting your websites ability to rank as well as it could. This is not a list of issues with regards to your site, but an opportunity to improve your offering in the eyes of Google looks to provide the very best quality search results and if your site has technical issues its playing a part in affecting your rank.
At some points it may feel that there is a lot of work being placed in this specific area, but the results are not progressing at the same speed. Below is a graph which shows the expectation levels usually set against SEO and what a timeline of progression looks like. In typical terms SEO really starts kicking in from 6 months plus but some businesses see this much sooner.
PAID
Getting these campaigns up and running is a relatively easy process providing you have the basics in place and you know your target audience. The opportunity to influence the user with Paid activity is arguably great and with the correct data analysis, can provide strong results. You can have great influence the creative assets representing what you are doing and if you can produce more of these, it will help massively with the success of your campaign.
For example, the data indicates your audience is men and women aged 20-35, that are responding to images of people over campaigns featuring text or objects. Having more variants of this image will ensure your ad does not get fatigued, it is fresh and keeps the user engaged. These types of details can seriously influence the visitor into clicking one ad over another with the aim that the budget you are spending is put to good use. Know what resonates with your audience and do more of that!
Whichever channel you are looking at in Paid, there are a few key elements that will ensure you are in a good position when trying to win the buyer in sometimes very competitive market spaces. When considering PPC, checking the following points have been highlighted will mean better results and less wasted budget.
Compelling call to actions can be influenced:
How do people click on your ad? Is there something that draws them in? You need to offer the visitor a clear call to action. If you want to direct to a web page on your site, a click to dial call or even buy there and then, make it visible, easy to spot and clear. Drive them through with customer incentivized CTA’s.
Budget:
What this is set at can sometimes be out of influence, and so setting expectations inline with both budget and competitors will give you an idea on what kind of performance is likely. If you have a substantial budget this will conversely not guarantee success and there is possibly some wastage on spend with this method. Looking at your competitors and assessing what they are doing for their digital marketing activity will give you some steer. Comparing your data is also key and allows you to see what is and isn’t working.
Content:
Does this resonate with you audience and are the keywords reflective of this? Does your content entice visitors to look further or click? The language and images which is used in the content is integral to getting ahead and it is something you can influence. People are interested in building relationships with brands and the content you produce can influence how nurturing this is.
Summary:
Of course, this is in no way a definitive list of influences and along the journey, you will find your specific data will provide you with the insights on what can be influenced on a far more granular level.
An on-going strategy for your digital marketing activities is imperative to execute and get strong, on-going results. Being realistic with your timeline and your expectations for results is vital – as is the ability to implement any recommendations made.
Its worth remembering that all digital marketing works in conjunction with each other, and a joined-up approach will often allow for greater insights leading to greater influence on your outcomes.
Engaging with experts that are able to give your business a view on opportunities in what can be a very technical area can make for a considerably easier project and provide you with insights previously unavailable to you.
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