{"id":16578,"date":"2020-01-14T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-14T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/?p=16578"},"modified":"2022-01-06T18:29:37","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T16:29:37","slug":"digital-marketing-checklist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/digital-marketing-checklist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Complete Digital Marketing Checklist for Small Business (Updated)"},"content":{"rendered":"
The best way to grow a small business is through digital marketing. Digital marketing can help you reach and connect with your potential customers in various online channels.<\/p>\n
The problem is there are many channels and a lot of tasks to complete to run successful online marketing campaigns and it\u2019s easy to lose track of what is important to do.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why we created the complete digital marketing checklist<\/strong>. Our marketing checklist includes all the important tasks you need to complete to ensure that you are taking full advantage of digital marketing to grow your business.<\/p>\n So, if you want to learn how to use digital marketing to boost your online presence, you\u2019ll love this list.<\/p>\n The best way to use this list is to go through the items one by one and find out which ones you need to add to your digital marketing strategy<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Online businesses have different goals and not all items may be applicable to your case. For each item added in your list make sure that you explore it in detail to learn exactly how you can use it for your advantage.<\/p>\n Each list item has a \u201cresources to learn more\u201d section to help you accomplish this task.<\/p>\n For ease of reference, you can also browse the checklist by digital marketing discipline:<\/p>\n If you are new to digital marketing, the first thing to do is to get to know the basics. You need to understand what is digital marketing and how the different components of internet marketing work.<\/em><\/p>\n The definition of digital marketing<\/strong><\/a> is simple. Digital marketing is the process of marketing on the Internet. It\u2019s a general term that includes using one or more online channels for marketing purposes.<\/p>\n The most important online marketing channels are website marketing, search engine marketing<\/strong><\/a>, pay-per-click advertising, content marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing.<\/p>\n Resources to Learn More<\/span><\/p>\n Digital marketing has a number of channels that can be used to promote products or services. The channels are grouped into two main categories: online marketing channels and offline marketing channels.<\/p>\n When planning your digital marketing campaign<\/strong><\/a>, you need to decide which channels to use. You don\u2019t have to use everything but those channels that are suited for your niche.<\/p>\n The most commonly used channels applicable for all businesses are SEM (includes SEO and PPC), content marketing and social media marketing.<\/p>\n This step is optional but highly recommended.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to become a digital marketing specialist<\/strong><\/a> in order to practice digital marketing but going through the process of getting a digital marketing certification<\/strong><\/a> will help you learn digital marketing<\/strong><\/a> the proper way.<\/p>\n There are a number of great digital marketing courses<\/strong><\/a> (both free and paid) that can teach you the principles of online marketing and take you through all the techniques you can use to promote your brand and market your products or services online.<\/p>\n If you are a small business owner you can use the knowledge to run your own campaigns or to better manage the digital marketing agencies you work with (in case you outsource digital marketing).<\/p>\n If you are a freelancer, you can use the certification to boost your digital marketing career<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Whatever the case, getting proper training can only benefit your business and your personal development.<\/p>\n The focal point of a digital marketing campaign is your website and this is your starting point. You need to review your website marketing and make sure that is aligned with your digital marketing goals.<\/em><\/p>\n The first check you need to make is to review your website\u2019s design to make sure that:<\/p>\n It accurately represents your brand<\/strong> \u2013 At the core of digital marketing is building and promoting online brands and to do this, you need a website that represents your brand, company culture, and vision.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to use and fast<\/strong> \u2013 Modern websites should be very easy to use and load fast on all devices. Websites with a simple design without unnecessary clutter always work best.<\/p>\n It has a clear description of your products, services or offering<\/strong>s \u2013 Don\u2019t forget that the primary reason you have a website is to use it to educate\/inform users about your products or services, so make sure this information is easy to find on your site.<\/p>\n One of the checks to make to ensure that your website design is \u2018correct\u2019 is to optimize and review your website structure.<\/p>\n An optimized site structure<\/strong><\/a> will ensure that information is properly organized for both users and search engines and this will generate a number of benefits including more organic traffic<\/strong><\/a> and conversions.<\/p>\n Having an SEO optimized website is not optional but a critical factor for the success of any digital marketing campaign.<\/p>\n As you will read below, search engine optimization is not just about making your website friendlier to search engines<\/strong><\/a> but it\u2019s about making the whole user experience better.<\/p>\n The primary goal of any marketing campaign is to generate conversions. Conversions can mean different things for different businesses but what is common is that you need to optimize your website for conversions.<\/p>\n For example, if your goal is to increase sales, you need to work on optimizing your product pages, checkout process, give users various payment options, make the website secure, etc.<\/p>\n If your goal is to increase your email list, you need to ensure that users can find easily how to sign up for your list and give them some benefits for doing so.<\/p>\n The scenarios are a lot and it\u2019s your job to define your conversion goals and work on conversion optimization.<\/p>\n One of the nicest things about digital marketing campaigns is that everything is measurable end to end.<\/p>\n There are a number of metrics to use to evaluate the performance of your campaigns and your website. For the website part you need to ensure that:<\/p>\n Resources to Learn More<\/span><\/p>\n SEO is the most efficient digital marketing process that can (almost) guarantee the longevity of an online business. Without SEO it is very difficult to stay in business for many years.<\/em><\/p>\n Paid Ads can boost your revenue but it\u2019s search engine traffic that can help you grow and establish your brand in the online world.<\/em><\/p>\n Search engine optimization<\/strong><\/a> is the process of making your website friendly for search engines so that they can understand and index your content.<\/p>\n Through SEO you can increase your site\u2019s visibility in Google<\/strong><\/a> and get more traffic from search engines.<\/p>\n The SEO process has three main pillars known as Technical SEO, On-Page SEO, and Off-Page SEO. For the best results, you need to make sure that your website is optimized for all three.<\/p>\n Resources to Learn More<\/span><\/p>\n Technical SEO is the process of optimizing your website for the crawling and indexing phase.<\/p>\n This is a critical process because technical SEO errors can damage the performance of your campaigns without understanding why.<\/p>\n Things to check and optimize include:<\/p>\n On-Page SEO is the process of optimizing your content for search engines. On-page SEO techniques help search engines understand both the meaning and context<\/em> of your content and this can have a positive effect on your rankings.<\/p>\n Things to optimize as part of on-page SEO include:<\/p>\n Off-page SEO<\/strong><\/a> has to do with activities you can perform outside the boundaries of your website for promoting your website and content on the Internet.<\/p>\n The most important off-page SEO tasks are:<\/p>\n Link Building<\/strong> \u2013 The process of getting links from other websites that can positively influence your search engine rankings.<\/p>\n Social Media Marketing<\/strong> \u2013 The process of promoting your website and content on social media networks.<\/p>\n Brand Mentions<\/strong> \u2013 The process of making your brand known of the Internet with the purpose of getting mentions with or without links.<\/p>\n Off-page SEO is a great way to establish EAT (Expertise – Authority – Trustworthiness).<\/p>\n A recommended step to ensure that your SEO is in good standing is to perform an SEO audit. An SEO audit will tell you what\u2019s wrong with your website\u2019s SEO and how to fix it.<\/p>\n There are various ways and tools to perform an SEO audit but the best method is the manual method.<\/p>\n A manual audit is more effective since an experienced SEO expert can give you advice based on real-life experience and best SEO practices<\/strong><\/a> that no tool can provide.<\/p>\n Paid advertising is one of the fastest ways to make sales online. It is the recommended channel for startups and for a business that needs results fast. Optimized paid ads can generate revenue and profit for businesses until SEO and other digital marketing techniques<\/a> become ready to contribute to growth.<\/em><\/p>\n Paid Advertising is a huge chapter in digital marketing. There are so many platforms you can use to place your ads in front of your target audience and for best results, you need to explore and test as many as possible.<\/p>\n The most commonly used paid advertising channels are:<\/p>\n Add in your checklist to run pilot campaigns in these networks and evaluate the results.<\/p>\n Depending on your products and services some channels may work way better than others and the only way to find out is to test them.<\/p>\n All major advertising platforms now use machine learning and AI to display the right ads to the audience most likely to convert.<\/p>\n Google Ads has introduced automated bidding options, dynamic ads (without having to specify keywords, etc.) and you need to make sure that you take advantage of all these options to optimize the performance of your campaigns.<\/p>\nDigital Marketing Checklist for Small Businesses<\/h2>\n
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How to use the online marketing checklist?<\/h2>\n
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Digital Marketing Basics Checklist<\/h2>\n
Understand what is digital marketing<\/h3>\n
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Choose your online marketing channels<\/h3>\n
\nDigital marketing VS social media marketing<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Understand the difference between these two disciplines and learn how to use them correctly.<\/div>\nGet a digital marketing certification<\/h3>\n
Website Marketing Checklist<\/h2>\n
Review your website design<\/h3>\n
\nWebsite Marketing<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 The Complete Strategy Guide for Website Owners.<\/div>\nOptimize your website structure<\/h3>\n
Optimize your website for SEO<\/h3>\n
Optimize your website for conversions<\/h3>\n
\nLanding Page Optimization<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 How to optimize your landing pages for SEO and conversions.<\/div>\nEvaluate your website\u2019s performance<\/h3>\n
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Search Engine Optimization Checklist<\/h2>\n
Learn SEO Basics<\/h3>\n
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Optimize your website for Technical SEO<\/h3>\n
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\nTechnical SEO Guide<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 A complete guide on how to fully optimize your website for technical SEO.<\/div>\nOptimize your website for On-Page SEO<\/h3>\n
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\nOn-Page SEO Guide<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 A step-by-step guide on how to optimize your website for on-page SEO.<\/div>\nOptimize your website for off-page SEO<\/h3>\n
Perform an SEO Audit<\/h3>\n
\nSEO Audit Guide<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 A thorough guide on how to perform an SEO audit of your website (with a checklist).<\/div>\nPaid Advertising Checklist<\/h2>\n
Explore all available paid advertising channels<\/h3>\n
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Let machine learning and AI do the hard work<\/h3>\n