Marketing online is a daunting task to take on. There are all of the buzzwords that are thrown around and it is easy to get confused on where to start OR to become completely overwhelmed and ignore it completely. To accomplish anything, you have to take the first initial steps towards your goal, and the purpose of this article is to give you your first 3 steps / the essential MUST HAVEs in Digital Marketing. 

1. Google My Business - Google My Business is such a huge piece of the “SEO” landscape. (FYI, I do not like the term “SEO” because the term suggests you are optimizing for the search engine, when in reality you are optimizing for the user / customer) For businesses that serve their local market, you can see 35% of your traffic come from your Google My Business page (Google Maps). This makes sense because people that are looking for a product that they can get locally, want it to be close to them and convenient to get. By claiming and verifying your Google My Business page, you are putting yourself in the arena of Google Maps, which means you can start to get some of that traffic that comes from Google Maps. You can go to business.google.com to start the process of claiming and verifying your page and follow the instructions to go live in Google Maps. 

2. A Website - I think it is important to understand the place of the website in the user journey. Understand that people want things to be convenient and easy for them. Since that is the case, you will see that some listings like Google My Business and Yelp will allow people to call directly from the listing. So, not everything will come from your website, but people do research. In some industries more than others. The research forces the website to still be essential in the digital marketing process. Also look at your website as the central point for your company’s public information. It’s your central database for your digital marketing and your business information. Please don’t do your website yourself. There are so many professionals out there that can do a website for you. Pay the money to get a professional website because it is important to make sure your website is easy to use and represents your business in the best light. The one thing you should be looking for in a website is a website that is built to convert users. If your website is converting users, then that means your website is easy to use and is making you money. 

3. Conversion Tracking - ROI. This is the main reasoning behind conversion tracking. It can get technical when trying to set up conversion tracking, but the purpose behind it is to understand the ROI behind the dollars you are spending. In its simplest form, conversion tracking is tracking how many leads you are getting from any given marketing or advertising effort. (Facebook Ads, Google Ads, Conversion Rate Optimization etc) At its basic form, it’s important to have conversion tracking set up on your website, through your phone calls, and through your listings. Once you have this set up, you are able to see what return you are getting from each of your marketing efforts and your overarching marketing spend. A question I have heard is  “What if I am marketing or advertising with the intention of getting my name out there?” That’s fine and is great if you recognize that you are taking a branding approach. But how are you going to be measuring your branding efforts? Determine what those metrics are first, so that you can determine success for failure. 

To close this article. I want to provide an answer to the question you probably have. The question you have is why would I be providing this information? It’s time that we as marketers get held accountable for the services we provide. There are too many marketers that sell traffic or old SEO tactics that don’t work or bring anything to the bottom line. Please be aware of these practices, so that your business can be set up for success.