It’s official, we live in the world of computer intelligence. We’re not suggesting that Skynet is taking over, and terminators are out to get us. The truth however, is more similar to that of a Matrix storyline. Just like the Matrix movie series, our world is plugged in. We are tuned in and connected online, sharing information across the globe in less than a second. There has never been a time in the history of the world where so many opportunities were readily available for anyone willing to put in the work and contribute to the noise.
To move forward as a business in the digital age requires change. Many people learn that change is scary. It’s human nature to seek comfort, and avoid discomfort. Yet this emotional fear of change holds you and your business back. Are you ready to invest in the digital world and grow your business?
Don't Take The Blue Pill
In the Matrix, taking the blue pill means you stay in the same place without any advanced perception of the world around you. Choose the blue pill and your business will never improve online. The blue pill is having a website but not creating relevant content and information for website users interested in your expertise. The blue pill is spending too much time and money prospecting, but lacking any ability to collect information through your digital pipeline. The blue pill is a place where you stick to what works and feels comfortable. The world will change, but your tried and true methods stay the same.
In our fast-paced digital world, it is the businesses who adopt and adapt to new marketing strategies that will inherit the future of internet space.
Take The Red Pill
In the Matrix, the red pill is what allows you to see the world from a different perspective. Choosing the red pill means you are stepping into the digital world and opening your eyes to the possibilities and realities around you. This is the path less traveled, and the path of most resistance and continued effort. This is the path that forces your business to evolve and that helps your business grow.
So how do you grow your business online? In this metaphor, inbound marketing is your red pill. When you embrace inbound marketing as your strategic vehicle, you are taking the steps to reach the right people at the right time online.
What Is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is not a specific tactic, channel, or technology. It is the philosophy of how to market your business and attract customers. Inbound marketing’s goal is to understand and communicate with a target audience in a way that provides valuable information and leaves a lasting impression. If you want to capitalize on the way your customers make buying decisions online, you will need personalized and relevant content that’s easily found wherever your leads are looking for information, not intrusive outbound messaging.
Explore the differences between inbound and outbound marketing.
While others push for customer attention, you can pull them in with valuable content, specific answers to their questions, and industry insight. Build an interest in your business with informative website content, blog posts, emails, downloadable content, and Growth Driven Design website development.
Why Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing attracts interested audiences with valuable content. In our modern digital world, leads can find their own information about anything under the sun thanks to the internet. They don’t need your advertisements or salespeople to sell them on a product — they’re making decisions before they ever reach out to your company.
Think of inbound marketing as a way to warm up target audiences to the idea of becoming your customer. The more information you can give them beforehand, the less work your sales team goes through closing a deal.
The Flywheel
It can be helpful to understand the concept of a sales flywheel when talking about inbound marketing. The way we consume information is not the same as it was ten years ago, and likely will change in another ten years as well. However, the technology and information available today allows for anyone to research and find information on their own. This means that through inbound marketing, you are providing your target audiences with all the information they need to make a buying decision. Some audiences will need more coaxing than others, but the overall goal remains the same: give great value to others, provide answers to their questions, and build trust in your company’s ability to provide a solution for their concerns.
The flywheel puts the customer at the center of the buyer’s journey, and the faster it spins, the better marketing, sales, and service engines run. The greatest advantage to the flywheel philosophy of inbound marketing is that there is never an end to the customer journey. Regardless of your business, industry, or target audience the customer is always put first in the buying journey.
SEO Enhances Your Inbound Marketing
If creating great content and an awesome website to showcase your product or service was that easy, everyone would do it. And the truth is, everyone is doing that. There has never been a higher demand for digital marketing than today.
However, not all content is created equal. The secret to successful digital marketing is not only talking about your product, but talking about your product in a way that positions your option as more helpful to consumers than your competitors.
If you have ever used a search engine to find answers on the internet, you know that most people don’t look past the first three websites for information, let alone the first page of search engine results. There are thousands of companies in the world competing for the very same customers you are making page one Google rankings are more valuable than gold. That’s why search engine optimization is one of the most important keys to your internet marketing success. It’s also a requirement for your leads to be able to find all the inbound content you’ve created.
Six Important SEO Tactics To Improve Your Inbound Marketing
- SEO Audit: The first step to a great search engine optimization campaign is to understand where you are currently. You can run a website audit yourself with tools like SERanking and Google Analytics. These tools will give you a good understanding of how your website is performing in terms of keywords, website traffic, and demographics. If you’d rather allocate your time elsewhere in your business, our HIVE team offers a full SEO audit of your website. Our strategy team has experience identifying issues and low hanging fruit that can be capitalized on for quick wins.
- Keyword Research: After the completion of an SEO audit and establishing a website performance baseline, you are ready to research keywords. This process includes general keyword research, competitor analysis, and identifying which words and phrases your website should target. SERanking is a great tool to utilize for this, or reach out to our HIVE team if expertise is a better use of your time.
- On-Page Optimization: Once you determine the keywords that work best for your business, it’s time to implement them. Your marketing and content teams should go through each webpage and determine which keywords should be targeted on each page. Focus on incorporating those keywords naturally into your website pages. Avoid keyword stuffing as search engines flag this and knock your website down in rankings.
- Local Optimization: If you're a local business, you need local SEO. Optimizing your local directory and map listings is the first step in helping local people in your area find and buy from you. A review marketing campaign from HIVE can help you land at the top in map listings. Creating a buzz around your business requires getting your customers to leave a review and voice their opinion about your product or service. Word travels fast, so be sure to leave a good impression and your local customers will bring you more local customers.
- Link Building: Just like word of mouth creates new customers, link building creates new website visitors. When another website links from an article or webpage to your own, they have just created another avenue for web traffic to reach you. The higher quality the website linking to your own, the higher value and trust search engines such as Google see in your website. This means higher rankings on search engine result pages and more traffic to your website.
- Content Strategy: The most important part of any inbound marketing campaign is having a solid content strategy to support your SEO efforts. One of the best things you can do for an SEO campaign is to create and share amazing content throughout your website and blog. Stay focused on the keywords you have identified and utilize them to further your inbound marketing reach.
Inbound marketing and SEO are foundational pieces of your digital marketing success. They can also be confusing if you’re not familiar with the tactics and digital marketing jargon. See how your website is doing with a Website SEO audit and get started with the easy fixes.
