When it comes to online marketing, there are two main approaches: SEO and digital marketing. While both are effective ways to get traffic to your website, each has its pros and cons.
If you’re new to online marketing strategies, you might be wondering about the question “Is SEO different from digital marketing?”. This article explains the differences between SEO and digital marketing and this will help you decide which one is right for you.
What Is Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing is a comprehensive word used to describe various activities to promote products and services using electronic channels. It includes email campaigns, display advertising, applications for mobile devices, social media marketing, video production, etc. These days, more businesses are turning towards online platforms to promote their brands and attract new leads.
Popular forms of digital marketing include search engine optimization, pay-per-click ads, content marketing, eCommerce, influencer marketing, conversion rate optimization, social media marketing, mobile marketing, and web analytics.
What Is Search Engine Optimization
You can think of SEO as a strategy that helps websites rank higher in organic search on Google Search or other search engines. This means people who type queries into Google Search and click through to those sites instead of going directly to them. So, for example, if someone were searching “best local car dealership,” they’d probably go straight to CarsDirect.com when they typed it into their browser address bar.
But if someone was looking for a specific model like “BMW 535i Sedan,” — they would likely use a keyword-based search query first, such as “bmw 535i sedan reviews.” Your keyword strategy should be through targeting keywords related to what users want in Google Analytics, companies stand a better chance of being found.
SEO also involves creating quality backlinks that will improve rankings for relevant terms. The best solution is to create high-quality blog posts that answer questions people have about your industry. Then encourage others within your niche to link to those articles with guest blogs. You also need to make sure all pages on your site load quickly, so they don’t appear sluggish in search results.
How Is SEO Different from Digital Marketing
Which one should you use? Well, that depends on your budget and business goals. But, if you’re looking for an affordable way to get started with online marketing, a digital marketing campaign might be right for you.
Search engine optimization (SEO) improves the visibility of websites in leading search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. By using SEO techniques, you can increase the number of visitors coming to your website. In addition, off-page SEO also helps you maintain a high ranking factor on search results pages.
Digital marketing planning is a term used by the business owner, entrepreneurs, and startups to describe their use of digital marketing strategies, tactics, and resources across multiple platforms. It includes both strategic thinking and tactical execution.
SEO Is Part of the Digital Marketing Strategy
So which one should I use? Well, that depends on the target audience. If you’re planning on selling products on the Internet, then go with SEM and SEO. But if you’re looking to attract new clients through social media channels, email marketing would work better. If you want to cover everything, set a budget and goals and aim for digital marketing.
How Traffic Is Utilized
SEO organic search traffic comes from the organic search results of a search engine. On the other hand, digital marketing focuses on paid traffic that comes from ads placed on websites. Of course, a website can generate both types of traffic. However, any SEO technique focuses on making the website appear high in search engine ranking results, while digital marketing focuses on getting people to visit the website.
Traffic sources are divided into two categories: Paid Traffic Sources & Organic Traffic Sources. A good rule of thumb is set 70% of your time to generate organic traffic versus 30% to paid traffic. Why? Because we’ve repeatedly seen that organic traffic grows at much faster rates than paid traffic. In addition, paid traffic doesn’t scale.
How Cost Is Utilized
SEO is a relatively inexpensive method of increasing your website’s visibility in search engines. However, there is also a cost associated with paying an SEO specialist monthly. Other expenses include the cost of hiring a web designer and developer to build a new site.
Digital marketing is not limited to paying for specialist services. It also includes paid advertising, which you may do via social media, search engine marketing, etc. If the website lands on the first page of the search page, chances are, this is done through paid ads and ad campaigns. However, this type of advertising is expensive. Therefore, it is usually reserved for companies that have a large budget. Once the budget is exhausted, the company may lose online traffic.
The Roles of SEO Specialist and Digital Marketing Manager
You can find many similar tasks between these two positions. Both have expertise in optimizing websites to increase traffic and revenue, but the SEO specialist focuses on the technical aspects while the digital marketer focuses on the business side. Both use similar strategies, including email marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing. However, the SEO expert uses these tools to increase traffic to a website, while the digital marketing specialist uses them to increase a company’s visibility to consumers.
The difference between these roles can often come down to experience or education level. For example, a Search Engine Optimization specialist may work for an agency specializing in online advertising and web design. They will typically focus on optimizing websites so that they rank higher within Google’s organic results. This could include things like keyword research, link building, relevant content creation, etc. On the other hand, a digital marketer would likely manage all of this from start to finish.
Why the Need To Use Both SEO And Digital Marketing?
Both SEO and digital marketing work together to help you reach your goals. SEO helps you rank higher for specific target keywords, while digital marketing helps you build awareness about your business and attract new customers. Digital marketing includes putting social media posts, email marketing, and other forms of internet marketing. If you want to be successful in today’s competitive market, you must have a strong presence on all channels.
Both SEO and digital marketing work together to increase visibility and generate leads. That said, many business owners wonder whether SEO alone is enough to boost sales volume. After all, isn’t it easier just to spend money on paid advertisements?
In reality, however, paying for paid ads requires a lot of upfront capital, while ranking well organically takes months or even years of hard work. Plus, once you start receiving real traction with SEO, it becomes much harder to stop. Once customers begin visiting your site regularly, you risk losing them forever to competitors who offer superior service/products. On top of that, organic listings tend to drive more qualified traffic since they show up near the top of SERPs.
So yes, SEO works great… eventually. However, sometimes it doesn’t take long for businesses to realize that they should invest in digital marketing too. Here are five reasons why combining SEO and digital marketing efforts is worth it.
It Gives Your Business A Competitive Advantage Over Others
When you combine both strategies, you’re able to provide an advantage to your website visitors because you’ll be showing up at the top of search engine results pages. If you’re not there yet, then you may never get noticed. By contrast, if you only focus on SEO, you could end up spending thousands of dollars without seeing any significant ROI.
It Helps Build Trust With Customers
If you build trust with customers, they’re far less likely to leave than if you haven’t built rapport with them. As a result, you’ll retain more loyal customers and grow your customer base overall. With SEO, you can understand your target market’s user behavior much better.
You Can Engage to More People Than Ever Before
As mentioned above, SEO has become increasingly important due to its ability to deliver highly targeted traffic to your website. Because of this, you can now attract new customers across a wide range of demographics. Being more engaged with your customers also increases user experience.
It Makes Sales Easier & Faster
Because SEO focuses heavily on building links, it makes it easy for potential customers to find out about your products and services before making a purchase decision. As a result, they won’t waste time browsing through endless pages of irrelevant piece of content. Instead, they’ll scroll down until they see something interesting.
It Improves Customer Service
By focusing on SEO, you can easily identify which parts of your product or service are working effectively. This allows you to make changes quickly so that you don’t lose customers. In turn, you can improve your conversion rate by providing better support.
Are There Any Downsides Of Combining SEO And Digital Marketing?
Combining SEO and digital marketing can be a great idea for small businesses. However, you should be aware of some things regarding how digital marketing and SEO work together. The main problem with combining these two types of marketing is that you cannot use them both simultaneously. SEO is best used when you want to rank high in search engine traffic, while digital marketing is best used when you need to attract visitors to your website.
How to Integrate Digital Marketing and SEO
Integrating SEO and digital marketing is becoming increasingly important for companies who want to succeed in this competitive world. It is no longer sufficient simply to rank well within search engines; instead, businesses must also consider how people find them when searching for products and services.
Search engines are always changing their methods of ranking websites. One of the most recent changes in SEO strategies involves the incorporation of digital marketing into the mix. The new term that has come out from this change- Search Engine Optimization Integration (SMI).
When search engines widen their scope to analyze website specifics, it becomes clearer that SEO overlaps with other types of marketing efforts, something that could potentially change how we approach marketing as a whole. That being said, there’s no denying that there would be an integration of SEO and digital marketing best strategies to ensure overall success.
To integrate SEO and digital marketing, you first have to understand what each strategy does. Then, you decide whether or not you’d want to incorporate either one into your company’s existing plan. Here are some tips:
Start With A Website Audit
Before you start integrating SEO and digital marketing, it helps conduct a thorough audit of your current site. First, make sure that everything looks good – especially the navigation bar. Also, look over all of the text on the page. Does it contain competitive keywords that will help drive traffic to your site? Are the images relevant enough? You may even have to find someone to do an extensive analysis of your site.
Create An Online Presence For Your Business
Once you’ve done an initial review of your site, you’re ready to begin creating an online presence for your business. When planning your strategy, think about where potential clients might go after finding your brand name. For example, do you offer social media accounts such as Facebook or Twitter? Would you prefer to focus on Google Ads? How many different channels would you like to utilize?
Use Keywords To Drive Traffic
Once you know where your target audience goes. You’ll want to create online content that matches their interests. Think about what terms they type into the query box so can understand search engine traffic patterns better. What words appear most often next to external links related to your industry? Write articles using those key phrases. Include them throughout your writing.
Optimize Content On Social Media Channels
You’ll want to optimize your posts for maximum visibility by optimizing your high-quality content on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. First, consider which hashtags get the most engagement. Which ones bring the highest number of clicks? Next, try to write captivating titles so social media users click through to read your post.
Engage Users Through Customer Service
If you provide excellent customer service, then customers will share information about themselves on social networks. They’ll tell others about your product or service, giving you free advertising. In addition, they’ll recommend your brand to friends and family members.
Get More Reviews From Other Clients
You could ask other clients to leave reviews on sites like Yelp or Google Places. These reviews give you credibility with prospective clients because they come directly from satisfied customers.
Offer Promotions And Discounts
As part of your overall marketing campaign, try offering promotions and discounts. People love deals, so make yours stand out by inc