Digital Marketing for Beginners 2021

Digital Marketing for Beginners 2021

Digital Marketing for Beginners 2021.SEO, social media marketing, email marketing,PPC advertising. Where do you start and how do you use theseto get more traffic to your website? If you're a beginner to digital marketingand you want to cut through the noise, then keep watching because I'm going to show you how all of these work based on a decade of experience rather than just theory. Stay tuned. [music] What's up marketers, Sam Oh here with Ahrefs,the SEO tool that helps you grow your search traffic, research your competitors and dominate your niche. Today, I'm going to share 7 digital marketingstrategies that I have personally used and gotten results with. And if there's only one thing that you take away from this video, it's to not try all of these at once. Instead, pick one of these strategies, experimentand master the channel before moving on to the next. Let's get to it. So before we dig into these strategies, youneed to make sure that you're adopting today's mindset of the consumer. 








Today, we live in a "content first" world. People are looking for information before they buy. So you need to really put yourself in thebuyer's shoes rather than allowing yourself to get blinded by how great you think yourproducts and services are. The mentality you need to adopt is to helppeople rather than trying to cold sell them. When you help people solve problems throughfree and valuable content that is relevant to your business, you reach larger audiencesand build trust. The best part is that you get the opportunityto show people how your products and services can help them solve their problems and fulfilltheir desires and needs. Alright, so the first internet marketing strategyis blogging with SEO in mind. Now, blogging isn't writing about what youdid today or even something more noble like an epiphany you had. That's a diary. But don't get me wrong. This kind of content can work well if youhave an existing and loyal audience. But for most of us that just want to get moretraffic, leads, and sales we need to intentionally target problems that your target audiencewants to solve. In the world of blogging, this whole process can be summed up as a technique called keyword research. Let me show you two clear-cut examples onhow keyword research works. In the first example, let's say you sell physicalproducts like computer parts and accessories. What do you think future customers might besearching for in Google? Probably questions like: Why is my computer so slow? How to build a computer?








How to speed up a computer? These are all very real problems and peopleare looking for solutions. In fact, Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer tells usthat these exact search queries get tens of thousands of searches each month. Now, the best part about these specific queriesis that you can help people solve their problems, while integrating products from your store in the content. "Why is my computer so slow" could come downto a hard drive, CPU, or ram problem. So help your readers diagnose the problemand offer product solutions within your post. "How to build a computer" would be a supereasy plug for any computer components. They're already showing intent to build, so it's unlikely that they've already purchased parts and peripherals. Alright, second example. Let's say you're a real estate agent and you'recompensated when someone buys, sells, or rents a property. Now, the thing that most agents do is boastabout how many homes they've sold or how they won an award that you nor I have never heard of. My point is that the average buyer or seller doesn't care. And to prove my point, no one is searchingfor things like: which realtor won the most awards in New York? But again, potential customers are lookingfor solutions to their problems. Problems like: How to invest in real estate? How to buy a house? What credit score is needed to buy a house? And again, these all have the potential toattract a massive audience. 








By ranking in Google for something like "howto invest in real estate," you're now attracting potential buyers with deep pockets and they likely have intent to buy. Content on "how to buy a house" would likelyrequire the work of an agent at some point, which could be you. "What credit score is needed to buy a house"is a great way to show that your knowledge and intentions go beyond making a sale. The best thing about blogging for SEO is thatonce you rank, you'll be getting free, consistent and passive traffic from Google. If you're new to SEO, I highly recommend watchingour SEO for beginners video, which will give you a nice overview of what SEO is, how it works, and how you can get it to work for you. I'll also link up some additional resourceson doing keyword research that grows traffic and revenue, as well as a video on how to writea blog post with SEO in mind. For now, let's move on to the second strategy, which is to invest in video content, specifically on YouTube. YouTube is the second most visited search engine in existence. To top that off, video carousels nearly doubledin 2017 in Google's search results. Video isn't just the future. It's the present. And the same principle of helping potentialcustomers works for video too. When people go to video search engines like YouTube, they're looking to find answers to their questions.








For example, if you bought a so-called "new"iPhone X on eBay, you might search for "iPhone X unboxing" and see if all of the contents are in the box. And according to Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer,108,000 searches are happening each month globally on YouTube alone for this keyword. In fact, this video that you're watching right nowwas chosen because I can see that people are specifically looking for digital marketingtutorials for beginners. To come up with topic ideas that people aresearching for in your niche, head over to Ahrefs' Keyword Explorer, switch the search engine to YouTube and search for a broad keyword in your niche. Let's use "makeup" as an example. Now, "makeup" as a standalone keyword isn't a problem. So let's go to the Questions report, where you can see popular questions people are searching for on your topic. And right away, you'll see great topic ideaslike "how to clean makeup brushes" and how to cover acne with makeup. Now, when you're creating these videos, tryand keep the fluff out and pack in as much necessary value as possible. Doing this has helped us grow our YouTubeviews to over 150,000 views per month and best of all, since all of our videos showhow our SEO tools can help, it's led to thousands of new paying leads and customers, specifically mentioning that they found us through YouTube. Most of our video growth was done throughYouTube SEO, so I'll leave links to a tutorial to help you rank your videos and get more views. 








Next up is social media marketing. Rather than covering every social media network,I want to pass on a couple of important tips that will help you grow your social channels. The first is to focus on just one social mediachannel when you're just starting out. It takes time to build a following. But numbers aren't everything. What you want is a loyal following. When you dip your toes into every possiblesocial media network out there, your attention gets divided and the results get diluted. So which social media marketing channel do you choose? That leads us into the second tip, which is to go where your target audience is and cater to the platform. If you have to choose just one social network, it's not about choosing the one with the most active users. It's all about understanding the audiencethat's there and if you can serve the reason for them being there. You really need to think about why someoneis logging into the specific social media network. For example, people usually go to YouTubeto learn how to do something, or to be entertained. But Facebook is different. Think about it. Have you ever logged onto Facebook, hopingthat you would see an unboxing tutorial? Or better yet, have you ever opened your Facebookapp hoping you would find a limited time offer that's 97% off, only for the next 37 minutes? Probably not. People don't check Facebook with credit card in hand. People like and share things that are helpful,interesting, shocking or funny. 








So if you are going to try and bring peopleinto your world, present your message as a story, video, or something else that willlikely stand out from the endless feed of vacation vanity shots. Pinterest on the other hand is primarily asocial search engine where people can control what they want to search for. The primary intent of users on this platformis to get inspired, learn things, and plan to do things. So create content that caters to their intent for being there. So if this is your audience, take advantageof a less competitive landscape from both an ads and organic perspective. Speaking of ads, that's the next digital marketingstrategy on the list for today. When it comes to paid advertising, please do not throw your money blind into an ad network because you read that it was good. What works for one person won't necessarilywork for the next person. Instead, think about the ABCs of paid advertising. A is for audience, B is for budget and C is for commerciality. We've already covered the audience part. You want to engage on social networks whereyour target audience hangs out. Budget is the next one. Bloomberg reported that Google and Facebookown a combined 58% of the $111 billion dollar market. Now, the way ads work are usually based on auctions. The more advertisers there are, the more expensiveit gets for you and I. So let's say you're in the ultra competitiveindustry of conference calling. If we search for that keyword in KeywordsExplorer with Google set as the search engine, you'll see that the cost per click from Google Ads is $20! If you have an ad budget of let's say $1,000per month, then you'd only be able to get 50 clicks before your budget was depleted. Instead, you can do 








Two things: The first option is to look for keywords thathave a lower cost per click. Just go to the Phrase match report to seeall keywords in our keyword database that contain your target keyword. Next, set a filter to only show keywords thathave a maximum cost per click of something lower like $5. From here, you can filter through the listand see if there are some more lucrative opportunities rather than spending $20 per click. This one for a "conference call app" mightbe a good one since it's a quarter of the price. Another benefit is that the reason behindthe searcher's query is more clear. Someone searching for this is clearly lookingfor an app that does conference calls, whereas someone searching for just "conference call" could be looking for many different things. The second thing you can do is experimentwith less popular ad platforms where your target audience might be. Finally is commerciality. Now, all major ad platforms are able to bringROI for their advertisers. Otherwise, they wouldn't exist. But you have to find a way to bridge the gapbetween the intent of the platform and how you monetize your products. And the solution is going to be content. For example, let's say you sell boutique furnitureand think that Pinterest will be a good platform to run some ads. In my opinion, it wouldn't be a good ideato advertise a bunch of links to high-end furniture like couches and dining tables. Instead, blog posts could work really wellhere since people log on to Pinterest mainly to get inspired, and learn new things. Here's what that bridge might look like. Pinterest ads would be the discovery tool. 








You pay them money and they'll show your pin. The bridge would then be a helpful blog poston let's say, "11 Interior Design Tips For Your Living Room That Won't Break the Bank." And within that content, you could showcase your products where it supports the tip you're speaking of. Nail the ABCs of paid ads, and increase yourchances of actually converting your hard earned dollars into ROI. Next up is one of my favorites and that's podcasts. Now, there are two ways to look at podcasts. First is to create your own and the secondis to be interviewed on someone else's podcast. Creating your own podcast can be great forbrand and building an audience. But if you're just starting out, it can takequite a bit of time to get any sort of traction. Getting interviewed on podcasts is a different story. Podcasters are always looking for interestingpeople to interview. Even if you don't have a ton of experiencein the online world, your offline experiences and expertise could be a great way to landyourself a position on a popular podcast. Now, if you don't know which podcasts youshould approach, an easy way to find opportunities is to look at your favorite podcasts and findsomeone in your industry that has been interviewed. Looking at the podcast page for Entrepreneur on Fire, you'll see this episode with Jim Kwik. Now, if we click through to the interview,you'll notice two things. The first is that the guest's name is in the title. 








This is very common for podcast interviews. Second is the link on the page. The host will almost always link to the guest'shome page in the show notes. Knowing this, we can use a tool like Ahrefs'Site Explorer to find all podcasts they've been interviewed on. So I'll enter in jimkwik.com and I'll alsoset the search mode to a URL search so we can find pages that are linking specificallyto the homepage. Once the overview page loads, go to the backlinksreport, which will show you all of the pages that are linking to this URL. Finally, let's use the Include search andtype in Jim Kwik. And to keep our results super relevant, I'mgoing to set the filter to search for his name only in the titles of the referring pages. And we now have around 120 podcasts we canpitch to get interviewed. So filter through relevant podcasts, and pitchthe host as to why they should interview you and the value you can give to their audience. Next on the list is email marketing. If you've ever looked into email marketing, then you've probably heard people claiming that "email is king." But I promise you that once you get into it,you'll quickly discover that it's not as turnkey as online gurus make it sound. And don't get me wrong. Email marketing is great. But first, you need traffic to get email subscribers. It also requires opt-in forms to turn a visitorinto a subscriber. In my opinion, email is a great long playto build connection with your audience and and even sell high ticket items. So my tip for you on email marketing is quite simple: First, focus on building your email list from day one. It's important and you might as well collectemails from interested people from the start, even if it's not a substantial list. But be realistic with your goals and as you buildyour audience, put more time into your email list and see how it can serve your business. 








The final strategy is to use forums and community boards. Community forums like Quora, Reddit, and Facebookare great promotion channels. But before you go off and start posting linksto your product pages, there are a few things you need to understand. And these are all based around the unspokenrules of spam. First: don't promote your products or servicespages within these groups. The intent of users on these platforms is to learn. Not to be sold to directly. Instead, think of these networks as a placeto share your expertise, build relationships and help others. Second: use links to your content sparingly. If you're constantly posting links to yourblog and have justified in your head that that this is non-promotional, then you're most likely wrong. Links can be more appropriate based on thenetwork you're posting on. For example, Quora generally has longer answers, and linking to your content where it supports your point is a good idea. Facebook groups on the other hand are a differentstory. Let's say you're a real estate agent and youjoin a "first time homebuyers" group on Facebook. If someone asks a question like:"I'm looking to buy my first home and was wondering if I can even get a mortgage?" 

Now, if every agent on that group posts links to their website, can you see how spammy that could get? Instead, it would make sense to post a linkto someone else's affordability calculators or offer introductions to b-lenders.