In 2020, if you do not have an online digital marketing presence, you are already falling far behind the competition.
But worry not. You can learn the tactics and strategy of digital marketing at home to start seeing returns immediately. Sure, there are plenty of paid resources out there that will give you a curriculum and roadmap to being a successful marketer, but these things move fast and you need to be on the bleeding edge to see real results.
Follow along in this guide as we explore the world of digital marketing in 2020 so that you can supercharge your business in no-time.
What You Need to Learn to Be a Digital Marketer in 2020
The two biggest digital advertisers, Facebook and Google, generated $55 billion and $116 billion USD in 2018 respectively. That money has to come from somewhere, and it’s the main driver behind the ongoing financial success of global business juggernauts. Samsung alone spent $11.2 billion on advertising last year – that’s no small sum.
In order to maximize whatever budget you are able to put towards digital advertising, you desperately need to understand how to maximize each dollar effectively.
Will you focus on search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC)? Perhaps both equally? Knowing your audience and where they are most likely to interact with your business is essential in gaining a foothold in the world of digital marketing. Otherwise, your ad spend will likely end up costing you more than what each lead it brings is worth.
Can anyone do digital marketing?
Absolutely. Gaining the skills to be a digital marketer means taking the time to find the best resources available.
If you want to become a digital marketing expert, you should focus on learning these marketing skills:
- SEO
- PPC
- Outbound marketing
- Inbound marketing
- Link building
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing
- Graphic design
- Google Analytics (and other analytics platforms)
- Keyword research
- Copywriting
- Website development and maintenance
Is digital marketing hard to learn?
All of that might sound like a lot to learn in a short amount of time, but there is quite a bit of overlap between each skillset. Much of this can be learned over the course of a few weekends, but mastering the techniques in each category takes much longer. For this reason, having a mentor to guide you along the way can be the defining factor between digital marketing success and failure.
Understand that however you choose to learn digital marketing at home, your time spent will come back in the form of leads, clicks, and revenue for your online business.
Let’s start unpacking these by order of importance.
Mastering SEO for Online Businesses
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a constantly evolving business that is part of almost every digital marketing endeavor. It is integrated into website design, blogging, linking, social media, and any other touchpoint that your business has with a major search engine.
For most people’s purposes, Google will be the primary driver of unpaid (“organic”) traffic to their website. Therefore, every online business is in a heated competition to outscore one another and rank high on search engine result pages (SERPs).
So, how do you get your business ranking higher on the SERPs? Start by producing content that Google can understand.
Learn the basics of SEO on your website, such as how to structure your site for SEO and how to make your on-page SEO top-notch. If you need to go back a step and learn what SEO is and how it works, Moz has a great beginner’s guide that breaks it down to its essentials.
SEO is a long-term strategy in digital marketing. You may not see immediate returns, but if you stick to it then you’ll see it coming back in full down the road.
Mastering SEO in 2020
Already got the basics down to a science? Then you are ready to start taking advantage of Google’s latest updates to how they process information in 2020.
Here are a few details to help you start tweaking your SEO for 2020:
Produce less high-quality content over more low-quality content
- Detailed content that goes in-depth on a topic is making greater gains than a larger amount of low-quality content
Markup your website with Schema.org tags
- This structures your website content and enables Google’s AI-powered ranking systems to more effectively understand, categorize, and rank your website
Featured snippets and other “position-zero” search features should be a target for your new content’s SEO
- Answer boxes, recipes, and similar questions are all great areas to target over the next year
Know what your target audience actually wants
- Content that consistently answers their questions is more likely to rank highly on Google
Looking for ways to use these opportunities will give you a leg up on your competition as we enter the new year. As always, 2020 SEO will bring with it a new set of questions and problems for your optimizations. Keep up-to-date as a member to make sure you are ready for any major revisions!
Learn PPC marketing at home, fast!
Pay-per-click marketing is the paid component of search engine advertising. It also comes into play of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
If you invest in PPC ads, you will see an immediate return on investment. However, the cost of running PPC ads is much greater than investing in SEO, which mostly costs time. At the end of the day, a good digital marketing strategy should include both.
How to use PPC for your digital business in 2020
First things first, define your audience. If possible, look through your analytics data to learn more about who is already interested in or buying your product.
Cannot find that information? Then instead turn to your competitors and market researchers. Odds are you can learn a lot about who wants your product by looking at the other businesses that already exist in your market.
Once you have a handle on who wants to see your product, you can begin crafting ads that speak to those users.
Creating PPC ads for social media
Now comes the fun part.
If you are going to be using social media platforms for your PPC ads, then you will also be creating graphics to accompany the ads themselves. Go onto any platform and create a business account to get started. From here, you should have access to their advertising tools that will help you hone in on your target audience and place your ads in front of them.
The best part about PPC is that unless a user clicks on your ad, it won’t cost you anything! That said, you want to make your ads irresistible to your target audience.
Here are some great ideas to get you started as you begin creating PPC ads in 2020. If you want to see how effective PPC ads can be, get in touch with us and we’ll show you how on your own business!
Building an online presence with social media marketing
For your business to truly thrive and live up to its potential, you need to be producing content across all channels that speak to your audience. No more rehashing of past content or typing out the first thing that comes to mind – every message you create is an opportunity to build your following and gain traction.
Once you have a great piece of digital real estate, we recommend developing your social media channels. Start by creating a social media content calendar, then using a social media scheduling tool to save time creating your posts.
Struggling to come up with ideas? Put yourself in your ideal user’s shoes – who are they, what do they want to know more about? Answer these questions in your posts and you will start to see your follower numbers rising every week. It’s a sure-fire way to reach new viewers.
How to keep growing your following as a digital marketer
Okay, you’ve got the basics down, but how do you stay on top of it all?
Set aside time each month to complete your regular recurring tasks, whether that is blogging, social media, developing ads, maintaining your website, or all of it together. Does that sound like too much to handle? Then farm it out as needed, don’t just stop doing it!
The worst thing you can do is stop your marketing efforts at any time. Google will begin ignoring your website and your followers will too. Invest your time wisely and find marketing professionals to help you out with the rest.
