Ultimate Cheat Sheet on Online Marketing!

Want to know about ABC of online marketing and factors which we should take care while doing so, check out my blog on Ultimate Cheat Sheet on Online Marketing!

Are you interested to know more about the real ABC of Online Marketing or Internet Marketing or the terms like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Social Media Optimization and Marketing (SMO or SMM), and some factors which we should need to understand while taking care of the SEO of any website, then you reached to the best place. Please go through this blog post of mine on Ultimate Cheat Sheet on Online Marketing and I am sure that you will start understanding many things of Online Marketing world.

Although I have written a few blogs on topics like the Ultimate cheat sheet on Inbound Marketing and how to get search engine ranking without doing SEO and some other related things as well. You can go through both of my blogs and check out some topics related to SEO and Online Marketing, I am sure those will also help you, but in this blog post, I will emphasize on different terms which are quite popular in the field of Online Marketing.

Ultimate Cheat Sheet on Online Marketing!

Let us first start with the concept of Online Marketing. It is in general the online way of doing marketing of your company. Normally people consider that it is like selling products or services from your website, but it is not true. Online Marketing is the process to enhance the visibility of your website, but not to increase the sales of your website. That comes under Sales.

Normally people, especially from India, confuse between Online Marketing and Online Sales. So if you look into online marketing you will come to some magical and heavy looking terms like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Social Media Optimization and Marketing (SMO or SMM), etc. First, let me tell you about the differences between Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing. Similarly, you can also understand the differences between Social Media Optimization and Social Media Marketing.

What is the difference between Optimization and Marketing?

Actually, there are two ways of increasing the visibility of any website and these include either you do it for free or pay other websites to get visitors to your site. When you are doing it for free it is known as Optimization, while if you chose the second option, it becomes marketing.

So basically SEO, SMO & SEM, SMM both are same, the only difference is the way how you are doing it.

What is the difference between Search Engine and Social Media?

What do you do when you need to search something? You either go to a search engine like Google, Bing, etc. and type down your queries to get desired responses, or you go to a social media site like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. and search for the same. So basically, these days people normally search for something either in Search Engines or Social Media sites. So to optimize your website or to market your website on Search Engine or Social Media makes it like Search Engine Optimization or Social Media Optimization.

Search Engine Optimization

So now I am sure you are aware of the terms like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Social Media Optimization (SMO), Social Media Marketing (SMM), etc. so let us understand them one by one.

Search Engine Optimization, popularly known as SEO is one of the processes to increase the organic rankings of your website in search engines. When you search for some keywords in any search engine, you will get two types of results over there, one is paid results and other are the free ones. The free results are termed as Organic results.

Here are some things which you need to take care while doing SEO of any website:

1. Focus on Content

These days the secret behind getting the Search Engine love is Quality and Useful Content. Be it any page of your website, or an article which you are publishing on some other websites for your site, the focus should always be there to make it a Unique, Informative and Useful piece for the visitors. The uniqueness of texts content is very much required. You should always invest heavy on the content of your website, and always avoid doing copy-paste types of content.

2. Proper Navigation

Other than content, the second thing which you need to take care of is of providing proper navigation. It is always a plus point to websites which are having an excellent internal link architecture. Both visitors and bots which will visit your website should know that presently in which section of your website they are standing and where to go after this. Architecture marketing experts will help you enhance your website to be more user-friendly, which can attract a larger audience.

3. URL Structure

URL structure also plays a very crucial role in doing SEO of your website. For an example, let’s say you have a product on your site, let’s name it as ProductP and you made a page which will display the features of this product. So what should be the URL of this page of your site?

Let me give you a few examples:

A www.yoursitename.com/ProductP-features/
B www.yoursitename.com/features/
C www.yoursitename.com/ProductP_features/
D www.yoursitename.com/ProductP/features/

So in your opinion which URL structures are good?

Well, in my opinion, you can opt for either A or D options, but never select the option B as on this page we are going to discuss the features of a product of your site, not of your site. While for option C I would suggest not to use _ sign (underscore sign) in URL’s but you can use the Hyphen i.e. – sign.

Also, avoid using caps terms in URL, although I used them in examples above, you should use all lower caps in URL structure of your website.

4. Server Responses

A major factor in SEO these days is server responses. Do understand the fact that if your website is taking too much time to load, or the server of your website always remain down, then it will certainly damage the user experiences and impact the SEO of your site. So if you investing so much on your website and it’s marketing, try to invest a decent amount on web hosting of it too.

5. Sitemaps

Sitemaps are the XML files through which search engine bots normally access your website. From this one line only you can understand its importance. So always try to update the same.

6. Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools

When it comes to SEO, people should know about Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools. These are some of the finest tools (free) provided by Google to help SEO.

If you don’t have an account there or these are not configured on your website, do it now only.

7. Keyword Research & Mapping

This is an entire phase. You need to do brainstorming for keywords, select term or phrases which are relevant to your products or services or websites, and then you need to map them to existing pages of your website. After doing all these you also need to set them in those pages. Things which you need to take care of are Titles, Metas, URL’s, Heading Tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.), Alt Tags, On-Page Texts, Anchor Texts, etc.

8. Earning Links

Gone are the days when this step was known as link building. Nowadays you cannot build links for your website, rather you can earn them. To earn links you can follow the strategies of Content Marketing, in which you share quality articles, blogs, etc. to other websites and you get links for your site. Remember and focus on the term QUALITY.

You can also request other sites to link to your site.

9. Social Presence

The last but not the least thing in SEO (although it is entirely different from SEO and comes into SMO) is to maintain your social presence. Try to promote your content on social media platform on a regular basis.

Search Engine Marketing

Although there are lot many other things in SEO, on a beginner level or initial level these are enough to understand. Let us now come to the SEM part of Online Marketing. As I said above that while searching in Search Engines you can get two types of results, one is the Organic one, and the other one is paid one.

To manage and optimize your websites presence on those paid results is known as Search Engine Marketing.

PPC or pay per click is one of the examples of doing so. You can propose a bid for your presence on a SERP i.e. Search Engine Results Page, and if someone clicks on your ads, you will have to pay the search engine.

Generally, people think SEO’s are a magician and can bring your website to the top position on a search engine for a particular keyword. Honestly speaking, no one can do so or can give the guarantee of doing so. It can only be possible with PPC campaigns if you need it within a short timeframe. On a longer run, it is possible, but it will require time, patience and regular efforts.

Social Media Optimization

As I already told you about SEO and SEM, now let us tell you something about Social Media Optimization or SMO. As I said above that people searches for their requirements on Search Engines and Social Media too. So to list your website in the organic results of social media sites is very much required.

Although, like SEO, we don’t have any fixed to do things in SMO, but there are something’s which you need to take care of the presence of your website on those sites, regular posting on your pages or accounts, user engagement, providing responses to user’s sentiments, providing compelling and viral types of content on those sites, etc.

These are some of the things which can help you in doing SMO for your site.

Social Media Marketing

So while searching for something on social media, or while you visit your profile or that social media site only, you can come across different ads over there. Based on your profile preferences and likes and dislikes, these websites display different ads. To optimize your ad campaigns on social media is known as SMM or social media marketing. In addition, if you’re an OnlyFans model, consider getting the service of teasyagency to help you manage your promotion to help reach your audience. You can find the best OnlyFans agencies who can make you stand out among others.

It is more or less similar to SEM concepts.

Some Precautions Required with Online Marketing!

With my own experience, I can suggest you some of the precautions which are required to take care with your online marketing campaign. Here are some of them:

Choosing Well Known Online Marketer

The biggest mistakes generally made by companies or brands is to compromise with the quality of online marketer. For the sake of saving some dollars normally people handover their website to those who don’t even know the basics of Online Marketing.

Such things are suicidal. Your website can be penalized. Before hiring an SEO or Digital Marketing guy, always talk to the person and understand his/her knowledge of the industry. Try to understand if he/she is giving some sort of guarantee of results, you can get rid of that person, as in practical world nobody can guarantee results in digital or online marketing.

Unplanned and No Vision

If your SEO or Digital Marketing guy has no planning or vision for the online marketing campaign for your site, you should take back the project from him/her.

Avoid Inward Campaigns

Normally inward campaigns are those in the focus is entirely on you and you only. Always put a customer-centric and helping campaigns for your visitors.

Bring Your Brand to Life

Your campaign should never become dull and un-resourceful to your visitors. Always remain in touch with them.

Be Responsive

The last but not the least is to become responsive with your website. It has actually two meanings, first, you should provide responses to all queries coming to your site from any mean, and second your website should be responsive only so that it can look better in Mobile devices too.

These days’ people are using smartphones and tablets, and searches are increasing from those devices, so always focus on making your website responsive so that people can get the same look and feel, despite the fact that where they are opening your website.

So, these are some of the Cheat Sheet on Online Marketing or Digital Marketing and I am sure you must have gained some value from it. Please do share your opinion about it in the form of comments below, or you can also share your opinion about this blog or some other stuff through email too. My email id is vatsalok@gmail.com you can anytime email me with your suggestions, responses, or for any other help related to your SEO campaign too.