Digital Marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that are delivered through various digital channels. Any form of marketing that is done online is digital marketing. As the usage of technology is increasing, digital marketing is becoming a pivotal way of communicating and engaging with your customers. Digital Marketing and SEO are used interchangeably but SEO is just a subset of digital marketing. In this blog we will talk about types of digital marketing and dive deeper into understanding what's seo and how can every business benefit from SEO.

Types of Digital Marketing 

It is necessary to understand the types of digital marketing techniques as it is helpful in strategizing your marketing plan as well as optimizing your efforts. 

1. Search Engine Optimization(SEO): SEO is the primary source of leads among B2B (62%), B2C (51%), and Non-Profit organizations. 
2. Search Engine Marketing(SEM): Marketers that combine organic SEO and PPC ads see 25% more clicks and 27% greater profits.
3. Content Marketing:  77% of companies say they have a content marketing strategy
4. Social Media Marketing(SMM): It is considered as the most relevant marketing channel for 50% of Gen Z and 42% of millennials. 
5. Email Marketing: The average open rate across all industries is at 21.80%, and the average click-through rate is 2.78%.
6. Influencer Marketing: 80% of marketers say influencer marketing is effective.

Digital Marketing and SEO

Search Engine Optimization is basically a part of digital marketing that benefits websites to rank higher when users search for your products and services. SEO for Digital Marketing is the science and art of procuring more relevant traffic to your website and rank higher in SERP (Search Engine Results Page). It is a long-term investment but SEO in Digital Marketing is the most cost-effective method of all digital marketing techniques. 

Pros and Cons of SEO

There are many benefits of SEO in Digital Marketing but there are a few things that you need to consider in order to understand if SEO and Digital Marketing is a good strategy for your business now or you need some time to apply it. Having said that, it’s important to understand that if you have a website, you should have the SEO in place but you can choose to what extent your company needs to commit. In the blog, we have covered the bare minimum that startups, SMB’s, and enterprises should commit to.

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The pros of SEO are as follows:

1. SEO effectively helps in generating leads and hence it also has an effect on the buying pattern of your users.
2. Search Engine Optimization benefits by increasing the brand awareness and conversion rate of your website.
3. Localized traffic can be procured easily through Local SEO. 76% of local mobile searches for “near me” results in increasing the same-day store visit.
4. SEO for Digital Marketing makes your website mobile-friendly.
5. Search Engine Optimization helps in improving the user experience by offering all the relevant information. It benefits the easy navigation of your website. 
6. SEO in digital marketing is quantifiable i.e. it can be tracked over a period of time. SEO strategy can be pivotal in tracking the performance of your business by calculating the number of website visits, session time per visit on the website, and also the quality of the content. 
7. SEO can be completely free depending on how much time you are willing to spend on it. Researching the right keywords and embedding them in the right places in your content can be pivotal for crafting high-quality content. 

The cons of SEO are as follows:

1. According to the compiled data of Social Media Today, more than 60% of Digital marketers spend over 6 hours per day on their digital marketing strategies. The results of SEO in Digital Marketing are not instantaneous. It takes a minimum of a year or more for SEO strategies to reap results. ROI (Return On Investment) is also not quick at all. Results of SEO is like compound interest and it is a long term strategy
2. Depending on the SEO requirements for your company the budget of SEO might vary. SEO is not really a free digital marketing tool unless you do everything in an SEO campaign such as attracting backlinks and producing content. You might have to hire external help to build all organic links and other SEO firms to generate substantial results from all your marketing efforts. If you are operating in a competitive niche, it is mostly applicable. 
3. SEO doesn’t provide complete control over how much traffic or what type of traffic your website will get from all your Digital Marketing and SEO efforts. But when done well, it helps rank your product and services.
4. Finding the right search engine optimization company can be challenging. But it is not impossible to find a good SEO firm or SEO agency. 

Why is SEO important

SEO is essential for every shape and size of the company if you have a digital presence. Though according to the goals, budget and timeline; you can always choose to do what is absolutely essential and scale it up as your business grows. Below we have discussed the essentials of SEO for startups, SMb's and Enterprises

SEO for a Startup

As a startup, you need to target customers for your online business. One of the main ways of making it happen is through search engines. Hence digital marketing and SEO strategy has to be prioritized highly when you are planning to start a business.

1. Set SEO goals for your business: Make sure that your SEO business goals are well defined before you move to the next step.  Some business goals that your SEO strategy might help you to achieve are as follows: more profit, more revenue, and ROI(Return on investment), brand recognition, a growing number of targeted leads, higher customer loyalty.
2. Generating attractive brand topic: A successful SEO strategy also requires the generation of quality content such as blogs, images, videos, podcasts, lead magnets, and guest blogs. Hence it is important to identify the trends of your business field and craft good content ideas. Some of the ways to identify topics are as follows: use keyword tools or google keyword planner or paid tools like SEMRush to refer to a large list of suggestions for relevant topics and spy on competition.
3. A technical SEO game plan: The most common issue for which a business can fail later is the failure to incorporate SEO for Digital marketing in its startup plan. Though Google and other search engines have made advanced strides to evaluate sites, technical SEO can still create problems making it more difficult for your site to be properly ranked well within relevant search results. It is necessary to focus on technical SEO during the process of developing and launching your website. “Near me” searches are extremely common nowadays.

Medium and Small Business SEO

Here’s a checklist for medium and small business SEO success. These are the absolute essentials that you should not ignore.

1. Set up Google Search Console and Analytics: You need to set up tools that are essential for tracking down your growth and also helps in understanding how users are engaged with your website. These tools are crucial for understanding how Google sees your site. 
2. Do a strong keyword research: You should have strong keyword research for the success of your business. Various keyword tools are extremely beneficial in finding the right set of keywords for your business which will help your users in finding a business like yours.
3. Observe your SERP competitors: You should always keep a notice of the strategy of SEO for Digital Marketing of your competitor’s website. To get successful it is necessary to know who you are trying to outrank.
4. Plan your site structure and pages: Plan your website well and use the target keywords in proper places. These target keywords are helpful in ensuring that your website consists of the relevant content for the terms that you want to rank for.
5. Find and fix basic SEO issues: There are several tools available for detecting and fixing various SEO issues. Fixing these SEO issues is very important for improving your site’s performance.
6. Create exceptional content: Your content is the key to the success of Digital Marketing and SEO of your business. Your website should have interactive content which has to be very appealing to both users as well as search engines.
7. Optimize your page: Optimize your page titles, meta descriptions as well as headline tags for attaining success in SEO for Digital Marketing for your website.
8. Make relevant online listings: One of the most effective ways of getting success via SEO for small business is to get listed on relevant search directories. You can use relevant backlinks and guest blogging as well for a successful SEO strategy for your website.
9. Link your website: Ask your suppliers and business associates to link your website. This is a very fast and easy win for any small business.
10. Set yourself up on GMB(Google My Business): If you  have to list yourself up in Google map pack, you have to set up GMB(Google Map Business) and optimize your listing

Enterprise SEO

The 4 main pillars for SEO success for an Enterprise are very different for others. These are extensive sites, hence, it's imperative for SEO team to work with developers during launches, maintenance of the existing pages, and reporting

1. SEO Mitigation: During the indoctrination of a project the SEO expert is responsible for mitigation works closely with the engineering teams as well as project and product managers. This is extremely helpful in saving time, efforts and well as money of the company as the issues are identified before the launch of the website.
2. SEO Analysis or Reporting: Every company should understand the importance of SEO in increasing the traffic as well as revenue. There are various tools available to track the performance of your SEO strategy. Google Search Console is one such tool that helps in the analysis and reporting of SEO issues related to your website.
3. Determining the growth: Besides making analysis and reporting on SEO, it is also important to identify the upward trend in searches and gaps in the current or the past efforts for the SEO strategy. SEO project management and determination of the growth is imperative to the success of a good enterprise SEO team. 
4. Building relationships: The ability to build and maintain relationships with other organizations is one of the most important determinants of SEO success of an enterprise. 

Should you hire an SEO agency?

There are various parameters that are involved in an effective SEO strategy, hence 81% of companies tend to hire or outsource their SEO activities. There are several SEO agencies and consultants who will help you in attaining the growth of your business by professionals working with SEO. In the case of increasing traffic and conversion rates to your website, you can always hire SEO professionals, SEO firms, or consultants. Hence it is very important to select amongst the best SEO agencies in India for attaining the desired results for your business goals.

‍If you're looking to hire a search engine optimization services company, please feel free to contact us or email us at hello@chammach.agency. We're the SEO experts in India with over a decade of experience.

Conclusion 

Digital Marketing is a broad marketing technique that includes several marketing tactics that are used to promote a brand, product, or service through various digital media. To be ahead in the competition and be a leading part of this new marketing technique, it is necessary to be visible amongst your competitors and users. Hence amongst various subsets of Digital Marketing, SEO plays a pivotal role in keeping your business competitive and ahead of your competitors.