May 5, 2021

Our 2019 Digital Marketing Tips

It’s already time for our final big digital marketing blog post of the year, so we thought we’d come up with some things to consider for your 2019 digital marketing strategy. This isn’t everything, but it’s some ideas of things to be thinking about – if you aren’t already.

Digital Marketing – whether that be social media, SEO, Inbound or something else – is more important than ever with the accessibility of the internet. Not only is it easier than ever for people in the UK to access the World Wide Web, it’s easy for companies to set up websites too. More companies online means more competition. Which is why it’s more important than ever to create an online profile for your company which stands out amongst competitors.

These tips involve a few different types of digital marketing – so they might not all apply to you. Maybe you want to improve SEO but haven’t got a social media profile anywhere. That’s fine. You don’t have to have every kind of strategy in place right now. It might be better to though.

Here’s our 9 digital marketing tips for 2019.

Decide what to do with social.

If you’ve got a Facebook and Twitter profile but haven’t used either of them since 2013, it might be time to take the links off your website. Linking to a social profile which obviously hasn’t been used for years doesn’t look good – in fact, it might be better to not have any links to it at all.

On the other hand, maybe you want to start using those social profiles again. Which is brilliant – the reach of social media is undeniable so it makes sense to want a piece of it for your company. If time is the issue you don’t need to post constantly either – a couple of times a day, or sometimes even less is still better than nothing at all.

Alternatively, you could consider outsourcing some of your social media – so even if you don’t do anything with it, it’s still being updated by someone else.

Another way to look at this is to think of which profiles you want – what is best for your business. This doesn’t just mean Facebook and Twitter either – if you like posting images of your products then Instagram and Pinterest might be more for you. Or if you’re a primarily B2B company, maybe LinkedIn is what you need. It doesn’t just have to be the same social networks everyone else uses – nor do you have to have a profile on all of them if it’s not going to be beneficial.

Update your website.

If your website hasn’t been updated for a while, then maybe it’s time to give it a refresh. Like if it doesn’t fill the whole screen because it was done a while ago. Or perhaps it’s the content that could do with a little bit of work. Either way, an updated website might be good for both you and customers, so it’s worth considering a refresh.

Look at the responsiveness of your website.

Is the website responsive? Does it work on different screen sizes? What about if you make the window on your PC a little smaller? If the website doesn’t show up properly then you might need to consider this. Especially if it doesn’t work on mobile, as Google announced this year that they would start to look at the mobile versions of sites for SEO – so a bad mobile site will fall down the rankings.

Consider Paid Search.

If you’re not currently using paid search marketing, it might be worth thinking about it. Paid search can be used across a variety of platforms – from search engines to social networks. Because there are so many targeting options, there are a lot of ways to target products to the best audiences.

Paid Search has it’s benefits – especially if your social media following or SEO could do with a little improvement. It’s fast and can help you reach customers quickly. There are a lot more reasons you should be considering Paid Search in 2019 – for more information on some of them, check out this post.

GDPR Compliance.

It might have come into force at the end of May this year, but a lot of websites still aren’t GDPR compliant. Adding a valid Privacy Policy somewhere accessible and visible on your website is an important step in GDPR compliance, and a Cookie Policy or declaration is another one.

Adding an SSL Certificate is another thing you can do to help secure your website. This encrypts any data entered into the website, making it more secure. One more thing to do is make sure any forms are GDPR compliant – you have to say how data entered will be used or stored.

As GDPR is now law and websites found to be non-compliant can face fines, checking your compliance and adding anything necessary could be an important thing to do for the new year.

Use Mailing Lists.

Mailing lists have their benefits – so if your company hasn’t got one, it might be time to think about it. If you do have a mailing list, but aren’t using it, maybe setting aside some time to plan emails and design mailshots could be worthwhile, especially if you’ve got offers you want to promote.

Mailing lists can be great for a business to highlight new products. They can show offers and new products to customers who haven’t been on your website recently, so they might have a look and maybe purchase. You can keep them updated with any news in the company too.

If you’re looking for email marketing tips, check out this post!

Optimise For Conversions.

Conversion Rate Optimisation is a way of improving the amount of site visitors who actually convert – that is, buy a product, sign up to a mailing list, or any other goal you would like them to complete on your website.

Conversion Rate Optimisation involves a number of things, one of which is making things simpler for the visitor to convert. Checkout or form-filling should be as simple as possible, whilst gathering any necessary information (and being GDPR compliant). There are lots of other things you can do – and if you want to read more about the importance of Conversion Rate Optimisation, you can have a look at this page.

Speed Up Your Website.

Making a website faster is a good way to improve the numbers of people who stick around. A slow site is another way for them to stop browsing and move on as they don’t want to keep waiting for a website to load.

Speeding up a website doesn’t have to take a while to do, nor does it have to involve doing everything possible to make the website load quickly. Just a couple of changes could make all the difference – as cutting a couple of seconds off that load time might lower the people who leave your website by a percentage. It’s better than doing nothing.

Look At Inbound.

If you’re not currently doing any Inbound Marketing, or creating content, it might be time to think about it. Pulling people in with good content can mean an increase in brand awareness, and site visitors.

On the other hand, if your Inbound strategy isn’t working so well, maybe consider changing the content a little. Swap blog posts for videos. Or the other way around. Inbound isn’t just about one type of content, and it’s best to look at what suits your business rather than what you’ve always done.

If you’ve got a blog on your website which has a couple of posts on it from years ago, it might be worth removing those posts. Unless you still have a lot of traffic through the posts onto the website, a blog like this probably isn’t going to contribute to the website much. Either start posting again, think of a better idea, or just delete it. Sometimes no blog is better than an old and outdated one which hasn’t been updated for years.

So there are our 9 digital marketing tips for 2019. You don’t have to do all of them, or maybe you already are. We just thought we’d offer some ideas what you can think about in the new year to make your website that little bit better, or your brand a little more reachable. There are other things you can think about – but once the Christmas rush and the January sales are over, it’s worth thinking if there’s anything new you can do.

Would you like help with your digital marketing into the new year?

Teknet Marketing offers a wide variety of services if you want help with any of the tips above! Check out our Services page for a full list! To make an enquiry, fill out the form on our Contact page, email hello@teknetmarketing.co.uk or phone 0800 488 0400!