Digital marketing is the component of marketing that utilizes the internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Continue reading for details on free digital marketing courses and FAQs.

Its development during the 1990s and 2000s changed the way brands and businesses use technology for marketing.

After all, internet usage has more than doubled over the past decade and this shift has massively affected how people purchase products and interact with businesses.

There are many digital marketing strategies, including:

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Display advertising

Social media marketing and advertising

Content marketing

Mobile marketing

Search engine marketing

Email marketing

Here are free and paid digital marketing courses and platforms you should enroll in:

1. Fundamentals of digital marketing

Here you will master the basics of digital marketing with our free Interactive Advertising Bureau-accredited course.

There are 26 modules to explore, all created by Google trainers, packed full of practical exercises and real-world examples to help you turn knowledge into action.

Getting certified shows employers that you have a clear understanding of the core concepts of digital marketing. You can also add the qualification to your CV, and easily upload it to your LinkedIn profile.

These courses are certified by Google Digital Skills For Africa. They include the following:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You’ve likely heard of the term SEO but maybe you weren’t sure what it means. SEO stands for search engine optimization and it’s the act of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

While there are a few search engines out there, the most popular is Google. An effective SEO strategy follows specific guidelines and best practices that will ensure a website ranks on the first page of search engine results.

To rank on the first page of the search engine, you need to structure your website and pages to attract organic traffic.

Without SEO, it’s almost impossible to grow an online business organically and you’ll need to also use paid advertising.

SEO is also closely related to other digital marketing elements like email marketing and content marketing. They work together to give customers high-quality content.

An effective SEO campaign addresses three key elements: your website, Google, and your audience. Google then ranks your site when a search query that matches your focus keyword is entered.

You might be wondering, how Google does that. When Google bots assess your site, they take into consideration the site’s structure and content.

They then match your content with search queries and related keywords to determine how relevant your content is to these questions Google also checks for quality links to your website—links tell Google that other people value your content and that it’s a reliable source of information.

Several good-quality links directed to your site will increase your chances of a higher Google rank. Not all links are good for SEO—links from high authority sites, like news organizations and professional associations, are what Google considers good signals.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing, also known as SEM or search marketing, refers to all the processes involved in generating traffic from search engines

SEM includes SEO (which to some extent is theoretically true), but practically, it is quite different. The core of an effective SEM strategy is paid advertising through platforms like Google Ads or Bing Ads.

Email Marketing

According to research from Campaign Monitor, every $1 put into email marketing generates $38.

For this reason, email marketing is one of the most popular digital marketing techniques among digital marketers. It is so popular that 82 percent of B2B and B2C companies are using it.

Successful email marketing campaigns share relevant, timely information that is personalized to the recipient.

Segmentation is an essential component of email marketing; it ensures that you’re reaching the right people at the right time.

When you understand their position in the buyer’s journey, you can email them information to help them make a purchasing decision.

Educational content can come in many forms, but emails typically share blog articles, white papers and eBooks, and webinar offers. Instead of sending links to external content, you can also write robust newsletters that educate.

In addition to educational content, you can inform them about promotional offers in an attempt to persuade them to take action.

Content Marketing

Wikipedia defines “Content marketing as any marketing format that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content to acquire customers

Content marketing is permission-based marketing. Potential clients opt-in to this type of marketing and sometimes share it.

To gain the trust of your potential customers, you need to be able to provide them with something relevant; content marketing is built on this idea. Content marketing should be helpful while subtly guiding readers in their decision-making process.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, “Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience–to drive profitable customer action.”

For example, I sell T-shirts online. Instead of focusing on my landing page and product description, I can direct my effort into content which my prospective customers may read before trying to make the purchase.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing involves the use of social media platforms as channels to reach large audiences.

On social platforms, you can grow an organic audience of followers or you can use paid social advertisements to reach your target demographic.

Most brands use both strategies, as they work well together. The most popular social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, have more than 2 billion and over 330 million users respectively.

Most businesses using social media marketing understand the importance of engaging their target audience and doing it consistently.

Therefore, creating engaging videos and high-quality content with amazing deals and offers for your audience will help you to increase brand awareness and generate more conversions.

Are you starting to see how these digital marketing tactics work together? A successful social media strategy needs high-quality content to engage followers.

The same goes for email marketing. Brands must create content and then distribute it through other digital channels.

Digital Advertising

Digital advertising can also be referred to as paid advertising. It refers to every strategy and process involved in generating referral traffic to your site via paid digital display ads.

Marketers often conduct digital advertising on different platforms, depending on where their target audience is most concentrated. Some of these platforms include:

Google (Adwords), Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing, as the name implies, is a digital marketing technique that involves marketing strategies focused on mobile users.

Research shows that more than 80 percent of internet users own a smartphone, so this is an important niche to reach out to. In this case, the marketing strategies are mobile-based. Examples are; SMS, MMS, mobile apps, and websites

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Online business competition has taken mainstream market competition to the clouds. It doesn’t matter whether they’re running a Facebook or eBay storefront or using sites like Etsy to get their merchandise in front of the public; online businesses just don’t have the same overhead that bricks-and-mortar retail businesses face. Continue reading for tips on staying ahead in online business competition.

No matter the size of your business, it’s important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your closest competitors online. Research shows 79% of millennials and Gen Z use the internet to make purchases, therefore a business’s online presence is more valuable than ever.

The Bare Minimum

Ensure to do more than the basics, starting with having an online store. Although 43% of consumers always visit local stores when they need products in a hurry, 29.1% turn to Amazon, and 27.8% use both Amazon and local retailers.

And while 60% of respondents say they have shopped at a smaller local store in the past six months, 30% say they only shop online.

Selling products online as well as in your physical store can offer you a way to enjoy the best of both worlds.

Reviews & Local Listings

Take note of your competitors’ online business competition reputation by looking at their reviews online. You can check out review sites like Google My Business, Yelp, Citysearch, or industry-specific sites and see how they are ranking compared to you and if those sites are optimized for search.

In addition, conduct a search for your competitor’s reputation terms, like “Business Name Reviews” on a search engine and see what turns up. Compare Your online business competition products and services, and make adequate adjustments.

Do your biggest competitors have more reviews than you? Is their reputation overall positive or negative? Either way, you may want to start focusing on your online reputation, so that when a consumer is researching both you and a competitor, your glowing reputation can speak for you online.

Content Sites

Content sites like a company blog or YouTube channel are also key ways businesses can boost SEO and online business competition.

See which of these sites your competitors have created and which they are using to their advantage.

What types of blogs, images, infographics, or videos are they sharing? Are they using relevant descriptions and keyword-rich tags?

Because these types of content can perform well in search engines and provide backlinks to a business website, seeing which sites work for your competitors can help you decide the types of sites you want a presence on as well.

Now that you have a good idea about your competitors’ web presence, you can take this information into consideration for building your own online strategy.

What tactics work well for them that you can try in your own marketing? What are you doing more efficiently than your competitors that you can focus on to give your online presence a boost?

Search Engines

Gauging your competitors’ placement on search engines isn’t always an easy task, especially since algorithms are continuously changing.

However, it can help your own search advertising strategy to see the results of your competitors’ organic and paid search tactics.

Keep in mind, it’s best to perform searches in a private browser so the search engine won’t take into account your browsing history and you’ll see more generic results. Here are a few things to look for:

Shelf Space

Search for a competitor’s business name online to see how much “shelf space” – or links on the search results page – they own, and what type of content is displayed, such as their website, blog, videos, reviews, and even text ads.

Remember which local listings, social media sites, and content sites are displayed and compare them against the ones that show up when you search for your own business name.

PPC Ads

To see what your competitors may be doing in paid search advertising, start by identifying a list of 5-10 top local keywords and searching for them on top search engines like Google and Bing.

If your competitor is also bidding on their own business name in search advertising, chances are their paid search ad will show in the sponsored section of the search results when you search for their name as well. Bidding on your business name is a cost-effective way to quickly get your brand to appear on the search engine results page.

Organic Performance

Also look at the organic listings when you search for those local keywords, as well as the keywords you are optimizing your own site for.

Where do your competitors appear in comparison to you? What kinds of content are showing – is it just their site, or do other content and social sites show up as well?

Simplify shopping

Consumers expect convenience whether they’re shopping online or in-store. In a physical store, curating the products you sell to a carefully chosen selection is one way to help shoppers get in and out of your store quickly. (You could offer a wider range of products on your business website.)

Your store should also accept a wide range of payment options, including mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, and mobile devices to accept payments so you can speed up customer checkout lines.

By taking these steps, you’ll be able to participate and beat the online business competition and help prepare your retail store for a successful future.

Also, check out:

5 Ways you are losing website traffic because you don’t have a blog.

4 Tips to Create Content that will Massively Increase your Sales.

The Number ONE Reason Why People aren’t Buying What You are Selling

Sell More on Social Media with Valuable Contents

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So now you have a website, all your products and services have been uploaded and now you’re waiting for buyers to troop in.

But… Nothing. your website is looking all shiny and brand new, but no visitors.

Imagine setting up your new office, putting all products in place, employ customer representatives to attend to customers,

…but no customers are visiting, this must be really painful, not to mention it feels like a huge loss.

That’s how it feels when no one is visiting your website right.

Well, I’m aware of this pain and that’s why I’m here with this amazing solution.

Today I’ll be speaking about a sure-fire way to increase traffic(visitors) to your website without spending on Ads.

This feature alone can make Google and other search engines become your own affiliate marketer, Interesting right?

Imagine If your website gets at least 100 visitors daily without you having to pay for marketing.

Don’t get me wrong, it is very IMPORTANT to have a marketing budget and pay for Ads, how else can you have a predictable and scalable flow of traffic.

However, what I’m showing you today is a secret that online businesses and entrepreneurs have used to increase traffic on their website systematically without waiting till they have money to pay for Ads.

Don’t anticipate too much, it’s not something you are new to, it’s just that you did not know how effective it is or how to use it to drive traffic.

Did you guess? it’s BLOGGING, yes you heard me right. Your website needs to have a Blog, a regularly updated Blog!

Whether you own an E-commerce store, A coaching platform, you sell physical products or digital products, services or whatever it is your website does. You should have a regularly updated Blog.

Why? Well, read on…

1. It helps establish your brand as an authority in your industry: You see one of the reasons why people don’t buy right away are objections; unanswered questions they have.
   For example, how do I know the best size to buy? what is the importance of having this product? How do I maintain this product when I buy it etc…These are questions running in the minds of your prospects, and until these questions are answered your prospects will find it difficult to make the purchase.
   Like the saying goes; “A confused customer is a customer that will NOT buy”

   But as a smart business owner that you are, write a blog post about questions that they could be asking, answer it correctly with your professional experience, this will automatically place you as an authority in your industry, In the eyes of your customers and of course clear their doubts. When they decide to buy, they’ll come straight to you.
   Make sure to make adequate research on questions your prospects are asking before writing on them. A very effective tool to help you with this is www.answerthepublic.com

2. Call-to-actions at the end of your articles can convert readers into leads: Now that you have enlightened your prospects, they are satisfied with your tips and answers to their questions, this is the best time to convert the visitor into a lead. A lead is a means of keeping in touch with a prospect, it could be their phone number or email. It’s always best to request emails. But you cannot just say give me your email right? Offer them something for free in return often, these could be things like free ebooks, free whitepapers, free fact sheets, free webinars, free trials … basically, any content asset for which someone would be willing to exchange their information.
   With this, you can follow up via email marketing to nudge them to buy what you are selling.
   Tip: Make sure what you are offering in return for leads is related to the article they just read.Note: Not every reader of your blog will become a lead. That’s okay. No one converts 100% of the people who read their blog into leads. Just get blogging, put calls-to-action on every blog post
3. Increase your social media presence: When visitors have read your article and it adds value to them, the next thing they usually would want to do is to share it with their friends and followers. This will go a very long way to increase your website traffic and of course leads, which then convert to massive sales. Like you already know, almost all of your target audience is on social media. This is another awesome way to be in their face without spending on Ads.
   Tip: Add social share buttons, before and after your article to make it easy for your readers to share the article with their friends and followers.
4. The effort you put in yesterday can turn into hundreds of thousands of views and leads in the future: When it comes to blogging, most of your leads will likely come from your older posts.
   According to Hubspot(A leading online marketing school and platform) says “about 70% of the traffic each month on their blog comes from posts that weren’t published in the current month“.So this is a matter of compounding results, Unlike WhatsApp or other platforms, where your posts disappear after 24 hrs or go down to the bottom where they can’t be found by new visitors, your Blog articles are evergreen. As far as they answer relevant questions, they will continue to attract new visitors and prospects.
5. Google will refer more prospects and customers to you: How does this work?  let me explain in the easiest to understand terms;When you post an article on the internet and make it available for public viewing, google and other search engines will send their bots(Automated software) to read the article and index it(file it up), then wait for someone to ask any question related to that article. Immediately anyone does, they’ll show them the article in that list, but if the article does not add value, and the reader bounces out of your website and comes back to ask the same question they’ll know the article is not relevant, so it will be pushed down from the top to the bottom.

   But If a reader is satisfied by the answer gotten from your posts, then your article is shown to more people looking for the same answers, your posts begin to rank higher in the searches.

   So you see, with a well-researched article and topic with relevant keywords, you can make google refer customers to you without necessarily paying for Ads.

These are just some of the importance of having a regularly updated blog on your website and how it can massively increase your sales. Whether you are a small business or an entrepreneur and do not have much money to pay for marketing or you have a big business and spend a lot monthly on marketing every month, A regularly updated Blog can go a long way to double even triple your sales both long term and short term

If you are enlightened now and know that your website needs a blog or you don’t know how to write articles that will rank on search engines, then message me, I have just the perfect solution for you.

Have a wonderful day, see you soon…