It all starts with having something of interest that people want. Once you know what this is, you need to effectively communicate this offering to your audience. In addition to offline marketing channels e.g. print, TV, billboards, posters, etc., digital offers many more ways to reach consumers.  You need to create branded content including blog posts, videos, white papers, infographics, webinars, etc. that engages your audience.

Tools:

• Content Samurai: Make viral videos in 5 minutes – whether it be for social media or for a blog post. Creating videos has always been a laborious, expensive and highly technical process, in the past it’s really only been available to big businesses with BIG budgets. Content Samurai’s revolutionary new video creation system is SO EASY to use, generating tons of professional videos that produce an avalanche of traffic.
• Hirewriters: Hire quality writers to write content for your site. 

With branded content created, you now need to effectively promote and build brand awareness. This is broken into three main areas:

1. Content SEO: Improve online search ranking by researching keywords (both for your brand and your competitors’), optimising on-page content and link-building.
2. Social Media: Develop social media profiles and share content via Facebook Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
3. Influencers: Get endorsements and product placements from entities with an online presence having expert knowledge and/or large social following

Tools:

• Content Samurai: Make viral videos of your existing blog articles to post to social media or to YouTube.
• SEMrush: A toolkit that offers topic research, SEO content template, SEO writing assistant, Brand monitoring, Post Tracking and Content Audit
• SEO PowerSuite: A desktop application which offers unlimited sites, keywords and backlinks to track.
• WebCEO: Promote your blog across popular blog communities, video and photo sharing, infographic submission, and local business listings.

Similar to paying for ads in newspapers, magazines, TV, etc., you can advertise your brand through:

1. Search Engine Marketing (SEM): This is where you use google adwords and is highly effective for getting people who are searching for something to fulfil an immediate need. For example, finding a dentist for immediate dental work, getting locksmith to unlock your door, etc.
2. Video / Display / Banner Ads: Promote brand awareness as people perform online activities.
3. Paid Social: Run promotions and amplify your message through social media ads.

Tools:

• SEMrush: Pay-per-click (PPC) toolkit to plan, analyze and improve ad campaigns

Having a good business reputation ensures customer loyalty. Moreover, it also impacts whether or not you can acquire new customers. For example, 92% of consumers regularly read online reviews to hear about a business. Of this group, 45% decide to not do business with someone because of something they found in a digital review.

It is important to manage online reviews through social media channels and business listings like Google My Business, Foursquare, Trip Advisor, Yellow Pages, Yelp, etc. 

Managing page rankings is also important as you can activtely promote positive and neutral content and minimize any negative ones. 

Tools:

• Awario: Reputation management
• SEMRush: Move negative reviews or posts out of the first SERP and replace them with positive information

Optimize your website setup to help search engines read website content This includes factors such as improving page loading times, have a mobile responsive site (i.e. content can be easily viewed on mobile devices), having sitemaps in place, not having duplicate content, etc. 

Tools:

• Advanced Web Ranking: A robust software of vital SEO tools. It provides a wide range of optimisation tools which include link building, competitor analysis, link management, keyword optimisation and performance reporting. An invaluable tool to get you on top of search rankings.
• SEMrush: Perform a site audit and monitor your website’s health
• WebCEO: Receive a checklist of your pages and make them search engine friendly. Check your site for broken links and anchors, slow pages, server issues, missing images and inaccessible pages.

Optimize conversion rates by understanding your website’s visitor activity. 

Tools:

• SEMrush: Integrate google analytics and google search console and gain insights against your competitors.
• WebCEO: Combine google analytics with your SEO data.