【自分用】Digital Marketing Essentials
Digital Marketing Foundations
<Technical Terms>
Domain name: the name of a website
URL (Uniform Resource Locator): the unique identifier used to locate a resource on the internet
Server: a computer connented to the internet that fulfills information requests to the website
web browser: a software that displays web pages; Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc..
IP (Internet Protocol) Address: used to locate internet-connencted computers and to transfer information from one computer to another
DNS (Domain Name System): manages the translation of domain names to IP addresses so that requests for a specific domain are located to the correct server
web hosting company: a company that provides server space for others to run a website. e.g.) Bluehost, Hostinger
What else they provide are;
security certificate: allows users to access your website without being observed by third parties. Using *TLS (transport layer security) which replaced with SSL (secure sockets layer) enables websites to show "https://~" rather than "http://~", meaning security and safety of the website is guranteed.
*TLS is an encryption methodCMS (Content Management System): enables website owners to create content without having to learn coding languages, such as HTML and JavaScript. e.g.) Wix, WordPress
also helps eCommerce to make a payment gateway and a merchant account
<Successful Website>
Peter Drucker "The purpose of business is to create and keep customers"
AIDA model: Awreness → Interest → Desire → Action
HOW TO:
generating traffic
driving conversions
maximizing revenue per conversions
Traffic
direct traffic: typing the website's URL directly into the browser
already in the Interest or Desire stage, bookmark and app are also considered direct traffic
referral traffic: clicking on a link to the site from another site
Paid referral: e.g. banner ads, text ads, rich media ads, and video ads
Unpaid referral: other than the above
search traffic: clicking on a link to the site from a (SERP) search engine result page
Paid search: ads from the SERP
Unpaid search: links from the organic search (自然検索) results
email traffic: via email
email to customers and potential customers, including links
Conversion: conversion is a target action you wish visitors to take
※Conversion Rate: Nuber of users who performed an action / Total audience of ads *100
Website
Web Design
<Principles of Good Web Design>
Design for Usability
Steve Krug "Don't Make Me Think: A common Sense Approach to Web Usability"
should be aimed at "billboards" (e.g. bestbuy.com) rather than "brochure" (e.g. amazon.com)
Follow website conventions: immitate the arrangement of buttons
Create effective visual hierarchies: more important things should be larger and higher up on the page
Break pages up into clearly defiend areas: adentify an area of the site first, so they can drill down within that area
Make it obvious what's clickable: not make it ambiguous
Eliminate distractions: prone to clutter, so remove them
Format content to support scanning: make paragraphs short, use bulleted lists
As indicated above, not necessarily to be creative, just following these principles and user experience itself.
Conversion-Centered Design
Attention: What is your CTA (call to action)?
Context: Where are site visitors coming from?
Clarity: Is it clear what the web page is about?
Congruence (一致): Do all the words on the web page encourage the conversion or do some words distract potential customers from the desired behavior?
Credibility: Do potential customers have ample reason to believe you can deliver on your promises?
Closing: Use positive messaging close to the desired click reion.
Continuance: Does the customer know they've completed the intended action and are they being encouraged to begin the next conversion?
Three Questions
What are you offering?
Why should I pick you?
What do you want me to do next?
What important is how clearly web page answers these questions, not whether it answers the questions.
Customer Segments
think about personas: having an image of a customer in order to appeal to them strongly
e.g.) 99% of the Netflix web page is all for potential customers, while 1% is for current customers.
Mobile First
If a site that functions well on a mobile device will aslo function well on a larger screens, and mobile traffic has overtaken desktop traffic in volume.
※RWD (Responsive Web Design) is a method of coding elements of a web page to detect the website visitor's screen size and to automatically resize and rearrange those elements to optimize their display.
※Progressive Enhancement (可能な限り多くのユーザーに基本的なコンテンツと機能を提供することを目指す設計哲学) に基づく.
CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)
HOW TO:
e.g. A/B Testing, which provides either A or B webspage to the users so that you can determine which page is better to boost your conversion.
※Should be based on data. Employ user experience tests. Avoid redesign, because it prevents you from learning what was causing the poor performance in the first place.
<Page Elements>
What good web pages should have are;
Navigation (either minimalist like Apple or prominent navigation menu like BestBuy)
Hero Image
Trust Symbols (professional photography, high-quality design, gurantees, accsessible return policies, accsessible privacy policies, secure payment gateway, brand recognitions and awards, testimonials, client logos, pictures of customers using the product or service, video demonstrations, logos & links to organizations with which thecompany is affiliated, readily available contact information providing the company is real, accsessible,detailed product information, positive publicity, social media presense, third party credentials or certifications, and company contact information)
Color Scheme
what is important is not color but contrast.
Buttons
should be included a key button with a CTA (call to action).
Images
don't use untrustworthy pictures.
Video
an unprofessional video is worth than no video.
Forms
include a note that it won't take a long to fiil it out
Phone Numbers
as a website convention has followed, should be located in the upper right corner, especially for lead generation websites whose primary conversion is phone number.
<Landing Pages>
"Never start a campaign without a dedicated landing page"A landing page is a page that a visitor to a site sees. It is associated with marketing campaign, and not required to link to a home page.
However, it should match the ads on three dimensions;
product (or service)
message
visual components
Types of Landing Pages
Single-Product Landing Pages
should be all about the same product
should have product image
should have UVP (Unique Value Proposition)
should have CTA (call to action)
should show how to proceed
should have familiar color scheme & logo
Multi-Product Landing Pages
follow as well as above
what's challenging is how to display multiple products without giving the visitors information overload.
Lead Generation Landing Pages
for example, lead generation web pages should show their phone number in the upper fold, whose primary conversion is lead, including phone call.
Subscription Landing Pages
frequently useing site overlays which is called pop up windows to ask site visitors to subscribe
Single-Purpose Landing Pages
provides a little information, suggesting either entering your emai or leaving.
On-Site SEO
The goal of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is to be a result of many search engine queries.
<Maximizing Relevance>
Some factors that you have to pay attention to are;
URL: words in the URL receive heavy weighting in the calculatoin of relevance, so the target keyword should be in the URL.
Title Tag: it is displayed on the SERP, should be kept in 63 characters long, and is separated by a pipe text ( | symbol). Don't use "Home" as a keyword because it doesn't help the relevance to a search.
Header Tags: it is shown within the HTML code of a website, as header tags (<h1>and</h1>, <h2>and</h2>, or <h3>and</h3>, etc…). And keywords should be in the header 1 tag.
Main Content: the phrase or keywords should only be used when it makes sense to the user. Don't do "keyword stuffing", which is a black-hat SEO tactic and means inserting the keyword intentionally too often
Image Alt Text and File Name: search engine cannot "see" images, as long as AI which is one of the latest advanced technology doesn't recognize them. Alt Text (Alternative text) is a label or tag that indecates the content of the image so that search engines can detect information. It also helps the images rank well by themselves, which can drive additional traffic.
Anchor Text: A search engine uses the anchor text from backlinks (also called internal links) as an objective, third-party description of a web page.
<Choosing Target Search Phrases>
Ranking
A ranking refers to the position the website shows up in the SERP within the organic search result. A ranking above 10 produces almost NO traffic.
The choice of target search pharases should be based on;
Relevance of searh intent
Traffic
A website should target search phrases with a higher level of search traffic. Google's Keyword Planner is one of tools. Others can be SEMRush, https://keywordtool.io/, or even Google Search Console.
Competition
Long tail keywords are multi-word phrases that are extended or more specific versions of a core fat head term. They typically have lower search volume, but they are often more relevant and easier to rank for than more generic terms. Also competitiveness is also lower.
Current ranking
In terms of difficultiy of improving a ranking above 10 as indicated above, it would be required much efforts to improve it. So, you might as well improve a ranking which is as close as possible to 10.
Mapping Keywords to Pages
Search engine calculate the relevance of a keyword phrase to a web page, and not to a website. In general, use both higher-level web pages (homepage or category pages) and more specific keyword phrases with lower-level web pages (subcategory pages or product pages). Avoid to optimize multiple pages for the same keyword (which is called "keyword cannibalization", causing poor performance in a ranking).