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Building an online business sounds like a dream: From the comfort of your own office, you can reach out to potential customers anywhere in Malaysia – or the world, even! However, it is easier said than done. Once your website and online store is set up, it doesn’t mean people will flock to your site naturally. How can you attract people to your site and boost your brand’s recognisability?

Digital marketing is your answer! This relatively new branch of marketing encompasses areas like social media marketing, online ads, and search engine optimisation. If you want to make your brand seen and heard online, you need to invest in at least some of these marketing strategies.

Here are some of the broad principles you need to keep in mind when you embark on a digital marketing strategy:

Market research

Know yourself, and know your enemies. Be super familiar with the products or services you are providing, and think of how you would position it to your target audience. How will you set yourself apart from your competitors, and capture the attention of potential customers?

You will also need to be aware of what your competitors are doing. What are the strategies that worked, and what didn’t? Learn from them, and yet distinguish your brand from them.

Finally, you need to get a keen sense of what your audience wants. What are their concerns? Tap into the consumer mindset to determine how best you should reach out to them with marketing that is relatable and attractive to them.

Content is king

A huge part of digital marketing is dependent on your content. People are online to search for information or entertainment – so make sure your content fulfils that! If your content is useful and engaging, it naturally draws people to it. If it is good enough, people will even share it with others, which gives you even more exposure.

Your content can be in the form of blog posts, or audiovisual sharings on social media sites. The content that your brand gravitates to will depend on your brand image and target audience.

Apart from striving for high-quality content, search engine optimisation is another aspect you can’t leave out. This helps your content reach the right audience when they enter relevant search terms.

Build customer relations

Today’s consumers want brands that feel like a friend to them. They expect the brand to have personality, and that the brand will respond and interact with them. Thus, you can’t overlook the importance of building customer relations through online channels.

This means having easily accessible chat widgets on your site, and being highly responsive to messages on all your platforms. Consumers also love to see customer reviews, as it shows them what people are saying about the brand, and creates a sense of community.

You can incorporate a brand voice to make your business more recognisable and likeable, as well. Whether you choose to stick to a safe, approachable tone, or inject some witty humour, make sure it extends across your platforms.

Consistency

This brings us to a crucial overarching principle: consistency. In one sense, it means uniformity across your communication platforms. Incoherence will make audiences feel confused and give the impression of a disorganised business. On the other hand, a coherent branding across your online accounts will give a stronger impression.

Another meaning to consistency is the frequency of online activity. Digital marketing requires consistent work to continually keep your brand at the top of your audience’s minds. You don’t want to be too overzealous to the point of being spammy, but you’ll want frequent enough updates on your social media accounts, blogs, and e-mail newsletters to remind your audience that you’re still there.

These 4 principles can be easily extended to any internet marketing strategy you employ, from social media marketing to SEO. If you would like to find out more about concrete strategies you can take to elevate your brand’s online presence, you can take up an internet marketing course, or engage the help of professional SEO experts.

Technology has truly taken marketing to another level. Gone are the days when having a simple brick and mortar shop was enough to attract customers. Online presence is essential now for any existing business or a new start-up. Digital marketing has taken the business industry by storm and globalisation is helping businesses reach consumers all over the world. This is no different from internet marketing in Malaysia.

For example, if you would like to buy a new washing machine, what would be your first step of research? By now, you would go to Google and search for “best washing machine”, ” top brands of a washing machine,” or “things to check before buying a washing machine,” etc. These are just some examples of phrases that you would type in displaying the first page of your search results!

To compete with competitors, your company has to show up on the first page of search results to have a high chance of the user visiting your website or knowing about your store. Google has an algorithm which filters the search results and throws up the best ones for any user; this process of optimising search results is called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Simply put, it is the process of making your website attractive and user-friendly so that it can feature in the top search results on Google. SEO in Malaysia has also benefitted many businesses in appearing on the first page of Google.

With an understanding of what SEO is, let’s look at how the impact of search ranking can help to boost your business.

Filters the Users

The traditional way of marketing has always been about print media, advertisements, marketing emails and cold calling potential customers. In this way, there is no way for you to filter out the kind of people that would ultimately buy your product. With SEO, it helps you do subtle marketing of your product without disturbing the end user’s schedule.

Should your website appear in the first pages of search results, it is much more likely for the user to access your website and end up buying your services. These users who get attracted by your website, blogs and content are more likely to remain loyal to your brand.

Increasing Sales Numbers

If you begin working on SEO marketing over time, your ranking on the search results page would inevitably climb up. Once your brand features in the first couple of pages of search results, it is likely that a user is going to access your website, leading to more sales or potential leads. This can help you in increasing your sales numbers, allowing you to make more profit and help you grow your brand in the industry.

Pocket-Friendly Marketing

SEO marketing is considered to be the most pocket-friendly way of marketing your products at a comparatively lower cost. Any print media or outdoor marketing requires businesses to invest money into advertising, and the results of such marketing are not usually guaranteed.

In SEO marketing, to make your website attractive to users and Google, there are steps you can take. For example, hiring freelance writers to create content and input appropriate keywords into posts. Initially, you will be required to invest a small amount of money in boosting the traffic to your website. After this initial cost, after finding out what your potential customers like, you can start saving money. The easiest way to retain and garner more traffic is to keep updating your website and make small changes along the way to keep your brand on the first page of Google search results.

On average, people of the world make 3.5 million searches on Google every single day. Just think about what people are searching for – somewhere out there, someone is bound to be searching for a product or service that is exactly what your business offers! The issue is this: Are these people able to find your business online when they search for these products or services?

You may have noticed how Google and other search engines list webpages on their search engine results page (SERP). Companies that can afford to pay for search engine marketing (SEM) will have their ads placed at the top of the page, and the first page is typically dominated by big names as well.

So, how do you get your business’ page up the ranks so that people are more likely to see your webpage? That’s where search engine optimisation (SEO) comes in. While there are many aspects to SEO, here are just a few things you might want to take note of when implementing SEO strategies for your webpage. 

1. Audience engagement

These days, customers want brands to feel personable and genuine. Thus, brands that engage actively with their audience are the ones that perform the best amongst the new generation of consumers. You can facilitate easier interaction with prospective customers by having a quick chat widget on your webpage.

Incorporating a section where your brand’s customer reviews are displayed can also show your audience that you value their feedback. Google reviews, especially, play a part in your page’s ranking. So, make it a point to request that your customers leave reviews for you after they’ve patronised your business.

2. Make your website mobile-friendly

Today, mobile searches take up a huge slice of the pie of online searches. People are no longer limited to searching on their desktops or laptops, but more are searching using their mobile devices while on the go.

Thus, it is crucial to ensure that your webpage is mobile-friendly so that it displays and responds well on mobile platforms. The risk of not doing so is that consumers will be deterred from visiting your site due to the poor user experience. At worst, a mobile-unfriendly page won’t be ranked highly on the SERP, and will suffer from a lack of traffic.

3. Include graphics & videos

One factor that affects your page ranking is the amount of time visitors stay on your site. Interesting and relevant graphics and videos are a brilliant way to invite audiences to spend more time on your webpage.

It is also important to remember that ultimately, your site is for your customers. So, any content and media on your website should be easy on the eyes and relevant to their needs or interests. In other words, another word of caution is this: Don’t overdo it!

4. Pay attention to loading speed

In this day and age where technology has made so many things so convenient and fast, consumers value efficiency. If a website is taking longer to load than they expect, they may give up waiting altogether and visit another website to find what they are looking for.

When doing up your website, make it a point to do a speed test. There are plenty of online tools that help you do this. If your webpage suffers from a long loading time, you may need to make some adjustments like having fewer videos, optimising images, and streamlining the code of your website.

5. Hone your keywords

Keywords are one of the seemingly simple ways to perform SEO – but not many people know how to implement effective keyword strategies. One good way to approach it is to think like a consumer. What search term would you type to look for a good dinner place near you? Rather than a generic word like ‘restaurants’, you are more likely to key in a phrase like ‘good restaurants in (area name)’.

These are precisely the type of keywords you should be having in your website content. Having the right keywords positions your site as being relevant to the search query, and gives your page more likelihood of appearing near the top of the SERP.

These 5 tips only just scratch the surface when it comes to SEO techniques. If you would like to learn more about effective practices for internet marketing in Malaysia, it will be a good idea to enrol in an SEO course to equip yourself with the most up-to-date strategies. Alternatively, you can leave your site’s SEO in the hands of internet marketing professionals like us here who will take care of it for you!

Digital Technology has taken over the service industry by storm, and the internet has managed to make the world your audience. For example, an entrepreneur anywhere in the world can sell his products to anyone on the other side of the globe. As such, this has made internet marketing prominent for companies all over the world. Anyone searching for any information today would search it on Google first before asking their neighbours or loved ones.

Do you have a good, competitive product but just aren’t getting noticed? This can be simply because you are not being featured on the first page of Google search results.

Being on the first page matters significantly, and you should always work towards getting your brand’s name to appear on the first page of the Google search engine. With that said, let’s take a look at some of the most useful tips for online search rankings.

Deciding on your keywords

The term Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is used very frequently today when it comes to writing content, blogs, newsletters, and more. SEO is when you align the content on your website with the search engine ranking factor. This plays a crucial role in getting your rankings up on the Google search engine, even if it is in SEO Malaysia or SEO on a global scale.

Keywords are the answer to all SEO-friendly content. As such, you should think like the consumer of your product. For example, which word or phrase would he or she type into the search engine? Your keywords should vary from page-to-page to ensure that there is no overlapping in search results. Including the correct keywords in blog titles and domain URL makes a huge difference in ranking your website.

Utilising innovative content

In many ways, your consumer is your boss, and to keep your boss happy, you have to come up with new creative ideas to market your products and services. Similarly, the content that you upload on your website should be accurate and updated regularly.

Your blog, content and testimonials should be able to capture the consumer’s interest, making it the prime reason for the customer to come back to your website for information and more.

User-Friendly

Making sure your website is consumer-friendly is a top priority. It should be easy to navigate and allow the consumer to retrieve the information in just a few clicks. The design of your website is essential, and it is a requisite for it to be worked on. If the process of getting information is confusing and requires a lot of clicks, the consumer might get bored and look for alternate websites.

The above tips are just some ways in which you can improve your website’s rankings when it comes to Google search results. The ultimate aim is for your company to feature high on the first page. If you are opening a new venture, you can employ these Malaysia internet marketing tips to help you reach the first page. It will take time and creative thinking, but it is possible!

In today’s age, it’s all about the digital world. You could sell your product whilst sitting at home to a global audience – without having to invest a penny for a physical store.

Technology has taken marketing to a completely different level, and by seeing the increasing use of social media platforms – it’s fair to say that it would be overtaking all modes of advertising in no time.

The social media platform caters to a diverse and widespread global audience and increases your chances of earning higher revenue in a short time. Not having a social media presence would only hamper your chances of making your business reach new heights. Below, we have put together several reasons that’ll tell you why your business should start working on your online visibility.

Brand recognition

When your business is budding and young; this is the time when social media platforms play a very important role in online marketing.

These platforms provide your startup with a global audience who would get introduced to your product. Almost 70% of the young generation has Facebook and Instagram profiles and login to their social media account once a day; with this kind of customer base, it is easy for you to create awareness about your brand with regular updates on your social media page.

Likewise, SEO in Malaysia is just as important as social media marketing. Both of them have to go hand in hand with each other to boost your online visibility. So, if you need the expertise from a professional – engage a marketing agency for help!

Pocket-friendly

There are various types of advertising that a brand can indulge to reach a wider audience; before the social media storm took over digital marketing business houses catered to print media, television commercials and radio commercials to reach a wider audience.

These mediums of marketing require decent funding and are an expensive affair in comparison to social media marketing – which gives you a wider and global audience at a much lesser cost.

You have options of paid social media marketing too, where the platforms like Facebook offer to boost your post to reach a higher number of people at a minimum amount. But before you make your decision – test out these boosts and see if they add traffic to your website, so you get incremental sales.

Keep your customers satisfied

Having a social media presence makes it simpler for your consumer to connect with you in case of any queries or dissatisfaction with services.

It also makes it easier on your end to tend to your customers’ requests and questions. This creates happy customers, and it is said that satisfied customers will never forget a good service provider; they would keep coming back to you and also help in spreading a good word of mouth resulting in new customers.

This also helps in giving your brand a name in the industry for giving timely service and having loyal customers. Social media platforms also have a human touch; the comments posted are more personal and not computer generated, which creates a bond with the customer.

Higher rankings

Social media also helps your brand to be visible on the first page of Google search results. Creative and catchy content with apt keywords ensures that your brand will become visible on the first page of search results.

In other words, when a user is looking for a service – let’s say they’re interested in flower delivery services, and that’s your core business operation; your page will immediately pop up first because of excellent online visibility. In this way, you’re creating more business opportunities and profiting from all the online orders.

If you’re still having a hard time doing Internet marketing in Malaysia – look around for some courses and sign up for them! It’ll teach you a lot more about this all-new marketing method and get your business thriving.

These are a few advantages of being on social media – including an increase in visitors on your website, engaging customers and understanding the market, data analytics which show the customer trend, and so on. That said, it’s time to work on your online visibility and make your business much more successful!