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If you own a business, the words digital marketing will not be strange to you. It has been floating around since the introduction of the internet and even social media. Many successful businesses quickly realize the potential of digital marketing and have incorporated it into their marketing campaigns.

You can grow your business with digital marketing because it’s quite possible. Competition amongst brands is tough. With several businesses fighting to attract and retain customers, you must explore all the options available to dominate the competition.

Digital marketing can make it possible for your business. This article explores the importance of digital marketing for small businesses and how to incorporate it.

Check it out:

What Can Digital Marketing Do?

One of the reasons why you need to grow your business with digital marketing is that it helps level the playing field. One factor that discourages some business owners from launching a particular product or service is that other businesses are on it.

With digital marketing, you don’t need to worry about that. It gives your business a fighting opportunity to make more revenue and improve your bottom line. You can compete with some of the biggest brands in your niche and still thrive.

Digital marketing also introduces another stream of income for your business. Most brands focus on traditional marketing (TV, radio, magazines, radio, billboards) for their target audience. While that may be efficient, they tend to forget the potential of digital marketing.

Around 5.03 billion people use the internet today, and you must capture the demographic interested in your business. With the development of online marketing, you direct one additional revenue source for your business.  

Why Use Digital Marketing?

One of the core reasons why you should grow your business with digital marketing is that it is cost-effective in the long run. The cost of running billboard placements, TV and radio ads, and magazine publications is quite expensive. Small businesses will not be able to afford these services.

With digital marketing, you can promote your business – even if you’re on a budget. No matter your marketing budget, you can incorporate digital marketing to promote your products and services uniquely.

Another reason digital marketing grow your business is that it gives you a wide reach. Most of your target audience uses smartphones, PCs, and the internet daily. Digital marketing doesn’t just target your local audience but gives you a global reach.

Another reason why you should use digital marketing? Well, your competitors are already doing it.

Types of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing comes in different forms. When most or all of them are deployed together, you will garner a lot of leads, engagements, and revenue and expand your business in ways you haven’t thought of.

The types of digital marketing campaigns include:

● SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) is optimizing the content on your website to give it more visibility during an organic search. It involves keyword research, great content structure, interlinking, content indexing, and many more.

● PPC. Pay-per-click (PPC) refers to promoting content that is paid to show up during searches.

● Content marketing. This refers to using content and information to promote your business. It involves content in various forms, including text, images, videos, podcasts, webinars, tutorials, and many more.

● Email marketing. This involves promoting awareness about your products and services via email to your followers.

● Mobile marketing. This is a series of targeted marketing campaigns for people using smartphones.

● Affiliate marketing. This is a form of promoting a product or service by exploring its features and sharing a link for readers to get them. People who share product links get a commission on sales.

● Social media marketing. This form of marketing is targeted to users on social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and many more.

Digital Marketing vs Traditional Marketing

Regarding capturing your target audience, there are two major forms of marketing: digital vs traditional marketing.

Traditional marketing, in layman’s terms, is marketing strategies without the aid of the internet. It’s the oldest form of marketing. Major businesses typically incorporate traditional marketing to target a local audience.

Some of its forms include:

● TV commercials.

● Radio ads.

● Newspaper placements.

● Magazine placements.

● Billboards and fliers.

● Telephone calls.

● Text messages.

On the other hand, digital marketing grow your business by taking advantage of the internet and technology. These strategies target people using smartphones, tablets, and PCs.

Examples of digital marketing include:

● Social media marketing

● Product reviews

● SEO

● PPC

● Email marketing

● Content marketing

● Podcasts

● Website content.

Traditional marketing is more expensive to implement but less effective. You won’t have to spend much on digital marketing to see the results. Another difference between digital marketing vs traditional marketing is that the reach can be either local, national, or global for digital marketing.

Whereas the reach for traditional marketing is somewhat local.

How Can Digital Marketing Benefit Businesses?

There are several ways digital marketing grow your business. They include:

● Measurable results. With digital marketing, you can track your campaign’s profitability in real-time. Thus, you can analyze its significance and formulate a better campaign. You can track your progress using analytic tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Data Studio.

● Increase in ROI. Digital marketing increases your ROI in ways you never imagined. Your profits will be unexpectedly enormous if your campaigns are effective.

● Build awareness. Digital marketing is beneficial in building awareness for your business. It also helps create a unique community of people who love your products and services.

● Cost-effective. Digital marketing is cost-effective compared to traditional marketing. Moreover, it’s bound to generate more revenue for your business.

● Brand image. Digital marketing can also help improve your brand image, establishing your business against competitors.

Importance of Digital Marketing for Small Business

There are several importance of digital marketing for small businesses. These importance include:

● It’s less expensive compared to traditional marketing.

● Establishes your brand name and makes you stand out from the competition.

● Helps you target local customers directly.

● Helps you to track and monitor your business’s digital activities.

● Build your social media community.

How to Do Digital Marketing for Local Business

Digital marketing can remarkably promote your local businesses. Below are simple things you can do to establish digital marketing for your local business.

● Create a Google My Business listing and update all the information.

● Create a website for your business.

● Create social media pages for your business.

● Use social media to target an audience in your local area.

● Allow customers to give feedback.

● Invest in high-quality web and social media content.

● Maintain a great customer relationship

● Measure your marketing campaign effectiveness with web analytics tools.

What Is Business to Business Digital Marketing?

Business to business digital marketing refers to marketing campaigns focused on a business from another.

In this form of marketing, businesses promote their products and services to other businesses and organizations. B2B digital marketing aims to make other businesses familiar with a brand and its services.

For instance, your vendor providing you with supplies for your business is engaged in B2B marketing. If that vendor takes their business digitally, they’re involved in business to business digital marketing.

Get the Best Digital Marketing Services for Your Business

If you want to incorporate digital marketing into your business, you need to contact a professional service to handle the task.

Abstrax Web is a leading digital marketing organization tasked with helping small and large businesses dominate their niche. Our services include web design and development, content marketing, graphic design, SEO, PPC, and more.

Reach out to us to see how we can help your business.

Your website is the bridge between your prospective customer and your business. It contains details such as your product pages, services, the mission and vision of your brand, and even contact information.

Thus, it’s essential to have a website in today’s digital world. But here’s where the problem lies. You may already have a website, but it’s not generating the traffic you want. Thus, your digital marketing efforts may not yield positive results.

It’s enough to question if you need a new website for your brand. There are several reasons your website may not generate leads, increase revenue, and improve your bottom line.

This article explores when you need a new website for your brand. Let’s jump right in.

How to Know When You Need a New Website

Smartphone users tend to replace their devices every few years. The reason behind this could be preferences, outdated features, or performance issues. All of these reasons contribute to their buying decisions and habits.

It’s the same thing with websites. You might need a new website if your website isn’t performing to the set metrics. For instance, if your website takes a long time to load completely, your potential visitors will be unsatisfied and leave.

You will deal with back office issues such as low leads and sales. One of the importance of a good website for business is that customers will not leave your website until they fulfill a marketing objective.

If your website isn’t generating the results it should, then you need a new website.

Reasons Why You Need a New Website

You might need a professional website for your business for several reasons. That’s because great websites do not encounter any of these issues. We will explore why you need to contact a web developer for a new website.

These reasons include:

Conversion Rate Is Low

Higher conversion rates are one of the excellent features of a great website. The conversion rate is the number of leads that complete a brand objective. For a news website, that objective could be subscribing to a newsletter.

For an educational or informational website, that objective could be downloading a whitepaper, tutorial, or project template. For a website that displays product sales, the objective could be customers placing an order or increasing their average purchase order.

If none of these objectives are met, the conversion rate will be low. And you can actually track your conversion rates using analytic tools like Google Analytics.

High Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is defined as the percentage of single-page viewers on your website. This is a metric you should consider if your website is performing how it should or not.

Bounce rate happens when users visit your website in search of information. If the landing page doesn’t present them with relevant details, they might not further their curiosity by clicking another page.

Thus, if your website design and content aren’t appealing enough, they might simply leave your website. A higher bounce rate means plenty of people leave your website after visiting one page.

You need a new website if you experience a high bounce rate.

Business Priorities and Goals Have Changes

Business priorities tend to change over time. It’s something digital marketers have come to experience. For instance, if you’re thinking of expanding your business digitally beyond your local sphere, you might need a new website with all the add-ons and functionalities.

Launching a new website allows you to expand your target audience, get more feedback, introduce new products, and make more profits for your brand. Your old website may be difficult to implement those changes.

If your website doesn’t reflect who you are, it will be difficult for customers to relate. It will be difficult for them to patronize your products if your website doesn’t align with your services. Thus, if your business goals have changed, you need a new website to match those adjustments.

Not Mobile-Friendly

The majority of your target audience uses a smartphone to access the internet. In fact, about 50% of website visits come from mobile devices. Thus, if your website isn’t optimized for mobile devices, you will miss out on potential leads and sales.

Older websites aren’t optimized for mobile phones. Thus, when these visitors land on your website, the view is set to desktop mode. Navigating websites with such views will be unsatisfactory to a mobile user who will leave.

Another factor you need to consider is that search engines typically gauge their ranking metrics from a smartphone standpoint. So, if your website is only optimized for PCs, it will be difficult for it to rank for targeted keywords.

This should be a major reason to consider a new website for your business.

Slow Page Speed

Have you ever clicked on a website link and discovered it’s taking too long to load? You may think it’s a faulty internet connection, but the underlying reason is the slow website loading speed.

This often throws people off. You need to consider that not everyone is patient with a website with a slow loading speed. After 3 to 5 seconds and your website doesn’t load, they won’t hang around. They will visit other websites that load quickly.

Heavy website graphics, plenty of widgets, and several customizations can slow down your website’s loading time, leading to higher bounce rates.

You need a new website if you experience this.

It’s Difficult to Update Your Website

If your website is difficult to update, you might need a new one. One of the importance of a professional website is that you can easily update it without contacting a web developer every time.

For instance, blog and service pages are essential additions every website should have. If you can update your website to include those features, you need a new website.

Content management systems like Hubspot, WordPress, and SquareSpace allow web admins to add customizations and additions to their websites without learning to code. If your website is difficult to update content, then you might want to ditch it for a new and better one.

Outdated Website

Does your website look and feel like it’s from 2008? Then you might need a new website. The era of flashy graphics, animations, and fonts is long gone. These days, less is more. A website should be minimalist yet sophisticated and updated for the best results.

Maybe your website isn’t that terrible in design. But if it falls short of current trends, no visitor would love to engage it. The problem with outdated websites is that it is difficult to update.

So, it’s recommended to ditch it entirely for a new one.

How Can I Create a New Website?

We have learned that having a new website will prevent you from dealing with the above mentioned issues. So, how do you create one?

Follow these simple steps:

● Make a plan for your website. This should include your website structure and content.

● Register a domain name.

● Find a website or CMS provider to create your website.

● Optimize it for a search engine to locate it.

● Launch your website.

If you don’t know how to create a website, you should contact a professional web developer to handle it. Abstrax Web is a leading web development consultancy tasked with revamping and upgrading websites and brands.

Our services cut across web design, architecture, content marketing, SEO implementations, and many more.

Reach out to us to see how we can help your business.

One of the essential steps in your digital marketing is conducting an SEO audit on your website. Digital marketing doesn’t end with creating a website. You must ensure your web pages turn up on search engine result pages (SERPs).

More so, you need to ensure that your website ranks above your competitors and gets the required traffic it deserves. Regarding SEO auditing, your website needs to be crawled by a pagecrawler.

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is one of the emerging content crawlers that web developers deploy to scan a website for technical issues.

So, how long does Screaming Frog take to crawl a website? According to the information on their website, the eCommerce crawler takes over two days to crawl a website containing one million pages at the rate of five URLs per second.

All of these might sound strange to you. That’s why we will explore everything you need to know about a spider crawling your website with this article. Let’s jump right in.

What Is Screaming Frog?

Screaming Frog is an innovative site crawler that roams through both small and big websites to discover technical issues that may be affecting SEO performance. Some of its features include finding broken links that might negatively impact your bottom line.

Screaming Frog also crawl up websites to analyze page titles, meta descriptions, and other metadata to search for anomalies. It also visualizes your site architecture and content hierarchy, showing you how each web page interlinks with others in real-time.

When your website isn’t properly organized, you might have issues with ranking higher during an organic search. While Screaming Frog crawls down your website, it will reveal these issues to you, so you can amend them for the best results.

We will explore more of that in the article.

What is Site Crawler?

Site crawlers, or SEO spiders, are bots that crawl through every web page. The goal of a site crawler is to understand what a web page is all about. So that when such information is needed by a user, it can easily fetch it.

Google has site crawlers that access millions of websites within seconds and provide relevant content during an organic search. When you search for something on Google, you almost get the value for your search within the first few results. That’s because Google crawl down through each site to reveal relevant content to users.

Spider crawling can be likened to librarians on the internet. When you see something, they quickly point you in the right direction with links.

Difference Between Site Crawling and Site Indexing

People often mistake site crawling and indexing as the same or use them interchangeably. However, they’re different.

Site crawling is discovering all the web pages in a website(s). On the other hand, site indexing deals with analyzing, organizing, and storing these pages in a database for organic search.

At the back of a textbook, you’d find indexes of topics revealing the pages where you can find them. Indexing can only be done after crawling is complete. During organic searches, Google’s bots, crawlers, or SEO spiders crawl your website for tracking purposes. After crawling your site, these bots analyze and put the results on an index (web search).

Thus, website crawling and indexing is a step-by-step process. Think of it like this:

Pagecrawlers discover all your website URLs. Indexing involves analyzing everything inside your website URLs, including the heading, page title, meta tags, alt tags, sub crawls, and other details.

Reasons to Use a Site Crawler

You need to use a site crawler for your website for several reasons. They include:

● Find broken links. Spider crawlers can discover if some URLs on your website are broken. More times, you may not be aware that your website is struggling with this issue.

● Analyze page titles and meta data. Site crawlers crawl down your website to analyze all the meta data of all your website pages. You can easily spot information that is too long, too short, missing, or duplicated across your web pages.

● Generate sitemaps. SEO spider also helps create sitemaps for your website. It’s a file containing all your web links and important information about your site.

● Allow you to understand outside perceptions about your website. Spider Frog SEO also provides information on how Google sees your entire website. It’s essential to know whether your digital marketing is commensurate with objectives. They can also keep track of social media crawlers to learn about what is being said about your website.

● Discover redirects. You can seamlessly find temporary or permanent redirects on your website with crawlers.

● Discover spam. Site crawlers can help you discover malware and spam links on your website.

● Keep track of industry trends. Crawlability testing provides you with insights to keep up with industry trends. These crawlers can link your web analytic tools to provide more data and insights.

These benefits are some of the reasons why you should deploy spider crawl for your website.

How to Use Screaming Frog Site Crawler

To take advantage of Screaming Frog, download and install the SEO Spider on your computer or laptop. This software is available for macOS, Ubuntu, and Windows devices.

After downloading the file, follow the installation prompts to install it on your device. The free tool is designed to crawl 500 URLs on your website. However, if your website contains more, you can buy a license, which removes the limit.

A username and key will be provided when you buy the license, which should be entered under License > Enter License Key. Entered correctly, it will show you the expiry date. You should now close and restart the software to get access to its premium features.

There are some actions you should carry out:

● Memory & Storage Set-up. You shouldn’t worry about this step if you’re using the free version. Just go to start to crawl your website. However, if you’re using a licensed version, you should set up a storage location on your PC. Go to Configuration > System > Storage Mode and select Database Storage Mode. This only works if you use SSD storage. If you don’t, stick to RAM storage.

● Crawl. There are two methods to crawl a site. You can simply enter the URL of the site and click Start. It will crawl down and perform an SEO audit on the link and all hyperlinks associated with the URL. It will also provide the crawl date, speed crawl, URLs crawled, and the remaining URLs to be crawled. The second method is pasting a list of URLs to be crawled. Click Mode > List to upload or paste a list of URLs.

● Viewing Crawl Data. As it begins to crawl the URL(s), you will see all the corresponding URLs attached to that link. You can scroll up, down, and right to see all the information. You can spot potential errors and issues on the links when you click the overview tab.

Why Is Screaming Frog Slow?

Screaming Frog may crawl a website with fewer pages within minutes. However, it might take a lot of time to crawl down the site if it’s a large eCommerce website. Admittedly, you’d see the software as slow. Most times, it results in Screaming Frog connection timeout.

Crawling your website puts a lot of load on the website server. It’s one of the significant reasons it slow crawls websites with over 10,000 pages. Another reason is that the default crawling speed is set to 5 URLs/seconds. So, you might experience Screaming Frog not crawling all URLs within a short time.

How Do You Speed Up Screaming Frog Crawl?

So, how do you speed crawl your website, especially if it contains thousands of pages? Follow these tips:

Increase Screaming Frog Crawl Speed

The default crawling speed is set to 5 URLs per second. You can increase the speed crawl of the software. All you need to do is:

● Click Configuration > Speed.

● Increase the Max Threads from 5 to either 50, 100, 200, or 500.

● Click OK.

You should consider that setting higher speed crawl limits will increase the HTTP request made to your website server. This action could impact the website’s response time. So, put it to a considerable limit that won’t affect your website server.

Increase Screaming Frog Memory Limit

You can also increase the crawling speed of Screaming Frog by increasing its memory limit. The default limit is set to access 512 MB of RAM. You can increase that. Follow these tips:

● Right-click the software on your PC and select Open File Location.

● Open the file named ‘ScreamingFrogSEOSpider.l4j’ with your Notepad.

● The file contains two lines of text. Locate the text named –Xmx512M.

● You should edit it by adding 1024 for every 1 GB you want the software to have access to. So, if you want it to have access to 2 GB of your memory, add 2048 to the text. So, it will be –Xmx2048M. Save the file when you’re done.

These will increase the allocated space it will have access to and will speed crawl URLs.

Conclusion

Spider crawling your website is essential to spotting technical errors and issues affecting your SEO performance. With these tips, we believe you’d be able to get your website on track.