Digital marketing has become an essential element in the success of any business, so it’s important to have the right skills to succeed in this field. Because digital marketing encompasses several distinct areas, including search engine optimization, social media management, email marketing and web design, there are many different skills you can develop. This guide breaks down the top 10 skills related to digital marketing and why each one is important for your career as a digital marketer.
1) SEO
Search engine optimization is a constantly evolving process. The most successful SEO campaigns are both organic and systematic. That’s why it’s important for all marketers, no matter where they are in their careers, to understand and develop basic SEO skills. Being able to identify your target audience and drive qualified traffic to your website by utilizing long-tail keywords will set you apart from other digital marketers who rely on short-term gimmicks or one-off attempts at search engine optimization.
2) Keyword Research
Before you even think about creating content, you need to be able to find keywords that people use when they search for what you’re trying to sell. Don’t just take a stab in the dark here—use tools like Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest that can help you figure out which terms people use in search engines. If there are too many keywords and not enough information about each one, cut your list down.
3) Technical SEO
What is Technical SEO? Search engines are great at indexing and ranking text-based content but they struggle with interpreting and understanding non-text based content. In fact, Google gets around 50% of its data from images, videos, and Flash. If you want to rank in image search or on YouTube (and why wouldn’t you?) then you need to learn technical SEO. This set of skills encompasses how search engines interact with multimedia elements on your website.
4) Copywriting
Copywriting is an important skill that every successful digital marketer needs. Good copywriting skills come from experience and practice, as well as an understanding of what motivates people to buy. A skilled copywriter knows how to write engaging, value-driven content for websites and blogs—and more broadly, how to construct effective promotional messages for social media and ad campaigns. Copywriters also understand SEO (search engine optimization) techniques so they can present relevant information in a way that gets noticed by search engines like Google and Bing.
5) Content Strategy
If you’re not familiar with content strategy, it’s a crucial piece of digital marketing. Content strategy is a team function that looks at how your business will create, curate and publish content in order to reach potential customers. If you want to be successful at digital marketing, learn about content strategy early on. Here are some important questions that come up when planning your company’s content strategy: What types of content are appropriate for my audience? What is our brand voice?
6) Inbound Link Building
The term inbound links refers to when a web page or website links to yours. Search engines use these links as a key ranking signal. The more quality inbound links you have pointing at your site, the higher you’ll rank in search results for relevant keywords and phrases. A good SEO strategy can help guide you toward building high-quality inbound links for your website.
7) Website Analytics
Knowing how people use your website is key when it comes to evaluating and improving your digital marketing efforts. Google Analytics is one of the best tools you can use for tracking user behavior on your site, such as what content they view, what pages they spend most time on, where they come from, etc. Your first step should be integrating analytics with your site.
8) Conversion Rate Optimization
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is all about testing your website and various marketing strategies, such as your ad campaigns, landing pages and emails. The goal of CRO is to increase your conversion rates by improving everything on your site that could possibly affect it. Optimizing conversion rates helps you make more money in less time by increasing how many people take a desired action on your site, such as buying an item or filling out a form.
9) Email Marketing
Just like it sounds, email marketing is all about promoting your business through email. It’s a lot more work than social media marketing, but because you have complete control over what’s being sent out, it can be highly targeted and much more effective at generating leads. You can also set up automated sequences that take care of some of the donkey work for you (e.g., weekly emails about special offers or monthly recap emails).
10) UX/UI Design
We often think of these as two different disciplines, but they’re actually very closely related. UX is all about how a digital product feels and works; UI is how it looks. Both UX/UI designers are responsible for creating digital products that look good and are easy to use. They use tools like InVision, Sketch, and Photoshop to create prototypes of new apps and design systems for websites, virtual reality experiences, mobile applications, wearable devices—anything you can think of!