What is organic online marketing?
Or, what is organic digital marketing?
The two above are the same.
Organic online-digital marketing is the tactics and tools anyone, including novices, can use to help their work show up more online.
FIRST, what organic online marketing will not do
Organic online marketing does not guarantee your site will show up on page 1 of Google search results pages (SERPS). But it can help create that result.
Organic online marketing does not guarantee you’ll get more business, or that more people will pick up the phone and call you or buy more of what you sell. But it can help create this outcome.
Organic online marketing does not guarantee that your work will be positioned as the expertise or ‘best.' But it can help create this impression. It can also share knowledge which demonstrates that you are in fact the expert or number one or best (but it’s 2020 and this is not the age of singular experts).
Organic online marketing should not be manipulated to rig the system in your favor. Not only will you disappoint your audience with irrelevant content, but Google will find out and kick you out. Really (they just don’t like manipulators as much as the next).
Lastly, organic online marketing is not paid advertising. It’s free. But it takes work, time and paid hours if you’re asking someone else to implement for you. But it is not Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. It is not Facebook retargeting. But it helps your site arrive at the top of page results or in front of your viewership because hundreds, or thousands or millions of people have found the content of your site useful and relevant.
Organic online marketing is this
Organic online marketing is the production of and publishing of relevant information pertaining to your business and its services which your target audience will find useful - online.
Organic Online Marketing delivers current content. Content that’s new. “New” here is relative. “New” in this context refers to dates. Not novelty. The date on which you create and post your content online tells the search engines and the audience a freshness date. If your content is novel you can score points for this as well if the content is a ‘trending’ topic. (An online report about the new Tesla Model Y could be trending, for example around the car’s release date. This content is not only new but also novel. A newly dated online report about Benjamin Franklin with common information is not novel, but new if you post it today on your blog).
Organic Online Marketing uses Google My Business
I like Google. And they have an abundant toolshed of resources to help businesses of all sizes. But one of their tools is made for every sized business. This is Google My Business. You can and should use this as thoroughly as possible. This resource allows you to upload images, add descriptive text relevant to your services and products, and link to maps and reviews. On a search result page your Google business listing helps your audience learn more about your content, and helps Google organize your business within the web’s database.
Organic Online Marketing is strategically selecting a vocabulary
This vocabulary is loaded with keywords and phrases that inform your audience as to what you offer and the audience needs. In this case, a topic, a category, a theme or concept. Your organic content contains the same keyword-rich ideas/phrases that your audience may use in order to perform a search: “best digital marketing agency near me.” These keywords and phrases are one of the tools that help your site show up in relevant SERPS (Google search results pages).
As a result of keyword-rich content and the delivery of relevant information which answers people’s questions, organic online marketing has helped shape what we currently know as the world wide web; an interconnected, branch-like linkage from your site to information on other sites and vice versa. A successful branching and linking of information is relevant, related, and valuable for your audience. The web is composed of branches upon branches of interconnectivity linking out from your domain to the domains of others. And these connections move viewers from one piece of information to the next so they get the answers, tools, ideas, and facts they’re looking for. Ie web surfing.
Image via Buzzfeed
And Organic Online Marketing helps your site remain relevant
Within these branches you want your content to be a hot spot. When your site is continually updated with new (and novel if you can) information this helps the search engines understand that you have new content that might need to be shared with an audience. Updating, maintaining and refreshing content helps your audience and search engines understand that your content is relevant. Like at a grocery store, you expect to see new and fresh vegetables each week. You’re more likely to return to that marketplace if each time you return there are new and fresh vegetables. If comparing your content to fresh produce helps you appreciate fresh content, then use this analogy abundantly.
Organic Online Marketing is about frequency
How frequently your content is viewed and for how long, by your audience, helps inform Google of how important and valuable your content is to viewers. Similar to a brick and mortar store, the more people who visit your store the better, and the longer they stay “shopping” the more likely they are to buy something. This activity is called traffic, and search engines love traffic and fresh content. And you should love traffic, too. Because more traffic is an indicator that your content is good. And if your content is good enough to receive a lot of traffic the search engines will favor your work, moving your content up higher up in search results.
Organic Online Marketing can include social
Social is not required but it’s very helpful. Social channels can help drive that traffic to your content. Because every time you get one of your social followers to click your link via your social account, you’re driving more traffic.
Organic Online Marketing also includes things called referral links and backlinks
A referral link comes from your domain and refers or directs your audience to more (relevant, valuable, trustworthy) information that helps them in some way. Backlinks are exactly what they sound like: links from other domains linking back to your site. These backlinks are super valuable because they tell those search engines that your fresh content is good enough for another domain to send their traffic your way.
Organic Online Marketing 2.0
When you’re ready to really step it up a notch - guess what. You can track all this hard work. Actually, there are tools (of course) that can help you track all this hard work which is hopefully leading to something called conversions. When you’ve set up all the pieces online to reach out to your audience and they actually do make it to your site and take action (buy something, contact you for your services, download one of your tools) you’ve converted them. And since it’s super important to understand what steps they took in order to perform that action, (so you replicate that process for more conversions) you may one day want to use a tool like Any. Track. While I receive zero compensation for linking out to third parties tools, I will say I’ve exchanged many an email with the founder, Laurent and he’s already taught me a lot. Check ‘em out.
Take-Aways
Build relevant, trustworthy, keyword-rich content
Update your site with new content frequently
Drive traffic to your site so search engines understand that an audience finds your information valuable
Repeat steps 1-4
Drive traffic - again
Don’t manipulate the web
Step it up a notch and start tracking your converted customers