Women and online marketing: 4 tips for using the Internet to grow your business

It’s safe to say women have made their mark in the business world over the years. Mary Katherine Goddard was the first woman to open a bookstore back in 1789. Not long after, Rebecca Pennock Lukens became the first female CEO of an industrial company. Both women made waves in a business world that wasn’t quite ready for them.

In the modern day, women have been breaking into the work force at a much faster rate. As of 2010, about 60 percent of women age 16 and older were in the workforce, compared to just 25 percent in 1952. Women like Mary Kay Ash (founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics) and Sara Blakely (creator of Spanx and the youngest female self-made billionaire) have broken molds and inspired other women to capitalize on the power of independence, determination and hard work.

In an effort to inspire more women, Fathom, a digital marketing and analytics agency, has compiled a list of four simple digital marketing tactics that will impact your company’s bottom line. There are many creative digital marketing tactics to choose from, but these four are quick to implement and impactful. While these tactics are not specific to women, they certainly are key to growing any company’s visibility and revenue online.

Tip 1: Set up Google profiles

Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools are free tracking tools that are easy to implement. Google Analytics enables business leaders to make smart, data-based decisions, and provides data ranging from website traffic to top-converting keywords and landing pages, and more. Google Webmaster Tools allow you to submit XML sitemaps to Google to ensure your Web pages are crawled frequently. It also reports on site load time and crawl errors, which are important components of Google’s algorithm.

Tip 2: Build local pages and optimize your website for local terms

Creating separate pages for brick-and-mortar store locations, offices or the cities your business serves is a great way to capture traffic coming from local keywords. This SEO tactic has proven to be a quick-hitting win for companies who need more visibility in local markets. To get the best results, consider embedding Google maps or incorporating zip codes, city facts – anything that screams “local” to the search engines. Local pages serve highly relevant content and typically convert visitors at a higher rate.

Tip 3: Create and embed videos on best and worst performing pages

According to Fathom, consumers who view online videos are 64 percent more likely to purchase products online. Adding videos to top-performing landing pages on both e-commerce and lead generation sites is a great way to increase sales or leads coming from your most popular products or services. Pages with high bounce rates usually indicate that visitors are experiencing confusion or frustration – adding videos to these pages may help decrease your bounce rate, increase time on site and ultimately increase the conversion rates of these pages.

Tip 4: Start researching marketing automation platforms

In its simplest form, marketing automation is a platform that can track, score and re-engage potential customers who visited your website and completed a form. Marketing automation tools (such as Marketo or Act-On) allow you to aggregate data over time, segment your customer base and send specific messages to customers (or potential customers) you see as most valuable. These tools are great for businesses that are getting more leads than their sales force can handle, as well as those who have longer sales cycles.

Through focused digital marketing efforts, women have the opportunity to grow their businesses online and become leaders in their industries. According to Forbes, in 2012, more women held CEO roles at Fortune 500 companies than ever before. It’s an encouraging milestone, yet, of all CEO titles, women still make up just 4 percent. Statistics prove that women have made significant progress in the business world, but there’s still a long way to go.