How to Become Digital Marketing Specialist

There is no doubt or argument about the fact that digital marketing is one of the fastest-growing industries nowadays. And hence, there is a huge demand for digital marketing professionals. But, especially the demand for digital marketing specialists is quite high, and hence many people want to become a digital marketing specialist to grab these opportunities.

Are you one of them who wants to become a Digital Marketing Specialist?

You would have many questions and the first of them would be where to start from.

Keep reading and you will get answers to all your questions. In case I miss any questions you can ask in the comments section below.

Before we jump into the steps to become a digital marketing specialist its quite pertinent here to give you a little background on what is digital marketing.

Though, I have already written a post earlier on “What is Digital Marketing” you can read that for complete information.

What is Digital Marketing?

In simple words, Digital Marketing is a technique of marketing in which digital tools and digital mediums are used to make a brand’s message reach its target audience.

This requires the internet, and devices connected to the internet like smartphones, computers, tablets, and digital platforms like websites, blogs, applications, social media, etc.

Why Become a Digital Marketing Specialist?

Everything is changing very fast and becoming digital.

From banking, ticketing, entertainment, shopping, communication, education, and almost everything is becoming digital.

This means most of the things for which people have to go to physical locations to buy the products from or avail the services now can be done from any part of the world using a smart device connected with the internet.

The trends of the shift show that everything would be digital in the coming years.

Now customers are online so to engage with them now companies also need to go online.

Digitalization is necessary for companies and brands to keep up with the pace of the transformation of the customer’s interests and mindsets.

Since, technology, branding, marketing, social media, etc., are now digital so to make the best use of all these in the best interest of the brand it needs someone who understands all of these and can leverage these tools to make brand’s marketing effective to engage with the audience and generate revenue by converting them into customers.

Traditional marketing mediums don’t work as they used to earlier, hence brands are spending their marketing money on digital channels.

To get the best ROI from their marketing money they need digital marketing specialists who can help them achieve their goals.

How Much is the demand for Digital Marketing Specialists?

From the rapid shift of traditional marketing to digital marketing it is evident that the demand for digital marketing specialists is very high.

There is a huge gap in demand and supply in digital marketing specialist.

As you know how fast the internet population is growing.

The consumer today wants to have complete information about the products and services he wants to buy.

If you run a simple search on google for “Digital Marketing Specialists Jobs” or “Digital Marketing Experts Jobs” you will find around 3.5 million results.

Companies are rapidly adopting new-age marketing systems because they know that traditional marketing won’t yield results now.

And it doesn’t make sense to advertise and spend in the mediums which don’t yield results.

But, companies and their old staff are not very savvy with digital marketing and hence they need specialists to manage their digital marketing efforts and help them achieve their business goals.

It won’t be an exaggeration to say that digital marketing is the next big thing and the highest job generator industry.

What Digital Marketing Specialists Do?

From creating a digital marketing strategy, to analyze traffic on a website, implement digital marketing strategies to grow the revenue of the business. So, technically digital marketing specialists do many things.

Mostly the digital marketing specialists are expected to create digital marketing strategies for a business to grow its visibility into search engines, drive relevant organic and paid traffic on the website, maintain social media presence and engage customers and prospective customers on social media, and improve conversion on the business website.

How to Become a Digital Marketing Specialist?

Most noteworthy is the question “How to Become a Digital Marketing Specialist”.

Well, that takes a lot of study, and understanding of the digital marketing tools and how digital marketing works.

To become a Digital Marketing Specialist you technically don’t need a degree or diploma. But you need to have a certain set of skills.

For instance, using the internet, writing engaging and meaningful content, knowledge about SEO, managing PPC advertisements, handling Social Media marketing, etc.

Digital marketing is not as easy as to follow the marketing rule book and as straight forward as traditional marketing used to be.

Its rules are literally not by the book but are tailor-made, built from the data analysis and gut feeling.

This understanding comes from analyzing the digital trends, experience in digital marketing, industry & domain knowledge, and requirement of the business.

Simple Steps to Become a Digital Marketing Specialist

Though a lot of information is available online about digital marketing, just finding where to start can be challenging.

And even when you get started, how do you ensure you are not wasting your time, efforts, and money. Don’t worry, below is the Step by Step Learning Process to Become a Digital Marketing Specialist. And this will help you proceed in an efficient way.

Step 1: Invest in a Good Personal Computer

Though it is not necessary, I recommend the learners to invest in buying a good personal computer. Many people are comfortable working on their smartphones.

But when it comes to writing long content, mobile devices might not be a good idea.

Similarly, editing images and resizing them would also be better and faster on a computer than a mobile device.

Step 2: Read Digital Marketing Blogs, Books & Tutorials

The starting point in the journey to becoming a digital marketer is to first learn and understand digital marketing concepts.

Digital marketing is complex and you need to learn a lot about the different digital marketing concepts. Start reading digital marketing blogs and tutorials in detail.

There are a lot of free & paid Udemy courses on digital marketing which will help you learn the concepts faster. That’s the good starting point, to begin with.

Step 3: Follow Digital Marketing Specialists on Social Media & Read their Blogs

The veteran digital marketing specialists write about their experiences, learnings, and research on their blog. They share these articles on their social channels.

Hence, following them on social media you get notified about anything they post on their social channels.

You can go and read their posts and articles whenever they publish them on their blog.

Reading them would give you knowledge about their findings which you can implement in your digital marketing strategies.

Step 4: Start Implementing Your Knowledge & Learning of Digital Marketing

Content and SEO are the main pillars of digital marketing, everything else comes after that.

So, research the topic you want to work in. Make a list of articles or topics you want to write about.

Start writing your articles and try writing SEO optimized articles and save them for publishing online. List down the keywords with the highest search volume and write articles about them on your blog.

This will quickly bring organic traffic to your website.

Step 5: Set up a Blog/Website

Think of a nice name for your blog depending on the topic you want to write about. Make sure your blog’s name is unique.

Register your domain with the name you have decided for your blog and subscribe to a hosting plan to host your website/blog. (Try to buy a .com domain if possible).

Install a free or paid WordPress theme that you like on your website.

Make sure the theme you install on your website is responsive.

Because a lot of visitors (63%) would be visiting your website from their mobile phones. Hence, your website needs to be responsive to serve those mobile visitors.

Buy a hosting plan to host your website which is reliable, fast, and secure. You can use siteground which is very fast, reliable, and affordable.

Step 6: Generate XML Sitemap of Your Website

Generating the XML sitemap of your website or blog will be handy when you submit your website to Google for crawling.

Google bots read your website and its content from the sitemap you submit to Google Search Console.

The best is to use a plugin that automatically generates and updates the sitemap whenever new content is added on the website and adds it to the sitemap.

Step 7: Verify Your Website with Google Search Console & Bing Webmaster

Now sign up with Google Search Console and submit your website for Google Crawling. Signing up with Webmaster tools will help you submit your sitemap on google.

Google bots crawl your website through the sitemap and index your pages in google searches accordingly.

Step 8: Set up Google Analytics

Obviously, you want to see what is happening on your website, and how your articles are performing, how many visitors you get on your website, etc.

For that, you need to set up Google Analytics on your website. For that, you need to signup for Google Analytics and install Google Analytics tracking code on your website to see the amount of traffic you drive on your website.

Learn a little about Google Analytics to make sense of your Google Analytics data.

This will help you understand your visitor’s behavior, the performance of your articles, the demography of your visitors, etc.

Step 9: Set up Social Media

You also need to set up your social media channels like Facebook page, LinkedIn page, Twitter, YouTube if you also want to create some video content, Instagram, etc.

Start with the setup of a Facebook page dedicated to your blog where you can share the links of your articles. Invite your friends to follow your page and read your articles.

Also, ask them to share the posts on their walls and Facebook groups they are associated with.

Step 10: Enable Social Sharing & Integrate Facebook Page Plugin

Enable social sharing on your blog. If you are using WordPress then you can use the free WordPress plugin to share your articles on different social media platforms.

This will also help you create back-links for your articles and drive traffic on your website.

And the readers on your website would also want to share the content which they like on social media, so this plugin would help them as well to share your content.

Add Facebook Page Plugin in your blog and ask your readers on the blog to like and follow your Facebook page.

If you want you can also integrate the widgets for Instagram and Twitter to show the latest posts on your Twitter and Instagram and motivate your visitors to follow you on those channels.

Step 11: Enable Email Subscription

Enable email signup form in your blog and ask the visitors to subscribe to your newsletter.

Email your subscribers whenever you publish something in your blog. Sign up for an email marketing service such as MailChimp or SendGrid.

They give you free emailing on a list of up to 2000 contacts.

MailChimp also offers a WordPress plugin to directly add the newsletter subscribers from your blog in the email list.

So, whenever you publish something on your website, you might want to inform your audience about it. Emailing is a great way to do that.

Step 12: Publish Your Content

Since you have done the basic setup of your website, now it is time to publish your content on the website.

Publish your content on the website and don’t forget to follow the SEO guidelines while doing it.

If you properly write your content and optimize it for the search engines you will see the organic traffic growing pretty fast on your website.

This is what everyone out there in the digital world is killing for — to be seen on the web.

And if you can get that position on the search engine organically, nothing is like that.

Step 13: Promote Your Content

First of all when you have published the content on your website make sure you have shared it on all the social media channels you have the presence on.

Social plugins you have installed on your website would help you do that in just a few clicks.

Step 14: Start Paid Ads

You can drive more traffic on your website by advertisement.

All the major social media channels and search engines like Google and Bing offer opportunities for paid ads.

Paid Advertisements can quickly bring more targeted traffic to your website.

Google Ads

Signup for Google Ads account and do some keyword research to see what people are searching for related to your blog subject. Promote your website via Google Ads.

Google Ads gives Rs. 2000/- Free Credit on signing up which you can use with your Rs. 500 Ad Budget to promote your website.

Keep the lowest CPC bids so that you get more clicks and website visitors for your Ad budget.

With Google Ads, you can do both display and search ads. Also, you can show your ad banners on the entire Google network including YouTube.

Bing Ads

If your target audience is mostly on the yahoo and bing networks then you should do advertisements on Bing.

For the reason that your audience uses the bing network for searches, they will see and engage with your Bing Ads rather than the Google Ads.

Facebook Ads

You can also choose to promote your website with Facebook ads.

Target people who might be interested in your blog subject.

TwitterAds & LinkedIn Ads

If you want to reach out to more people on Twitter and LinkedIn you can choose to advertise on Twitter & LinkedIn.

Though, Twitter and LinkedIn both are expensive as compared to Facebook Ads and Google Ads. But, if your target audience is on Twitter & LinkedIn you should for it.

Step 15: Create BackLinks

Search engines often use the number of backlinks that a website has as one of the most important factors for determining that website’s search engine ranking, popularity, and importance.

Google‘s description of its PageRank system, for instance, notes that “Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B.

So, try to get high-quality backlinks for your website by writing guest posts, directory submissions, link exchanges, etc.

All of this you can do in about a month’s time and doing this would give you hands-on experience in SEO, Google Ads, Website Optimization, Domain Registration, installing WordPress themes, installing and using WordPress plugins, making use of the Google Analytics data, Email Marketing, Facebook Ads, Social Media Marketing, and most importantly writing SEO optimised articles and researching keywords to write articles.

And all this added together covers more than half of the Digital Marketer’s job.

But the discussion would not be complete unless we discuss the important components of digital marketing.

These components comprise the certifications of Google, Twitter, Bing, and HubSpot, etc. These certifications help you enhance your knowledge. Let’s see that as well.

Important Components of Digital Marketing

Below are the most basic and important components which a Digital Marketing Specialist should know in and out:

You will see that when you dedicate 3-4 hours daily for learning about Digital Marketing and about an hour to implement your learning on your website/blog then you are almost half-way there.

Mastering all the Digital Marketing Concepts, understanding and know-how of using the Digital Tools, and knowing the use of the Digital Marketing resources is one part of the Digital Marketing.

The second part is to make the strategy for any business you want to get involved with, for achieving its business objective, viz., branding, brand positioning, increasing revenue, upselling, cross-selling, lead generation, sign-ups, etc.

Digital Marketing Courses or Certifications to Enhance Your Digital Marketing Knowledge?

Digital Marketing is still an evolving industry and with new researches, new development, new technologies, new digital tools, new social media networks, new coding languages, it is certainly not possible to define a specific curriculum for it.

Anyone with a desire can become a Digital Marketer without any training. Unbelievable, isn’t it?

But, it’s true! There is a lot of free stuff available on the internet on different topics of digital marketing.

You can read, understand, and evaluate your learning by implementing the same in your project.

But, people who want to become a Digital Marketing Specialist in less time can undergo professional training.

Taking training from experts helps you to learn things better and faster.

Even you can enhance your Digital Marketing Skills through Google Certifications and HubSpot free certifications in different areas of Digital Marketing. Some of these courses are as follows:

Google Certifications

Below are some of Google’s Certifications which you can do on your own. It will help you enhance your knowledge in digital marketing and understand Google’s Advertising systems.

HubSpot’s Certifications

Below are some of the HubSpot’s Certifications which you can do on your own.

These certifications would help enhance your knowledge in digital marketing and its components in detail.

Bing Certifications

Unlike Google, Bing offers one certification which covers everything about the Bing advertisement.

Note that Yahoo also uses the Bing platform for advertisements.

Accredited Professional Bing Ads Certification

Twitter Certifications

Certification from Twitter helps you understand the twitter marketing system. It will also help you learn using a Twitter Business account to advertise on twitter.

Twitter Marketing Graduate

NOTE: All of the above-mentioned courses and certifications are absolutely FREE.

But it takes a lot of time to prepare for these certifications.

Besides the above, there are courses available on Udemy, Lynda, and many other websites that you can refer to.

What Next?

Now the important question is: Would I Become a Digital Marketing Specialist by doing these courses and Certifications?

So, the answer to that question is like this: Learning Digital Marketing is like learning to ride a bike.

Besides the instructor’s guidance, you need to practice on your own, and test your driving skills on all the terrains.

Similarly, in Digital Marketing you need to apply your skills in different Industry Verticals to become a Digital Marketing Specialist.

Practice, innovative thinking, and patience are the keys to Success in Digital Marketing.

The best thing about digital marketing is that you can begin learning and implementing your understanding practically simultaneously. It’s kind of DIY (Do-It-Yourself).

You can start small by setting up a website/blog of your own.

All you need is a computer connected with the internet and spirit to learn.

Conclusion

Digital marketing is rapidly changing in order to create better digital experiences for customers. Hence, in order to become a digital marketing specialist, you must keep yourself alert, keep learning, keep experimenting, and keep yourself updated with the latest events or happenings in the digital marketing industry.