In today’s hyper-connected world it’s increasingly important to be visible online – even traditional high street shops can benefit hugely from having a digital presence and from marketing themselves online. Your customers expect to be able to find you online, research your reviews, find out your opening times, see what products you have – and all this before they even consider visiting in person.

This article will help you build a rock-solid foundation for your digital marketing. It’s a comprehensive to-do list that covers everything a small business needs before you start marketing: logos, domains, profiles, and more. By the end you will have clear and actionable path that will set you up for success.

This article isn’t about what digital marketing is, or even about tactics for doing it – for that, we recommend our From Zero Guide to Digital Marketing.

Content

Phase 1 - Brand Identity

• Name
• Logo
• Colour Palette
• Font
• Brand Guidelines

Phase 2 - Your Website

• Domain Name
• Website Builder
• Essential Content
• Additional Content
• SEO Foundations
• Privacy

Phase 3 - Growing Your Social Footprint

• Social Media Profiles
• Directories
• Content Plan

Phase 4 - Analytics Software

• Website Analytics
• Tag Management
• Conversion Tracking

Conclusions

Phase 1 - Brand Identity

Nike, Coca-Cola, Mini, Louis Vuittons – these are all world famous companies that are instantly recognisable for their branding. A strong and consistent brand identity is absolutely vital to successful marketing; it’s how customers recognise, remember, and ultimately, trust you.

1. Name - Who You Are

Your name should sum up who you are as a company, so think carefully about what people will associate with it. Ideally your name should:

• Be relatively short and to the point
• Relate to your services in some way; there’s nothing wrong with being direct here
• Be memorable

Once you’ve chosen a name, you need to make sure that:

• It’s unique, or at least that there aren’t other businesses directly competing with you that have the same or similar names
• Check official listings such as Companies House and the IPO Trade Mark site (or your regional equivalents) to make sure your name isn’t already registered

Recommendations:

• If you’re stumped, there’s nothing wrong with just using your name and trade, e.g. “DiCaprio Builders Ltd”
• AI programs like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini can be really helpful in brainstorming ideas
• Professional services are available; platforms like Fiverr can connect you with creative professionals who can help you dream up names, slogans, and much more

2. Logo – Your Visual Shorthand

Your logo is often the first visual representation of your brand that customers see – it should be memorable, professional, and versatile enough to appear anywhere you need it to. It’s worth investing in a professionally drawn logo, cutting corners can make your brand look cheap and low-quality.

• Make sure you have vector files (usually .svg or .eps); these can be scaled to any size without becoming blurry
• Check that your logo works in black and white as well as colour, and on both dark and light backgrounds – or get variants of your logo for these situations
• If your logo is complex or has words in it, make sure to get a simple variant that works at very small scales (like in a browser bookmark)

Recommendations

• 99designs: A popular platform where you can launch a design contest, allowing multiple designers to submit concepts based on your brief. This can be great for exploring a variety of ideas
• Fiverr / Upwork: These platforms are great for hiring freelance graphic designers directly – you can browse portfolios and choose a designer whose style aligns with your vision
• Canva: For those with a limited budget or a keen eye for design, Canva offers user-friendly tools and templates to create your own logo. While good for getting started, you should consider a professional design as your business grows

3. Colour Palette - Your Emotional Language

A good colour palette does two important things. First, colours evoke emotions and associations, allowing you to emphasise those qualities to your customers. Second, a consistent colour palette helps ensure your brand feels cohesive and instantly recognisable.

• Define a set of 2 or 3 primary brand colours, and 2 to 4 secondary accent colours. Make sure you write down the exact RGB and/or HEX codes to ensure consistency; for print you will also need CMYK

Recommendations

• There are lots of great tools out there to help you create colour palettes. We particularly like those from Canva and Coolors
• Around 4-5% of people have some form of colour-blindness, so it’s worth considering how your colour palette will impact who can use your site. There are online tools for testing how images (like your logo) and text are affected.

4. Fonts - Your Tone of Voice

Like with colours, your choice of fonts will evoke associations in your customers. For example, if you are a lawyer, then a traditional Serif font conveys a reassuring seriousness and formality, whereas a fun and silly font will make people think the opposite. Whatever your choice, it should be readable and reflect your brand’s personality, whether that’s modern, classic, or playful.

• Select your primary font; if it’s not suitable for long passages of text, choose a secondary font for that purpose
• Make sure you consider how your font looks on both digital and printed material
• If you’ve chosen a proprietary font, you must license it. There are lots of free fonts available

Recommendations

• Google Fonts: has a great selection of over 1,800 fonts that are all free for commercial use
• Check out this article from Creative Bloq for more sources of free fonts

Bonus: Brand Guidelines - Your Brand Rulebook

Brand guidelines are the instruction manual for your brand; they tell everyone who needs to know exactly how to use your brand consistently. These can get very complicated and formal, but they don’t have to be – it could be as simple as a document that lists all the information above so you can send it to anyone that needs it, like graphic designers or external agencies.

If you have commissioned someone to design your brand, it’s worth asking them to put together a simple brand guidelines document for you to refer to and give to others.

Your document should include:

• Logo usage including acceptable variants for small vs large applications, and black-and-white vs colour backgrounds
• Brand colours in RGB, HEX, and (if needed) CMYK codes
• Fonts for headlines, body text, and any other usages
• Imagery style – what kind of photography and illustrations do you use
• Tone of voice – friendly, authoritative, witty, formal, etc.

Phase 2 - Your Website

Your website is your ultimate marketing tool – your always-open shopfront, brochure, and primary point of contact. All your digital marketing efforts should ultimately lead back to your website, and any potential customer who goes there should be able to see who you are, what you offer, and how to get in touch.

1. Domain Name

Your domain name is your unique address on the internet; you need to buy this so you can set up your website.

• Choose a domain name that is relevant to your business, ideally the same as your name or a close variation of it. It also needs to be memorable and easy to spell
• There are lots of domain types available, you don’t need to restrict yourself to .co.uk or .com; you can get .agency, .shopping, .help, or even .pizza!

Recommendations

• There are many domain name registrars out there, and it’s worth looking around to see if you can get a good deal. Some of the biggest are: GoDaddy, Ionos, and Namecheap.

• We particularly recommend Hover and PorkBun

• You can also buy domains through website providers like Wix and Squarespace, but you might pay extra for this

2. Choose Your Website Builder

There are two main ways to get a website: do it yourself on a website building platform, or pay a professional to build it for you. If your site is simple, you can go the DIY route; just be prepared to do research and watch a lot of tutorials to get what you want – in many cases, the time saved by outsourcing the project is really worth it.

Recommendations

• Check out our article “Which Website Builder is Best for Your Business?” which will tell you everything you need to know when choosing a website building platform
• If you choose to employ a freelancer or agency, it’s worth either getting a recommendation from someone your trust or asking if you can speak to any of their clients. That way you can be much more confident you will get the level of service you want

3. Your Essential Content

Your website should be more than just a pretty design – it needs to be informative, engaging, and have any information a potential customer needs to take the next step, whether that be purchasing a product or submitting a lead form.

At a minimum you should have:

• Homepage – Your digital shop window; it should make it clear who you are and what you sell
• Services/Products – Clearly explain what your products and services are. Start with a simple overview, then show all relevant information a customer might want below that
• About Us – Tell your brand’s story, your mission, and what makes you unique
• Contact – Provide multiple ways for customers to reach you. At a bare minimum you need an email address; we strongly recommend a contact form and phone number as well
  • Make sure your email and phone contacts are clickable buttons
  • Make sure your email and/or phone are in the footer of every page
• Legal Policies – These are legal requirements and protect both you and your customers. You will need:
  • Privacy Policy - about what data you collect and how you use it; this is a legal requirement
  • Cookie Policy - more on this below
  • Terms of Service / Terms and Conditions - if your customers interact with your website, such as creating an account on it, consider creating T&Cs that set rules for customer conduct and can help limit your liabilities

4. Additional Content

The above is the bare minimum you need, but we would also strongly recommend you consider some additional kinds of content on your site. You can always get started with the essentials and add in more when you have time.

• Blog – If you want to do content marketing, you need to have a blog. It can help with SEO, educate and inform customers, and give you something to promote besides your brand
• Frequently Asked Questions – Being asked the same questions repeatedly can be frustrating for both you and your customers; an FAQ helps address this
• Testimonials & Reviews – ‘social proof’ is a powerful tool for convincing customers of your trustworthiness
• Portfolio / Case Studies – especially for services based businesses, showing off your previous work sets you up for future success
• Careers – if you’re hiring, it’s great to have somewhere you can post jobs that people can find without needing to go via a recruiter
• Calendar / Events – Vital if you’re hosting events, webinars, classes, and so on

5. SEO Foundations

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) helps your website appear higher in search engine results. It’s a whole world in itself, so we’re not going to get into the weeds here, but the basics are not difficult, and you don’t need to be an expert to get started.

Fundamentally, you want your site to be easy for search engines to understand, to load quickly, and to work well across desktop and mobile devices.

• Keywords: Identify simple terms your customers are searching for to find your products or services. Use those relevant keywords in the headlines, text, and meta-tags of your website, but don’t overdo it; ‘keyword stuffing’ can actually get you penalised
• Meta Data: Your pages should include ‘meta tags’; these are hidden tags that aren’t visible to website visitors, but tell search engines and other services about your website and the content of your pages
• Image Alt Text: Describe images on your site to help search engines understand them and improve your accessibility
• Mobile Responsiveness: The majority of internet traffic is from mobile devices, so it’s critical that your website looks great and functions properly on all devices. You won’t get a good SEO score without this!
• Site Speed: Users won’t wait more than a few seconds for your site to load, which is why search engines place a high priority on loading speed. Website building platforms and professionals will handle this for you

Recommendations

When you’re starting out, you probably don’t need any paid tools; there are many free tools that can get you started.

• Google Search Console – monitor your site and correct any issues. You will want to ensure you have a current sitemap, a valid SSL certificate, and a good score for core web vitals
• Answer The Public - shows the kind of questions people are searching for related to your business
• SEOptimer - a great free SEO auditing tool that gives useful tips on where and how to improve
• Ahrefs and Semrush have a suite of free tools like keyword planners, sitemap generators, link checkers, and SEO audits

6. Privacy

If you are operating in the UK or EEA, or have traffic from those regions, you must comply with GDPR legislation. Increasingly, other parts of the world are passing their own laws, so everyone should consider this.

You need to have a privacy policy that explains what data you will collect about your customers and how you will use it. You can find templates online or use a generator such as this one from the ICO.

Digital marketing means you will be using cookies; it’s required for all sorts of applications like website analytics, conversion tracking, retargeting, and so on. This means you will need two things; a cookie policy (which can be part of your privacy policy) and a cookie banner.

Simple cookie banners are adequate if you’re not implementing complex tracking. We like CookieConsent which is a free and open-source solution, but website builders will also have built-in cookie banners that you can use. If your website is more complicated, for example if you have user accounts or are showing paid ads on your website, you should get a Consent Management Platform (CMP) which has more powerful features. There are lots of options, but you should make sure you pick one that is part of Google’s Certified CMP Partner Program.

Phase 3 - Growing Your Social Footprint

Worldwide, people spend an average of 2 hours 21 minutes a day on social media; for businesses it’s vital to be where your audience is – which means that, like a website, a social media presence is essentially mandatory.

1. Social Media Profiles

There are numerous social media platforms out there: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit, Snapchat, BlueSky, X, Pinterest… the list goes on. You can’t be everywhere all at once, so it’s important to be strategic when deciding which social media to prioritise; each has different audiences and features which makes them suited for different businesses.

• Usernames/Handles: use the same or very similar usernames (‘handles’) across all your accounts so users can find you easily
• Quality Visuals: upload your logo as a profile picture and design high-quality, eye-catching banners using your brand’s colour palette and fonts
• Concise Bios: write a concise bio that clearly states exactly what your business does and links back to your website

A good content strategy is very helpful in ensuring you have a consistent flow of posts, but it’s also okay to set up an account in advance; just make sure you log in periodically to keep it active. Remember that if you want to advertise on a social media platform, you will need an active profile on that platform.

Recommendations

• Facebook: Still a dominant platform for a broad audience, great for community building and local businesses
• Instagram: Visually driven, ideal for businesses with strong visual appeal (e.g., food, fashion, art, lifestyle) but used successfully by all kinds of businesses
• LinkedIn: Essential for B2B (business-to-business) companies, professional networking, and recruitment
• TikTok: Short-form video content, particularly effective for reaching younger demographics
• Pinterest: Great for businesses in design, home décor, fashion, or anything visually inspiring, as it drives referral traffic

2. Directories

Directories are sites that list other businesses and services. They’re often the first place customers go when they need a specific kind of service, so it’s important that they can find you there.

Which directories are relevant really depends on your business; a plumber on TripAdvisor doesn’t make much sense, but it’s highly relevant for a hotel or guesthouse.

• Google Business Profile: Mandatory for any business with a physical location, especially local shops. GBP is what powers your profile on Google Maps, which is often the first place people look for opening hours, addresses, contact details, and reviews. If you meet the eligibility requirements you should create a profile
• Industry specific: many industries have their own listings, either from trade bodies or independent services, where customers can find information about you
• B2B directories: intended for businesses looking for suppliers, manufacturers, and service providers
• Service directories: sites like Upwork and Fiverr are great for freelancers and small companies in any kind of digital service
• Travel & tourism: sites like TripAdvisor, GetYourGuide, and Hotels.com are vital for hotels and anyone who has significant tourist trade

Wherever you choose to list your business, you should follow some basic best practices:

• Targeted: Understand who is using the directory and emphasise relevant products and services
• Comprehensive and accurate: Fill out all the relevant sections with up-to-date and accurate information
• Professional: Use high-quality photos of your premises, products, completed projects, and team
• Engage with reviews: Actively encourage and respond to customer reviews

3. Content Plan

Getting the most out of social media and directories is all about using them consistently. You don’t have to post every day on every platform, but it’s important that you have regular activity on your profiles to keep them fresh and up to date – it’s a signal to your customers that you’re active and involved.

• Keep information like contact details and opening hours up-to-date across all your profiles; you don’t want a client turning up an hour after you’ve closed because your profile was wrong! Keep a list of where you show this kind of information to make sure you don’t miss anything
• Set time aside to check and respond to new customer reviews, active engagement can help you turn a negative review into a customer service success
• Create a schedule to regularly create and post new content; this might be as simple as a photo on Instagram or as complex as an in-depth blog post. Just make sure it’s a manageable schedule you can realistically keep to
• Reuse your content! Take that blog post on your website and create posts that link to it on your social media profiles. You can even reuse old content as well, provided that it’s still relevant and has not been used too recently

Your content plan can be as simple as scheduled calendar events, or notes in a spreadsheet, it doesn’t have to be complicated. There are also plenty of project management solutions available that can make this more manageable. If you need more powerful capabilities, specialist social media tools like Buffer help with cross-posting to multiple channels, scheduling posts, and planning your content.

Phase 4 - Analytics Software

Measurement is critical for understanding what customers are doing on your site and making informed decisions based on that information. Robust analytics help you understand who visits your site, where they come from, and what they do once they’re there. It is also a critical tool for understanding the impact of your digital marketing.

1. Website Analytics

Installing website analytics software on your site helps you understand user behaviour and optimise your website, content, and marketing. For example, knowing which pages users leave quickly can highlight areas that might need improvement, and once you’ve made changes, you can compare the data from before and after to see the impact.

If you haven’t used this type of software before, review some introductory tutorials on YouTube. For Google Analytics we recommend the channels Analytics Mania and Loves Data.

Recommendations

• Google Analytics: The most commonly used analytics software; it’s free and is closely integrated with important tools like Google Search Console, Google Tag Manager, and Google Ads. Because it’s so widely used, there is a lot of help and resources available, making it less technically challenging to use than some other options. If you’re not sure where to start, this is a safe option
• PostHog: If you’re more technically savvy, PostHog is a great open-source alternative that is focused on analytics for digital products like web applications. There are website analytics tools as well, and they’re constantly rolling out new tools
• Simple Analytics: A solid option for EU-based websites in particular thanks to their EU hosting and cookieless analytics solutions

2. Tag Management

A ‘tag’ or ‘pixel’ is a small piece of code that is added to your website to track something; it’s widely used in digital marketing for all kinds of purposes like analytics, measuring conversions, re-marketing, and so on. A tag manager allows you to add, remove, and control the tags on your website without needing to edit your site; instead you can manage them all through a single interface.

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is free, robust, and widely used. It seamlessly integrates with Google’s other marketing and analytics products, and supports tags from almost any third-party service such as Meta, LinkedIn, etc. You can even use it to manage tools like a cookie banner, Consent Management Platform, and Google Analytics. While there are other options available, if you’re starting out, GTM is the best option.

GTM is simple to install with simple integrations or plugins available from most website builders; however using it properly can be a challenge as it is a technical system. Fortunately, here at Digital Gurus we offer GTM management for free as part our service.

3. Conversion Tracking

There are many different ways to use tracking tags on your website, but one of the most important is conversion tracking. This allows you to measure when users take specific actions on your site that are valuable to you, like making a purchase or filling out a form. The magic is that you can use this to “attribute” these actions to your marketing, so you can get a good idea of the returns from your marketing and where it makes sense to focus your efforts.

Before you launch any digital marketing campaigns, you absolutely must set up conversion tracking – it is critical to measuring the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. This can be quite technical and difficult to set up; exactly how difficult can vary greatly depending on your particular setup, and that’s why we offer it as a free part of our service at Digital Gurus.

Recommendations

• Set up conversion tracking for valuable actions on your website, for example:

  • Viewing an important page
  • Downloading resources like e-books or reports
  • Submitting a contact form
  • Newsletter subscriptions
  • Registering for an event
  • Signing up for an account
  • Making a purchase

• You will need to do this separately for each platform you are using, for example; LinkedIn and Meta would need their own tracking that is triggered on the same actions. Even if you don’t track every action on every platform, each campaign should have a clear goal that you are tracking

Conclusions

Congratulations! You are now all set up and ready to get started with digital marketing. It might seem like a lot to do, but by doing this before you start your marketing activity, you are building a strong foundation for successful outcomes in the future. From creating a clear and consistent brand, to tracking that first purchase, each stage is crucial for sustained digital growth. Remember, digital marketing isn’t a one-and-done task; it’s an ongoing process of learning, testing, and adapting.

Now that you’re ready, what next? First, we recommend checking out our No-Nonsense Guide to Digital Marketing which has lots of great tips to get you started. Second, why not schedule a call with us here at Digital Gurus – our goal is to make digital marketing simple so you can focus on running your business, and with the solid foundations you’ve set up thanks to this article, we’re confident that we can get you great results.