As web developers, we are already contributing to our project owners’ digital footprint and online marketing strategies. Without an understanding of Digital Marketing, our products are as good as stunning flyers, lying in the trash when they should be in the hands of potential clients.
In this article, I will explore the benefits web developers can enjoy by learning digital marketing.
I am a developer, not a marketer
Web developers tend to focus on leading-edge frameworks and technologies, writing clean, bug-free code, being pixel perfect, animating user interactions, and ensuring all the pieces of our website fit together in a logical order.
Our role is to deliver a product using the best technology available at the time and reduce the injection of technical debt as far as possible. If we can find a way to deliver the product at lightning speed, that’ll be a bonus.
With all of these considerations (and I have only listed a few), digital marketing tends to slide down the developer’s hierarchical ladder.
So why should we as developers concern ourselves with Digital Marketing? Oh, wait, what is digital marketing AGAIN?
Now that you know what the concept means, let’s take a look at why you should invest a bit of your time to learn about digital marketing.
Improve Communication with Project Owners
By learning about digital marketing, we as developers can drive our project owners in the right direction, and possibly even do so without writing a single line of code. We could achieve similar results by taking advantage of existing online marketing tools and platforms to get our clients the audience they seek.
Although counter-intuitive to call ourselves web developers and then suggest servicing our clients without developing anything, by understanding our actual role which is, marketing our clients, we start to work alongside them and not under them. We have transcended from that code monkey to a digital marketing asset.
Help Users Find The Website
Web developers have the power to build amazing and interactive websites that everyone wants to navigate and engage with. But if nobody can find it on Google, every line of code won’t help your client’s objective.
We need to ensure that search engines can crawl our websites and index relevant content to help the intended audience reach our site. This can be done by conducting a technical SEO audit that requires a bit of back-end work, but is totally worth it for you and for your client.
We also need to ensure that the title and meta description displayed to potential clients is interesting and engaging to gain a competitive advantage.
Don’t worry: we don’t need to write one ourselves, only remind our clients to send us the text to add in the Content Management System of the website. This will show good faith and your understanding of their business.
Ensure Brand Consistency Across Channels
Another reason web developers need to learn about Digital Marketing is to ensure that the branding of the website is associated with links shared on social platforms. Brand consistency in all channels is key for brand recognition in the online landscape.
If your client has a great product or service, this is a fantastic starting point and should encourage users to want to share their findings with their networks on any of their favorite social platforms. This is free, voluntary advertising that every marketer is looking for. As a web developer, you need to ensure the website can showcase itself effectively when shared.
Become a More In-Demand Professional
The coronavirus pandemic heavily affected offline businesses such as retail stores and restaurants, who were forced to shift to online. The spike of new online business generated the demand for marketing professionals to help companies to adapt and strive in the online world.
As web developers, we already have special technical knowledge that the majority doesn’t have. If we learn about this in-demand field, we will be a more valuable and well-rounded professionals. We will be able to not only build beautiful websites, but ones that really works from both a technical and business perspective.
In conclusion, by learning about Digital Marketing, a web developer can offer better advice to potential clients, ensure that our work reaches the intended audience, and is consistent across channels. We can weed out unnecessary development efforts and replace them with relevant online strategies.
With a well-rounded profile in technical and business skills, we will start engaging with clients in a more meaningful manner and not only from a product perspective.
Finally, when we do decide to develop a website for our client, we are able to confirm that it is not only out of necessity – it is fulfilling a niche service – but that it’s also successful in marketing itself.
At Appstrax, we have partnered with digital marketing agencies to help them achieve their client’s most innovative ideas. Our business and development team are experts in translating your app or web development idea into products that really work.
