Digital marketing is important because it connects a business with its customers when they are online, and is effective in all industries. It connects businesses with ideal customers when they are on Google through SEO and PPC, on social media with social media marketing, and through email with email marketing.

SEO means Search Engine Optimization and is the process used to optimize a website's technical configuration, content relevance and link popularity so its pages can become easily findable, more relevant and popular towards user search queries, and as a consequence, search engines rank them better.

According to Smart Insights, the most effective strategy in 2018 was social media marketing, followed by content marketing, and the least was data management, with SEO being somewhere in the middle of it all.

Effective digital marketing helps small businesses learn the online habits of customers so they can better target ideal customers. It relies on solid market research to inform the next course of action. Smart small businesses do not make assumptions. They use digital tools to learn what their target customers search for and need.