Black Education / Schools : Bridging the Digital Divide

[DigitallyBlack]

With the laundry list of things for us black people to be concerned about this issue needs attention to. This isn't simply about black kids being left behind but small black-owned businesses.

We've reviewed a lot of black-owned businesses with outdated websites, poorly executed digital marketing efforts and thus no one is informed of a struggling business or is aware of a new local business.

Yes, there are some black-owned businesses that are thriving or black individuals thriving but there should be plenty more of us. And so that is the point of this thread. If anyone has any questions about digital marketing feel free to ask. Even if you don't know what to ask and just want to provide some insight that works too. Ask and ye shall receive ^_^

Either it's about domain names, social media marketing and/or search engine optimization. Feel free to ask. It's been time for us to be informed and hip to the times so we don't get left behind.

 

[DigitallyBlack]

For starters don't think you need a lot of money. In fact, you don't need money at all to start a digital presence. Check out laaawpac.com (not our website but ran by black people in los angeles) their website is built with Weebly, a free service like Wordpress. Yes, it may look basic but it does what it needs to do. At best all they did was buy a domain name which can cost roughly $12 a year and that's it.

There are three aspects to digital marketing,

1. Website
2. Social Media
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Let's use real estate as an analogy to explain these three things. A website is your land and house. Social media is your front lawn. SEO is telling people where you live. That's the best way we could sum up these aspects of digital marketing. Starting with websites, you can pay as little as $65 per year to buy a domain name and hosting. What a domain and hosting is you can visit our blog for more info.

From the black-owned websites we've seen, most black businesses fail at one or more of these three things. They have a website but it's outdated, or very commonly seen, the links to their social media accounts don't work. And normally it's SEO that many black businesses neglected to do. No matter what you do, sell, provide in whatever state and city you live in. People are looking for you and Google will gladly put you in front of those people if you do your SEO properly.

Here are some pros of online marketing:

1. Your website/social media/SEO and all do marketing for you 24 hours a day. 7 Days a week.
2. You can track the type of people you are reaching out to. Google Analytics is free and it'll tell you where you are getting traffic, the most visited pages on your website, how they found your website etc.
3. Social Media Advertising - you can target people, demographics, things of interest to people. Rather than putting up a billboard and you have no idea how many people saw it.
4. If your system is built then your online presence will do 90% of the heavy lifting for you. The business owner can do what it does best. Focus on your clients.

Here are the cons of online marketing:

1. Information overload. Some websites we see are not structured well and people get lost and leave the website.
2. Information overload part 2. You may be reading this and say why should I trust you over all the other people on YouTube sharing their knowledge and techniques. By all means take what we say and compare it to those in our industry. Hold us accountable. But we will say, the good knowledge costs money. There a few hidden gems on YouTube but real result stuff costs money to gain access to.
3. To much work. We understand wholeheartedly when you realize creating content 3 times a day than 3 times a week is time-consuming. And you may find yourself spending way more time on it than you anticipated.
4. SEO can sometimes take longer than anticipated. In short, SEO is getting Google the biggest search engine to trust your you and your brand. Not an easy task. For starters Google trusts Destee.com. It's been around for years. Google likes that A LOT. Not some young thundercat website bragging it should be placed #1 on Google for its niche or industry.

We hope this provides more clarity to the digital marketing world.

 

[Clyde C Coger Jr]

For starters don't think you need a lot of money. In fact, you don't need money at all to start a digital presence. Check out laaawpac.com (not our website but ran by black people in los angeles) their website is built with Weebly, a free service like Wordpress. Yes, it may look basic but it does what it needs to do. At best all they did was buy a domain name which can cost roughly $12 a year and that's it.

There are three aspects to digital marketing,

1. Website
2. Social Media
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Let's use real estate as an analogy to explain these three things. A website is your land and house. Social media is your front lawn. SEO is telling people where you live. That's the best way we could sum up these aspects of digital marketing. Starting with websites, you can pay as little as $65 per year to buy a domain name and hosting. What a domain and hosting is you can visit our blog for more info.

From the black-owned websites we've seen, most black businesses fail at one or more of these three things. They have a website but it's outdated, or very commonly seen, the links to their social media accounts don't work. And normally it's SEO that many black businesses neglected to do. No matter what you do, sell, provide in whatever state and city you live in. People are looking for you and Google will gladly put you in front of those people if you do your SEO properly.

Here are some pros of online marketing:

1. Your website/social media/SEO and all do marketing for you 24 hours a day. 7 Days a week.
2. You can track the type of people you are reaching out to. Google Analytics is free and it'll tell you where you are getting traffic, the most visited pages on your website, how they found your website etc.
3. Social Media Advertising - you can target people, demographics, things of interest to people. Rather than putting up a billboard and you have no idea how many people saw it.
4. If your system is built then your online presence will do 90% of the heavy lifting for you. The business owner can do what it does best. Focus on your clients.

Here are the cons of online marketing:

1. Information overload. Some websites we see are not structured well and people get lost and leave the website.
2. Information overload part 2. You may be reading this and say why should I trust you over all the other people on YouTube sharing their knowledge and techniques. By all means take what we say and compare it to those in our industry. Hold us accountable. But we will say, the good knowledge costs money. There a few hidden gems on YouTube but real result stuff costs money to gain access to.
3. To much work. We understand wholeheartedly when you realize creating content 3 times a day than 3 times a week is time-consuming. And you may find yourself spending way more time on it than you anticipated.
4. SEO can sometimes take longer than anticipated. In short, SEO is getting Google the biggest search engine to trust your you and your brand. Not an easy task. For starters Google trusts Destee.com. It's been around for years. Google likes that A LOT. Not some young thundercat website bragging it should be placed #1 on Google for its niche or industry.

We hope this provides more clarity to the digital marketing world.

Very good information DigitallyBlack, quite a niche you having going. Its one that could prove to be invaluable for the Black community, which is why I made this post.

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[DigitallyBlack]

Hello everyone! We have a new blog post about Search Engine Optimization. We have pictures and examples that we hope makes SEO easier to understand to both the those who are and aren't tech savvy.