digital marketing vs web development

Ever had confusion on hiring a team of developers and marketers? It happens when you have a small business and you want to increase your business reach and sales but don’t know how to do it.

In this article, we are going to explore the key differences between digital marketing vs web development so you can make the best decision.

Let’s get into it.

Definitions: Digital Marketing and Website Development

Before we dig deeper into the differences and similarities between digital marketing vs web development, let’s start by clarifying some key concepts. 

What is Digital Marketing?

The technique of using digital tools, platforms, and strategies to advertise a product or idea to customers is known as digital marketing.

In short words, the goal of digital marketing is to get a company’s brand name and products in front of potential customers.

What are some of the elements that compose digital marketing?

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Email Marketing
  • Web Analytics

etc.

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What is Web Development?

Web development is the behind-the-scenes activity of employing coding languages to create a website for the Internet.

Front-end, back-end, and full-stack are the three kinds of web developers, and each one of them performs a specific function.

The front-end focuses on the visual side of the website. It’s basically what the user sees. 

The back-end refers to the parts of the website that cannot be accessed by the user and that are essential for the website to work.

Finally, a full-stack developer has experience and knowledge in both fields.

However, web development is not just about creating new websites but improving and maintaining them so they are up to date and fully functional.

In short words, web development providers are in charge of creating, maintaining, and improving websites.

What Are the Key Differences Between Digital Marketing vs Web Development?

The main objectives of digital marketing are to attract customers and increase brand awareness through methods like SEO, social media marketing, etc. On the other hand, the main goal of web development is to create fast and responsive websites. Digital marketers use these websites to convert leads into customers, therefore, both roles must work together.

Now, let’s talk about the key similarities between web development and digital marketing.

What Are the Key Similarities Between Website Development and Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing and website development are interconnected in several ways. Let’s talk about their similarities.

1. Both Lead a Business to Effective Sales:

You need an effective strategy that attracts clients to your website and you need an attractive website to convert new leads into customers. 

For example, you can attract new leads through SEO that can be converted into customers through a call to action at the end of an article.

2. Both Need Experts to Be Executed Properly

Digital marketing and website development are not easy tasks, they both need a lot of knowledge to be executed properly. 

If you want to implement these concepts into your business you better hire an expert. If you don’t do it, you will end up expending a lot of resources (time and money) on strategies that don’t work at all or on a clunky website.

There’s a reason why there are masters and expensive courses to learn these practices, and it is that they both need a large amount of knowledge and experience.

3. They are Constantly Evolving

Overall, the internet changes fast. Web design and internet marketing are not the exceptions. Every single day there are new trends and techniques.

The best way to keep your business running smoothly is to use the latest marketing techniques and design concepts.

For example, if you are using social media for promoting your website, it is necessary to be updated on the latest trends so you can attract more customers.

Also, once these leads arrive on your website you might want to give them a comfortable experience right?

This can be achieved by staying updated on the latest web design and development trends.

And, once more, if you hire a web developer and a digital marketer you won’t have to consume a huge amount of information that is actually needed to be updated on these topics.

web developers working

Pros and Cons: Web Development vs Digital Marketing

In this section, we are going to talk about the pros and cons of digital marketing and website development.

Digital Marketing

These are the Pros and Cons of digital marketing for your business.

Pros

  • Digital marketing allows you to reach a vast number of people while also allowing you to target them very precisely.
  • It increases the level of openness. By getting involved with social media and correctly managing it, you can build client loyalty and establish a reputation for being simple to work with.
  • Launching and maintaining traditional marketing initiatives is more costly than launching and maintaining digital marketing campaigns.
  • Digital marketing facilitates the formation of successful connections by increasing brand interaction.

Cons

  • It can be difficult to find a high-quality digital marketing expert that is updated with the latest trends in the field and that has lots of experience.
  • When you post something online, you leave yourself vulnerable to criticism from disgruntled customers and others who make it their mission to agitate and bother others.
  • You need to be extremely careful with what your digital marketing team is doing, and make sure that you’ve hired experienced experts. It is too easy to get scammed or to lost a lot of money on strategies that don’t work

Web Development

These are the Pros and Cons of web development for your business.

Pros

  • A well-made website increases the credibility of your brand. These days the first thing that someone does before hiring or buying something on the internet is to research the brand in any of the most popular search engines.
  • A website lets you automate some processes, for example, with a landing page you can let your customers know what your services or products are all about and how to contact you.
  • With a website, you can appear in Search Engines as a local business, which will give you credibility and recognition in your local area.
  • A website does not depend on a platform, what does this mean? Let’s make a quick example, Instagram is a company by Meta, and you actually don’t own your business profile on this platform. However, with a website, you have total control and security that no one is going to close your account suddenly.

Cons

  • Websites are quite expensive since they  require a lot of effort and knowledge to be created and maintained
  • It’s one more thing to worry about since you have to take care of updating your website’s software to avoid security breaches (You can hire a web developer to do this for you)
  • A website alone is not going to make sales. You need to accompany your business website with other digital strategies to actually attract more clients automatically and make sells

Which One Should You Choose? Digital Marketing or Web Development?

You already know all of the differences, similarities and pros and cons of digital marketing vs web development, however, you still may have some sounds. 

In this short guide, we’ll help you to choose which one you should choose depending on your personal and business needs.

You Should Choose Digital Marketing Services If…

  • You already have a website and you want to attract more possible customers to it
  • You have a new business with a website and you want more people to know that it exists
  • Your website gets a lot of traffic but you are now making sells

You Should Choose Web Development Services If…

  • You only have social media accounts for your business but you want to implement new digital strategies through a website
  • Your website is not mobile-friendly
  • Your website is old and doesn’t represent your services or products

Conclusion: Digital Marketing vs Web Development

We hope that our comparison guide of digital marketing vs web development has cleared your doubts.

Digital marketing is ideal for people who already have a website and want to increase sales and exposure.

And web development is ideal for people who want to increase their business opportunities through a website.

However, we highly recommend you to get both kinds of services since they are a powerful mix that needs each other to exist.

Without a website, there is no digital marketing and without digital marketing, a website is almost useless.

If you are looking for digital marketing services or web development services, we encourage you to explore our services. We are a reliable digital marketing and web development service provider.

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