Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Marketer

Almost all businesses know that having a website is simply not enough. With some effort and time, they could well implement Search Engine Marketing instead of finding out a search engine marketer to do this. However, the wiser option is to have a Search Engine Marketer handle the issue of driving traffic to your website and help in increasing your business through systematic and strategic Search Engine Marketing techniques.

As a Search Engine Marketer, I have virtually explored all aspects of this model as a means to drive traffic to websites. Whether it is an existing website receiving no traffic at all or a newly set up website, I think search engine marketing is one of the quickest ways to generate traffic to a website. It does cost. However, going the organic SEO route(which, BW, I do) is time consuming. You want business now and improve your bottom line. Search engine marketers like me help make this happen.

I adopt a multi-pronged approach as the most effective way of search engine marketing to achieve my objectives of driving traffic to a client’s website. What I do is make a judicious spread of ads after discussing budgets with my clients. These PPC or Pay Per Click ads are simply great and spread across Yahoo, Google and Bing, get you hundreds of inquiries by the day. The campaign may not last long and depends on the budget you have set up for search engine marketing, but as a search engine marketer, let me tell you that even if it is only for six months, it is enough to make your company be noticed and get enough business to pay back the costs of search engine marketing. In the meanwhile, search engine optimization and other strategies start kicking in results.  As a search engine marketer I strongly recommend to each client to spend the money on search engine marketing: it gets results fast. Just get a smart, specialist search engine marketer to make it happen for you. In these days of global cut throat competition I believe search engine marketing is not an option; it is indispensable to stay ahead.

Internet Marketing and Internet Marketer

Involved in Internet Marketing and working as an Internet Marketer since my early days I have watched the competition grow, watched the market grow at a staggering pace and the huge benefits local companies have reached to the extent of becoming a global presence. It does not need an MBA to become an Internet Marketer and carry out Internet Marketing activities. Anyone with a yen to learn and a passion to study and research and implement techniques and also  come up with a few of his own based on his researches can work as an Internet Marketer and carry out Internet Marketing for companies.

Unlike physical marketing, an Internet Marketer does not even have to be an employee. He can work remotely, prepare plans and strategies, submit to his client and implement all these from his location and yet obtain results at a global scale without moving from his desk. It is knowledge, information, skills and experience that drives Internet Marketing.  I have put in sufficient efforts and gained enough experience and am proud to say I have conducted  a number of successful internet marketing campaigns using familiar SEO Techniques besides a few of my own innovative ideas. Alexa rankings show visitors in ‘000000s for websites that have been the subject of my Internet Marketing Campaigns, a quantum leap from the ‘00s figures of only a year before.

More to the point is that I study each client, his product and service and importantly, his competitors too before I even think of a plan. Knowing all the angles means the best cost effective strategy that gets results for you.  You have a business you want to expand across the  world. You know the competition and how they are moving. You know there is a vast sea of potential customers out there. You have a website and the only missing link here is to reach out to those customers through the web. As an Internet Marketing I provide Internet Marketing Services that bridge the gap. I do what you need to be done most: drive traffic to your website so that you can convert potential customers into actual ones. Working in a friendly, open way with affordable pricing policy I have made lifelong customer who have even gone on to recommend me to other business associates.

What is PPC?

The concept of Pay Per Click (PPC) probably originated when Jeffrey Brewer of Goto.com (now part of Yahoo) developed a Pay Per Click search engine concept in February 1998 at the TED conference in California. Yahoo integrated this full blast from November 2001. Google refined this PPC and gave it new direction with its adwords system and targeted SEO Experts, web developers and others to the extent of even training them, leading to spread of PPC Experts with deep knowledge of how this model works and how to exploit it to the full.

While normal search engine optimization strategies are organic and yield results over time, the fast track to getting traffic is to go in for Pay Per Click (PPC) model of internet advertising offered. PPC Experts are familiar with the Pay Per Click models offered by Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft Ad Center. PPC Experts know how to use the offers by these search engines to the best advantage of their clients by choosing appropriate keywords and making the right bid, spread out budget and to ensure the best ROI. These popular search engines will display sponsored ads or sponsored links on the first page or on the  inner pages when anyone has input the relevant key words that match the advertiser’s choice of keywords or if the site has relevant content. PPC charges for display on the first page are usually higher than for the subsequent inner pages of search results.  The PPC Expert will usually carefully select keywords after considering competition and searcher’s preferences to ensure displays on only relevant search pages. Each time anyone clicks on the links, the advertiser has to pay. Select keywords attract a higher bid and therefore a higher cost to the advertiser, whereas other keywords carefully chosen by the PPC Expert will be just as effective but at a much lower cost. It needs the PPC Expert’s knowledge and experience of the way this system works to fine tune the PPC model on bid basis.

Another PPC method adopted by PPC Experts is to post his client’s advertisement banners on selected sites. In this arrangement, the client has to pay only when any visitor to the site clicks on the banner advertisement and is directed to the client’s website. Such banner ads deployed on various business sites, portals and social sites can cost a tidy sum of money but also ensure quick and instant traffic.

Then there are sites that allow you to post links at a fixed cost regardless of whether visitors click the link or not. PPC Experts may include such models in their ad campaigns based on various considerations. Each site owner has different policies and B2B Sites these days are also narrowly segmented with industry specific sites giving the opportunity to reach out to specific groups of potential buyers. When links or ads are posted here by the PPC Expert, chances of receiving inquiries from potential clients are high. However, similar relevant ads may also be posted alongside and dilute the effectiveness since potential clients are also likely to click through to those sites. There are various options open to the PPC Expert here in the context of long term contract, displaying ads on pages with relevant content that would attract valuable visitors, product and service categories for fine tuning the targeting process. 

Yet another method PPC Experts adapt is to go in for affiliate marketing method to generate traffic and business for his client’s website. In this model, the affiliate marketing website displays links or small ads placed by the PPC Expert on that website on behalf of his client. Visitor to the affiliate’s website can click on the links and visit the client’s website. However, clients do not have to pay unless the click through results in business for them.

In the bid model, PPC Experts contract with the advertising network that spreads the ads through its network of websites by placing bids in a sort of auction, competing with similar products and services offered by others. This is an automated process and only the highest bidder has his ad displayed though the network’s partner websites when visitors input the keywords.

Contextual ads display through the advertising market on its network is another model adopted by PPC Experts to drive traffic to their clients’ websites. When visitors to the advertising network websites input keywords and relevant content is displayed, the ad is also triggered automatically. These are considered less effective by PPC Experts than similar ads on Search Engine pages.

Knowledge and experience are vital tools of the PPC Expert when he deploys an ad campaign in this sphere for his client to ensure the maximum traffic and returns on investment. 

What is SEO ?

What is SEO and what exactly does an SEO Expert do?

With thousands of websites offering similar products and services crowding the internet, getting noticed is not easy. A search for a particular item results in hundreds of pages. Today people searching for any product or services do not have the time or patience to navigate to each page of the search results. They look at the first couple of pages, click the links and navigate to the websites appearing at the top of search results. The rest are ignored. For a business this means no traffic and no traffic means no business. This is where an SEO Expert helps.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services encompass a broad range of strategies leveraging the knowledge of how search engines work, how people search and use search engines, search terms, search engine algorithms, targeted audience and the power of inbound links as an effective way to boost rankings in search results. SEO Experts use organic methods to bring about improved visibility, along with implementation of other related activities, all focused on achieving this result. As the web grows complex and web search engines refine their search algorithms and indexing methods, an SEO Expert’s Job becomes quite specialized and takes in a broad canvas of strategies.

In order to attain the objective of reaching top rankings and an increased traffic to a client’s website, an SEO Expert will usually carry out Web Analytics and search analytics in relation to the website and its products as a precursor to designing and implementing a successful strategy.

The task of an SEO Expert is very formidable in today’s environment. His task may be split into various segments. 

Onsite optimization:

An SEO Expert will analyze the client’s website, probably redesign it to include the right titles, use the right keywords after research and ensure proper distribution of these keyboards, redesign the navigation structure to be more search engine friendly and populate the website with content and images that are interesting and receive a higher preference from popular search engines. The SEO Expert will usually ensure the website complies to W3C standards, has reduced  flash and similar content, the right HTML coding, does not make use of frames and has the meta keywords and meta tags in place. The purpose of this exercise is to make the website search engine friendly, easily indexable.

Offsite activities of an SEO Expert:

This is a time consuming and formidable task, calling for past experience, knowledge and understanding of the Web on the part of the SEO Expert. His task will be to target different kinds of searches covering image search, local search, video search, academic search and vertical search engines.

Creating inbound links:

Inbound  links are references to specific pages of the website posted on blogs, forums, ezine article sites and on sites with whom reciprocal link exchange arrangements have been made.

Social networking sites like Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, MySpace and others allow creation of free accounts and posting interesting content like text, images and video. Usually a link to the client’s website appears along with image or post. Visitors browse these posts and if they find it interesting enough, promote it to their circle of friends, generating a viral flow of traffic to the client’s website.  

Search engine submission is an important activity on the part of the SEO to create specific inbound links. Along with search engines, the SEO Expert will usually submit to web directories, country specific as well as global, to yellow pages and to B2B and B2C sites where such listings are permitted. These work to create backward or inbound links to the client’s website.

The sum total of these activities is that search engines consider all these references and links and gives the website a higher ranking in search results.

The beauty of this strategy is that on most such sites, it costs nothing, results keep coming in and increasing , especially in social networking sites as a site grows in popularity and  word is spread. The SEO Expert’s efforts bear fruit over time.

White Hat and Black HatSEO:

There are organic, accepted methods of SEO known as white hat. BlackHat SEO on the other hand, exploits the underbelly of search engine algorithms and using not acceptable techniques, helps websites gain top rankings even though it may not deserve it. Search engines are constantly refining search algorithms to counter Black Hat SEO and the SEO Expert usually avoids such strategies since they could result in a permanent blacklisting and block of the website.

Search engines keep changing search and indexing algorithms and an SEO Expert has to keep on top and modify strategies and implementations with changing trends to maintain rankings of his client’s website. 

What is Internet marketing?

Look at the sky and you see a nebulous, seemingly chaotic arrangement of stars and planets. However each follows its set pattern and orbit otherwise we would have had these crashing into each other a long, long while ago. The internet is something like this. In cyberspace, computers are connected to each other through wired/wireless means and like the universe there does not seem to be a starting central point of origin or an end. It is ever expanding nebulae evolving by the minute.

What is Internet marketing?

Internet was primarily used for dissemination of information but its advantages led to development of business oriented websites and consequently gave rise to the use of this medium as a marketing tool to reach out globally to a wide clientele. Internet marketing gained in ascendancy as websites compete with each other to gain a user’s attention, stay ahead of the competition, be found at the top of search results and capture a larger market share. A variety of tools like banner ads, emails, newsletters and online advertising including search engine optimization techniques are used in internet marketing.

History of internet marketing

In only a short period of about 10 years, internet marketing has become a multi-million dollar business. When the web started to grow around 1995, the  concept of internet marketing did not even exist.

Business organizations set up websites simply to have an online presence, working as static brochures. A tremendous increase in the number of such websites made it difficult for intending customers to find them and websites had little or no traffic. Search engines like Google and Yahoo defined search algorithms and cleverly offered sophisticated promotional ideas and strategies to help such companies gain top listings in search results. Blogs and social networking and social media sites too blossomed and proliferated, that prompted internet marketing of a different type. Evolution of directories, yellow pages and search engines also led to marketing departments leveraging these technologies to promote products, services and companies by creating a significantly noticeable online presence.  Web 2.0 and highly evolved browsers, browser based apps, online shopping too fueled the growth of internet marketing. Content is king and ezine article sites and press release sites the contextual power and back linking  facilities led to exploitation of this resource and ultimately establishing it as a channel for internet marketing. Today internet marketing has become full-fledged and is easily ported to smartphones and tablets, opening up yet another creative and effective avenue to send the message across.

Importance of Internet Marketing

Either do it or pale into insignificance and oblivion. This is the simple dictum in a world dominated by a global marketing strategy using the internet as the thrust tool. Internet marketing is versatile, reaches a global audience, is cost effective, is evolving and dynamically adaptable as compared to other media. It can deliver multi-media rich, highly targeted content to potential customers, collect data on their regional preferences, likes, dislikes and even analyse statistics and build psychological profiles that can be exploited to the full to bring about conversions.

Exploiting all possible known channels of internet marketing and creatively devising newer strategies using existing technologies is what helps companies gain a strategic lead and stay head and shoulders above the others. If they do not, competition is always fast and furious and soon establishes a stranglehold presence. 

Types of Internet Marketing

• Banners displayed on popular portals and search engine sites were very popular and are still effective.
• Email is yet another internet marketing tool delivering personalized content to recipients. Email software is resorted to in order to send our timed and bulk messages from an email data bank, track bounces, track responses and manage the email campaigns with a higher level of automation and user-friendliness.
• Social Media marketing leverages the power of social networking to virally promote a company, its services and products and create back links to its website in order to generate enhanced traffic and conversions
• Search engine optimization is a bouquet of processes, both organic as well as algorithmic, whose sole aim is to enhance visibility of a website, bring it to the top 10 in search results and generate traffic.
• Search engine marketing, on the other hand, uses paid placement and contextual ad banners in conjunction with Google or Yahoo services. It costs money but promotes instant visibility and traffic. Google has adwords program with pay per click or cost per impression offers and advertisers pay according to the number of times visitors click on the google ad links that appear on search results pages when people are searching for similar products. Here again advertisers can plan and manage budgets. It costs more to have the ad link displayed on the first page of the search result listing with inner subsequent pages costing less. Again, advertisers have the option on the frequency of display of their ads as a means to managing advertising within budgets and according to their schedules.
• Web analytics from Google and other search engines is a popular tool to keep statistical data of ROI on ad spends, track flash, video and social networking  sites and applications and thus decide which mode works best for you.
• Referral marketing promotes products through word-of-mouth referrals.
• Affiliate marketing works by having other people promote a product through their websites and through their efforts. Affiliates could also be rewarded on the basis of maintaining links or ad banners on their sites and payment being made when a visitor to their site clicks through and buys the advertiser’s product. Affiliate arrangements also include revenue sharing basis and contextual advertising arrangements.
• Inbound marketing techniques involve creating and sharing informative content on blogs, forums and ezine article sites with back links that all work to gain new customers and promote traffic.
• Cloud Marketing combines the traditional techniques of markets with the latest concept of software as a service managed from a central location, relieving users from the burden of administration and technologies. A common platform enables creation, modification and sharing. Cloud comprehensively covers search engine marketing, organic search engine optimization, social media and mobile marketing. Rather than doing it oneself, one has a third party service provider carrying out all these functions though the cloud network.
• Mobile advertising: Smarter phones and tablets make it easy for marketing people to deliver text, voice messages, multi-edia messages through the mobile platform. Reaching out personally with customized messages, scheduling and other features make mobile marketing a very effective media since one usually always immediately refers an incoming message. Beyond cell phones, mobile marketing makes use of traveling billboards and hoardings to get messages across to local populace.
• Search Analytics: an indispensable tool for all those in search engine optimization business, search analytics compiles statistics  on search volume trends, use of keywords, analysis of trends, reverse searching, keyword monitoring, search result and advertisement history, ad spends and website comparison among others in order to arrive at strategic search engine methods.