SEO Pricing

Posted on March 14, 2012 by brookes

There are some pricing systems on professional SEO consulting. Some of them are:

Pay Per Hour: The payment system where the SEO company is paid per hour of labor.
Pay Per Month: The payment system where the SEO company is paid a fixed amount per month.
Pay Per Performance: This payment method is also called as Pay Per Result. Performance values which are used mostly are unique visitor and absolute sale. Different payment boards can be arranged according to the performance values. According to the SEO company, one-time payment before the SEO service may be included.
Pay Per Ranking: The payment system where the SEO company is paid a monthly amount per keyword which is listed on Google 1st page organic results. The montly amount varies according to its first page ranking. One-time payment before the SEO service may be included.
Pay Per Project: The payment system where the SEO company is paid a fixed amount for the whole SEO project. This fixed amount can be paid at once or in instalments.

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Social media marketing – Marketing on Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, Youtube etc

Posted on March 14, 2012 by brookes

Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites.

Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. A corporate message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself. Hence, this form of marketing is driven by word-of-mouth, meaning it results in earned media rather than paid media.

Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access. Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and often, improved customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns.

Social media outlets/platforms

Twitter, Facebook, Google+ YouTube, blogs

Social networking websites allow individuals to interact with one another and build relationships. When products or companies join those sites, people can interact with the product or company. That interaction feels personal to users because of their previous experiences with social networking site interactions.

Social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, YouTube, Pinterest and blogs allow individual followers to “retweet” or “repost” comments made by the product being promoted. By repeating the message, all of the users connections are able to see the message, therefore reaching more people. Social networking sites act as word of mouth. Because the information about the product is being put out there and is getting repeated, more traffic is brought to the product/company.

Through social networking sites, products/companies can have conversations and interactions with individual followers. This personal interaction can instill a feeling of loyalty into followers and potential customers. Also, by choosing whom to follow on these sites, products can reach a very narrow target audience.

Cell phones

Cell phone usage has also become a benefit for social media marketing. Today, many cell phones have social networking capabilities: individuals are notified of any happenings on social networking sites through their cell phones, in real-time. This constant connection to social networking sites means products and companies can constantly remind and update followers about their capabilities, uses, importance, etc. Because cell phones are connected to social networking sites, advertisements are always in sight. Also many companies are now putting QR codes along with products for individuals to access the companies website or online services with their smart-phones.

Tactics of Social Media Marketing

Twitter Tactics

Twitter allows companies to promote products on an individual level. The use of a product can be explained in short messages that followers are more likely to read. These messages appear on followers’ home pages. Messages can link to the product’s website, Facebook profile, photos, videos, etc. This link provides followers the opportunity to spend more time interacting with the product online. This interaction can create a loyal connection between product and individual and can also lead to larger advertising opportunities. Twitter promotes a product in real-time and brings customers in.

Facebook Tactics

Facebook profiles are more detailed than Twitter. They allow a product to provide videos, photos, and longer descriptions. Videos can show when a product can be used as well as how to use it. These also can include testimonials as other followers can comment on the product pages for others to see. Facebook can link back to the product’s Twitter page as well as send out event reminders. Facebook promotes a product in real-time and brings customers in.

As marketers see more value in social media marketing, advertisers continue to increase sequential ad spend in social by 25%. Strategies to extend the reach with Sponsored Stories and acquire new fans with Facebook ads continue to an uptick in spend across the site. The study attributes 84% of “engagement” or clicks to Likes that link back to Facebook advertising. Today, brands increase fan counts on average of 9% monthly, increasing their fan base by two-times the amount annually.

Blogs Tactics

Blogs allow a product or company to provide longer descriptions of products or services. The longer description can include reasoning and uses. It can include testimonials and can link to and from Facebook, Twitter and many social network and blog pages. Blogs can be updated frequently and are promotional techniques for keeping customers. Other promotional uses are acquiring followers and subscribers and direct them to your social network pages.

Social media marketing tools

Besides research tools, there are many companies providing specialized platforms/tools for social media marketing, such as tools for:

* Social Media Monitoring
* Social Aggregation
* Social Book Marking and Tagging
* Social Analytics and Reporting
* Automation
* Social Media
* Blog Marketing
* Validation

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Email marketing

Posted on March 14, 2012 by brookes

Email marketing is directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using electronic mail email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send ads, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and any email communication that is meant to build loyalty, trust or brand awareness. Email marketing can be done to either cold lists or current customer database. Broadly, the term is usually used to refer to:

* sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business,
* sending email messages with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately,
* adding advertisements to email messages sent by other companies to their customers

Researchers estimate that United States firms alone spent US $1.51 billion on email marketing in 2011 and will grow to $2.468 billion by 2016.

Types of email marketing

Email marketing can be carried out through different types of emails;

Email newsletters

Email Newsletters are direct emails sent out on a regular basis to a list of subscribers, customers. The primary purpose of an email newsletter is to build upon the relationship of the company with their customers/subscribers.

Transactional emails

Transactional emails are usually triggered based on a customer’s action with a company. Triggered transactional messages include dropped basket messages, purchase or order confirmation emails and email receipts.

The primary purpose of a transactional email is to convey information regarding the action that triggered it. But, due to it’s high open rates (51.3% compared to 36.6% for email newsletters[2]), transactional emails are a golden opportunity to engage customers; to introduce or extend the email relationship with customers or subscribers, to anticipate and answer questions or to cross-sell or up-sell products or services.

Many email newsletter software vendors offer transactional email support, which gives companies the ability to include promotional messages within the body of transactional emails. There are also software vendors that offer specialized transactional email marketing services, which include providing targeted and personalized transactional email messages and running specific marketing campaigns (such as customer referral programs).

Direct emails

Direct email involves sending an email solely to communicate a promotional message (for example, an announcement of a special offer or a catalog of products). Companies usually collect a list of customer or prospect email addresses to send direct promotional messages to, or they can also rent a list of email addresses from service companies.

Comparison of email Marketing with traditional mail:

There are both advantages and disadvantages to using email marketing in comparison to traditional advertising mail.

Advantages of email Marketing:

Email marketing (on the Internet) is popular with companies for several reasons:

* An exact return on investment can be tracked (“track to basket”) and has proven to be high when done properly. Email marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic.
* Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of email subscribers who have opted in (i.e., consented) to receive email communications on subjects of interest to them.
* Almost half of American Internet users check or send email on a typical day, with email blasts that are delivered between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. outperforming those sent at other times in open and click rates.
* Email is popular with digital marketers, rising an estimated 15% in 2009 to £292m in the UK.

Disadvantages of email Marketing:

A report issued by the email services company Return Path, as of mid-2008 email deliverability is still an issue for legitimate marketers. According to the report, legitimate email servers averaged a delivery rate of 56%; twenty percent of the messages were rejected, and eight percent were filtered.

Companies considering the use of an email marketing program must make sure that their program does not violate spam laws such as the United States’ Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM), the European Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, or their Internet service provider’s acceptable use policy.

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Association in Internet Marketing with different Business Models

Posted on March 14, 2012 by brookes

Internet marketing is associated with several business models:

* E-commerce: a model whereby goods and services are sold directly to consumers (B2C), businesses (B2B), or from consumer to consumer (C2C) using computers connected to a network.
* Lead-based websites: a strategy whereby an organization generates value by acquiring sales leads from its website.[citation needed] Similar to walk-in customers in retail world. These prospects are often referred to as organic leads.
* Affiliate Marketing: a process wherein a product or service developed by one entity is sold by other active sellers for a share of profits. The entity that owns the product may provide some marketing material (e.g., sales letters, affiliate links, tracking facilities, etc.); however, the vast majority of affiliate marketing relationships come from e-commerce businesses that offer affiliate programs.
* Local Internet marketing: a strategy through which a small company utilizes the Internet to find and to nurture relationships that can be used for real-world advantages. Local Internet marketing uses tools such as social media marketing, local directory listing, and targeted online sales promotions.

One-to-one approaches

In a one-to-one approach, marketers target a user browsing the Internet alone and so that the marketers’ messages reach the user personally. This approach is used in search marketing, for which the advertisements are based on search engine keywords entered by the users. This approach usually works under the pay per click (PPC) method.

Appeal to specific interests

When appealing to specific interests, marketers place an emphasis on appealing to a specific behavior or interest, rather than reaching out to a broadly defined demographic.[citation needed] These marketers typically segment their markets according to age group, gender, geography, and other general factors.

Niche marketing

Niche and hyper-niche internet marketing put further emphasis on creating destinations for web users and consumers on specific topics and products. Niche marketers differ from traditional Internet marketers as they have a more specialized topic knowledge. For example, whereas in traditional Internet marketing a website would be created and promoted on a high-level topic such as kitchen appliances, niche marketing would focus on more specific topics such as 4-slice toasters.

Niche marketing provides end users of such sites very targeted information, and allows the creators to establish themselves as authorities on the topic or product.

Geo-targeting

In Internet marketing, geo targeting and geo marketing are the methods of determining the geolocation of a website visitor with geolocation software, and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location, such as latitude and longitude, country, region or state, city, metro code or zip code, organization, Internet Protocol (IP) address, ISP, and other criteria.

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Internet marketing and different methods

Posted on March 14, 2012 by brookes

Internet marketing, also known as web marketing, online marketing, webvertising, or e-marketing, is referred to as the marketing (generally promotion) of products or services over the Internet. iMarketing is used as an abbreviated form for Internet Marketing.

Internet marketing is considered to be broad in scope[citation needed] because it not only refers to marketing on the Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media. Digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems are also often grouped together under internet marketing.

Internet marketing ties together the creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising and sales. Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along many different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, email marketing, mobile advertising, and Web 2.0 strategies.

The New York Times, working with comScore, published an initial estimate to quantify the user data collected by large Internet-based companies. Counting four types of interactions with company websites in addition to the hits from advertisements served from advertising networks, the authors found that the potential for collecting data was up to 2,500 times per user per month.

Types of Internet marketing

Internet marketing is broadly divided in to the following types:

* Display Advertising: the use of web banners or banner ads placed on a third-party website to drive traffic to a company’s own website and increase product awareness.
* Search Engine Marketing (SEM): a form of marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of either paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion, or through the use of free search engine optimization techniques.
* Search Engine Optimization (SEO): the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.
* Social Media Marketing: the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
* Email Marketing: involves directly marketing a commercial message to a group of people using electronic mail.
* Referral Marketing: a method of promoting products or services to new customers through referrals, usually word of mouth.
* Affiliate Marketing: a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
* Content Marketing: involves creating and freely sharing informative content as a means of converting prospects into customers and customers into repeat buyers.

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Digital marketing

Posted on March 14, 2012 by brookes

Digital marketing is the use of digital sources based on electronic signal like Internet, digital display advertising and other digital media such as television, radio, and mobile phones in the promotion of brands and products to consumers. Digital marketing may cover the more traditional marketing areas such as Direct Marketing by providing the same method of communicating with an audience but in a digital fashion.

Digital marketing – Pull versus Push

Two different forms of digital marketing exist.

Pull digital marketing in which the consumer must actively seek the marketing content, often via web searches, and push digital marketing where the marketer sends the content to the consumer, as in email. Websites, blogs and streaming media (audio and video) are examples of pull digital marketing. In each of these users have to link to the website to view the content. Only current web browser technology is required to maintain static content. However, additional internet marketing technologies (search engine optimization) may be required to attract the desired consumer demographic.

Push digital marketing technologies involve both the marketer as well as the recipients. Email, text messaging and web feeds are examples of push digital marketing. In each of these, the marketer has to send the messages to the subscribers. In the case of web feeds, content is pulled on a periodic basis (polling), thus simulating a push. Push technologies can deliver content immediately as it becomes available and is better targeted to its consumer demographic, although audiences are often smaller, and the cost for creation and distribution is higher.

Push and pull message technologies can be used in conjunction with each other. For example, an email campaign can include a banner ad or link to a content download. This enables a marketer to benefit from both types of digital marketing.

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Search engine marketing(SEM) Vs Search engine Optimization(SEO)

Posted on March 14, 2012 by brookes

SEM is the wider discipline that incorporates SEO. SEM includes both paid search results (Adwords) and organic search results (SEO). SEM uses AdWords, pay per click (particularly beneficial for local providers as it enables potential consumers to contact a company directly with one click), article submissions, advertising and making sure SEO has been done. A keyword analysis is performed for both SEO and SEM, but not necessarily at the same time. SEM and SEO both need to be monitored and updated frequently to reflect evolving best practices.

In some contexts, the term SEM is used exclusively to mean pay per click advertising, particularly in the commercial advertising and marketing communities which have a vested interest in this narrow definition. Such usage excludes the wider search marketing community that is engaged in other forms of SEM such as search engine optimization and search retargeting.

Another part of SEM is social media marketing (SMM). SMM is a type of marketing that involves exploiting social media to influence consumers that one company’s products and/or services are valuable. Some of the latest theoretical advances include search engine marketing management (SEMM). SEMM relates to activities including SEO but focuses on return on investment (ROI) management instead of relevant traffic building (as is the case of mainstream SEO). SEMM also integrates organic SEO, trying to achieve top ranking without using paid means of achieving top in search engines, and pay per click SEO. For example some of the attention is placed on the web page layout design and how content and information is displayed to the website visitor.

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Paid inclusion in Search Engine Results

Posted on March 14, 2012 by brookes

Paid inclusion involves a search engine company charging fees for the inclusion of a website in their results pages. Also known as sponsored listings, paid inclusion products are provided by most search engine companies, the most notable being Google.

The fee structure is both a filter against superfluous submissions and a revenue generator. Typically, the fee covers an annual subscription for one web-page, which will automatically be cataloged on a regular basis. However, some companies are experimenting with non-subscription based fee structures where purchased listings are displayed permanently. A per-click fee may also apply. Each search engine is different. Some sites allow only paid inclusion, although these have had little success. More frequently, many search engines, like Yahoo!, mix paid inclusion (per-page and per-click fee) with results from web crawling. Others, like Google (and as of 2006, Ask.com), do not let webmasters pay to be in their search engine listing (advertisements are shown separately and labeled as such).

Some detractors of paid inclusion allege that it causes searches to return results based more on the economic standing of the interests of a web site, and less on the relevancy of that site to end-users.

Often the line between pay per click advertising and paid inclusion is debatable. Some have lobbied for any paid listings to be labeled as an advertisement, while defenders insist they are not actually ads since the webmasters do not control the content of the listing, its ranking, or even whether it is shown to any users. Another advantage of paid inclusion is that it allows site owners to specify particular schedules for crawling pages. In the general case, one has no control as to when their page will be crawled or added to a search engine index. Paid inclusion proves to be particularly useful for cases where pages are dynamically generated and frequently modified.

Paid inclusion is a search engine marketing method in itself, but also a tool of search engine optimization, since experts and firms can test out different approaches to improving ranking, and see the results often within a couple of days, instead of waiting weeks or months. Knowledge gained this way can be used to optimize other web pages, without paying the search engine company.

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Different methods of Search engine marketing (SEM)

Posted on March 14, 2012 by brookes

Every Year, North American advertisers spend US$13.5 billion on search engine marketing. The largest SEM vendors were Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. As of 2006, SEM was growing much faster than traditional advertising and even other channels of online marketing. Because of the complex technology, a secondary “search marketing agency” market has evolved. Some marketers have difficulty understanding the intricacies of search engine marketing and choose to rely on third party agencies to manage their search marketing.

Search engine optimization consultants expanded their offerings to help businesses learn about and use the advertising opportunities offered by search engines, and new agencies focusing primarily upon marketing and advertising through search engines emerged. The term “Search Engine Marketing” was proposed by Danny Sullivan in 2001 to cover the spectrum of activities involved in performing SEO, managing paid listings at the search engines, submitting sites to directories, and developing online marketing strategies for businesses, organizations, and individuals.

There are four categories of methods and metrics used to optimize websites through search engine marketing.

1. Keyword research and analysis involves three “steps:” (a) Ensuring the site can be indexed in the search engines; (b) finding the most relevant and popular keywords for the site and its products; and (c) using those keywords on the site in a way that will generate and convert traffic.
2. Website saturation and popularity, how much presence a website has on search engines, can be analyzed through the number of pages of the site that are indexed on search engines (saturation) and how many backlinks the site has (popularity). It requires your pages containing those keywords people are looking for and ensure that they rank high enough in search engine rankings. Most search engines include some form of link popularity in their ranking algorithms. The followings are major tools measuring various aspects of saturation and link popularity: Link Popularity, Top 10 Google Analysis, and Marketleap’s Link Popularity and Search Engine Saturation.
3. Back end tools, including Web analytic tools and HTML validators, provide data on a website and its visitors and allow the success of a website to be measured. They range from simple traffic counters to tools that work with log files and to more sophisticated tools that are based on page tagging (putting JavaScript or an image on a page to track actions). These tools can deliver conversion-related information. There are three major tools used by EBSCO: (a) log file analyzing tool: WebTrends by NetiQ; (b) tag-based analytic programs WebSideStory’s Hitbox; (c) transaction-based tool: TeaLeaf RealiTea. Validators check the invisible parts of websites, highlighting potential problems and many usability issues ensure your website meets W3C code standards. Try to use more than one HTML validator or spider simulator because each tests, highlights, and reports on slightly different aspects of your website.
4. Whois tools reveal the owners of various websites, and can provide valuable information relating to copyright and trademark issues.

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All about Search engine marketing (SEM)

Posted on March 8, 2012 by brookes

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. Depending on the context, SEM can be an umbrella term for various means of marketing a website including search engine optimization (SEO), which “optimizes” website content to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages, or it may contrast with SEO, focusing on only paid components.

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