Many people use the terms Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) interchangeably as if they are the same thing. But they are very different internet marketing techniques and should not be referred to as one thing.
Search Engine Marketing is a term to describe the full array of promotional technologies used by internet marketers to increase their online traffic as well as visibility for their websites. Search Engine Optimization is just one part of the whole SEM equation. When you talk about SEO you are basically referring to a number of strategies for getting a website ranked highly in search engines.
Search engine marketing experts employ several internet marketing methods concurrently:
1. Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising. This is a form of SEM where you pay to be ranked for certain keywords. Advertisers (usually internet marketers) pay for listings in search engines (Yahoo, Google and others). Search engines display ads in various spots in their listings as well as on websites based on the prices they receive. Google Adsense is the most well-known and successful PPC program on the internet.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There are a lot of strategies that are used together for SEO. This includes inserting strategic keywords to websites often after carefully studying those used by their competitors, in an effort to increase their own rankings and site traffic. It also includes getting inbound links using any number of methods that can be used for obtaining backlinks. And using meta tags and title tags effectively. SEO is a whole internet marketing strategy in itself that takes a lot of time to learn and implement. SEO techniques are constantly changing and internet marketers have to always be learning to stay on top of the strategies.
3. Paid Inclusions. For advertisers, it often pays to be a part of marketing or shopping search engines, such as BixRate, Froogle, Shopzilla, MySimon, DealTime, and many others. It helps them to lure shoppers to their own websites for other purchases and customer lists.
In the current high-tech marketplace, entire organizations exist to provide internet marketing consulting, web developing, SEO and SEM solutions. Larger companies often have their own in-house staff to handle and implement internet marketing strategies. One of the main objectives is to create search engine friendly websites that attract large amounts of traffic and appeal to their target markets.
Posted in Internet Marketing, SEM, SEO
We all know what an ebook is, right? Almost everybody has at least seen an ebook by now, whether you knew it or not. Certainly everyone in the internet marketing world has read one. If you don’t know what one is, they are those electronic books that you read online, and are usually in pdf format. Ebooks come on just about every topic imaginable.
Just like “real world” paper books, they are subject to copyright laws. Plagiarism or selling without permission is strictly punishable under copyright laws and anyone who gets caught can face harsh penalties. However, many publishers of ebooks offer resale rights to them so their customers can sell them on their own websites, blogs, or anywhere else online and keep 100% of the profit. This is great for internet marketers!
The publisher will typically charge a fee to obtain resale rights and then the customer can sell the ebook for whatever price they want. With basic resale rights the customer can usually sell it but can not modify it or claim to be the author. If you buy resale rights to an ebook you need to make sure you know exactly what you can and cannot do with those rights. Make sure you ask the publisher that you bought the rights from so you don’t do anything that could get you in trouble.
Selling ebooks is one of the most profitable online money making methods in the internet marketing world right now. Many internet marketers cash in on various niche markets by writing ebooks and selling them. Today, you can find them on pretty much every topic under the sun. If you can’t write well or simply don’t want to take the time to write your own ebook you can take advantage of resale rights being offered by an existing author.
Many top selling ebooks today are online business oriented. Information products on stock trading, making money in real estate, making money online and other internet marketing topics tend to do very well. Many self-help ebooks and those that teach personal transformation and growth, weight loss, enhance self-image, etc… are also very popular.
With more and more people getting into internet marketing these days so they can work at home, obtaining resale rights to an ebook and selling it online is one of the best ways to make money. The amount of marketing that can be done with ebooks and money that can be made is virtually unlimited. Since it can be adapted to almost any product or niche, they represent one of the best methods for internet marketing.
Posted in Internet Marketing, Make Money Online
One of the hardest parts of internet marketing is actually getting people to your website. It’s not easy to get people to search for your website, find it, read it and take the action necessary to make money for you. Some of the best traffic you will get is from visitors who found your site via search engines. So you need to be at the top of the search engines.
That brings up the question of how to get the attention of the search engines? Well, there are several internet marketing methods for doing this but one of the best is to write articles and publish them on your website. These articles should be written with search engine optimization techniques in mind to maximize your rankings. This is one of the most cost-effective and simple ways increase your search engine rankings and website traffic. Needless to say, your website must have value to it so the visitor is actually getting something out of their time visiting you!
Search engines can be an internet marketer’s best friend, or worst enemy. If your online business site contains irrelevant content for instance, or hard to digest information, then no matter how well you have optimized your key words for the search engines, your page ranking will drop faster than it rises – after all its humans who need to be able to read it, not machines. SEO must go had in hand with good, well-structured content. When the search engine crawler comes across the keywords in your site, the overall content of your site must match.
For good keyword optimization, one of the things an internet marketer needs to consider is “keyword density”. This is helpful to make sure that the main keywords show up enough times to catch a crawler’s attention, but low enough to maintain readability. Most keyword densities should reside between 3 to 5 % – any higher and you risk being rejected as a spammer. Some sites will still raise this percentage in order to get more hits, but this will not usually work in the long run.
More and more potential customers are getting online to do their own research before any purchase, and websites have become more than just marketing tools. Its your electronic showroom so to speak, and the more well-written and informative SEO articles you produce, the higher your chance for ranking high in the search engines and making money online as an internet marketer.
Posted in Internet Marketing, SEO
Anyone with a computer, internet access, and a very basic knowledge of the internet can start a home based internet marketing business. You can easily find products and services to affiliate with or create your own to sell online. Plus, there is more than enough free home based business and internet marketing information readily available for you to learn how to make money online. However, one thing that is important to develop right from the start is a network so you can make a name for yourself within your market.
Networking is a concept that has been popular for many years. In the classical world of business, networking meant getting known in prominent business and social circles. Now we are in the internet age, so how can you start networking online to help your internet marketing business to become prominent and well known?
First of all, don’t be shy to meet new people online who are in your business niche. Whatever your business niche is, go to the websites, blogs and forums in your niche and become a well-known member at them. Make sure that you participate in the discussions and get to know people. Don’t forget that forums are great places to exchange information and they are also perfect for gaining potential customers. Don’t be afraid to talk about the positive and the negative aspects of what you are marketing. Honesty and support works in internet marketing – people will only pay if you are worth it.
Make sure that you become a member of several social networking sites. As surprising as it may be, social networking sites can definitely help you gain the potential leverage that you need for your internet marketing business. Sites such as Myspace, Facebook, Technorati and many others can help you gain prominent contacts. Make sure you get to know a lot of people and thus lots of potential market partners and business contacts.
Once you reach a certain level of prominence in your market, then you can try more advanced techniques of Social Networking. For example, you can try to conduct webinars (seminars that are conducted on the internet to a larger audience) on internet marketing and mention your products and services that you are selling. The main purpose of conducting these webinars should be to create a social networking opportunity and to get to know potential customers. In fact, you can repeat these webinars at certain time intervals to create an even wider network for yourself.
Last but not least, do not be afraid to use your existing customers to create a social networking environment for yourself. Don’t forget that happy customers will be one of the best references for you and the people that you meet through them will have high potential to become customers for your internet marketing business. Don’t forget that networking can create a greater potential for you than most other marketing technique available when it comes to repeat business.
Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Networking
So you have decided it’s time to register a domain name, start a website, and get into internet marketing. Or maybe you are just looking to start another website to expand your online business empire. Whatever your situation is, there are a few things you need to remember before registering a domain name.
There are many benefits of having a good domain name, and before you decide on one you should know that short, catchy, and descriptive domains are best. Although it’s very hard to find domains that have all three of these traits it can still be done. If you have to settle for a domain that doesn’t have all three of these then I suggest throwing out the descriptive part because short and catchy is more important. You can brand any domain so it doesn’t have to be descriptive although it should be if possible.
There are literally millions of domains with websites up on them and millions more that are registered but not in use. Sometimes people will register them for future use, or to resell them at a profit, or they just never get around to putting a site on them. Most of the short, catchy, and really good domains have already been registered over the years so it’s pretty hard to find a perfect domain. Just imagine if you would have been the one to find google.com – yahoo.com – ebay.com – amazon.com – business.com – money.com or any of about a million others that are as perfect as those domains are.
It is easy to check and see if your domain name is already registered and if it is, you can always check other extensions or find a different domain that is available close to the one you wanted. Extensions are at the end of the URL, such as .com or .net or .org. As far as internet marketing is concerned, it’s best to have a .com domain.
Once you have the right combination, then immediately register your domain before someone else beats you to it. Yes, it can happen, on more than one occasion I have found a domain that was available and within minutes it was already taken because I took my time getting it registered.
Some internet marketers say that the domain isn’t important but I disagree. I’m a firm believer that the domain name is important! If your website has an easy-to-remember URL then the chances of visitors coming to your site increases dramatically. Or if it has a catchy domain people will want to come there just to see what it’s all about and they will remember it. If it’s descriptive people will know what your site is about. A good domain name can be a huge part of your marketing strategy and marketing is what makes you money. And the whole point of internet marketing is to make money!
It’s also easier to advertise a shorter domain name. Often times you have a limited amount of space to put your link so if your domain is really long you won’t have room. Plus, a nice catchy domain will sometimes go viral and bring in thousands of visitors just because everyone is talking about how great it is. Or if your domain is descriptive you can strategically place your URL in locations without needing to put an ad to let the potential visitor know what your site is about. It can virtually advertise itself!
Choosing the right domain name costs nothing extra except a little more time to carefully contemplate the decision. However, it can have a dramatic effect on the success of your online business. Finding your domain is the first step of internet marketing and taking time to get the first step right will have a lasting impact on your online business and all the other internet marketing strategies you will be using for years to come.
Posted in Domains, Internet Marketing
