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Search Engine Marketing and Advertising

For any business, whether brick and mortar or online, marketing and advertising are of foremost importance. Typically, brick and mortar companies use traditional media such as television, magazines, billboards, and so on. With an online business, a different and more innovative approach is needed. For this reason, search engine marketing and advertising is the ideal solution for building a vast customer base.

The goal in using search engine marketing is to gain more visibility and market share for the website. The result is not only greater sales, but also better branding opportunities. Using various search engines, which include Google, Yahoo, MSN, DopPile, AOL, and others, will help you reach your objective, giving you the chance to beat out the competition.

The bottom line is that you have to put your product and/or service in front of the potential customer. If you don’t position your website so it appears in top rankings on search engines, then you are truly missing a huge number of customers. However, if you use the right strategies in getting your site noticed through search engine marketing and advertising, watch out – your entire future will change.

Obviously, the number one goal with search engine marketing is to optimize your ability to be located online. As people conduct searches, whether through directories or search engines, they need to be able to find you. However, when trying to increase traffic, you also want qualified traffic, or people who will actually convert to buyers.

Using search engine marketing is by far the best and most popular means for people to find the information they need online. This effective method can increase traffic to great proportions. Considering that the number of pages of information on the Internet is growing by seven million every day, it is easy to see why good content that can be found is so vital. For marketing and branding, nothing beats the power of search engines.

Now, you need to be able to position your website, along with the products and/or services sold so potential buyers can find them. One way to help is by conducting a search on your own to find keywords and phrases most searched for based on what you have to sell. That way, the content of your site can be written in a way where search engine marketing will work to its fullest. There is an entire world out there just waiting to be had. Using search engine marketing is the best means of getting your hands on what you deserve.


Search Engine Marketing vs. Direct Marketing

Search engine marketing has become more powerful than ever thanks to modern technology. In times of old there was no question — direct marketing was the most powerful tool organizations could use to generate leads. This is no longer the case. In fact many would say search engine marketing is now the front-runner.

Search Engine Marketing Power

Why is search engine marketing such a powerhouse? One reason is the price. Search engine marketing is far less expensive than direct marketing. On average search engine marketing costs less than half a dollar for each response generated. Direct marketing costs far more.

Marketers often shy away from direct marketing if a business has a strong online presence because the cost of postage is far too high today. The advent of technology has made search engine marketing the most sensible option for most people. This is especially true for small business owners.

Most people can break into search engine marketing on their own. There are many companies offering search engine marketing services. These are especially helpful for big businesses. However, these companies can charge an arm and a leg. Most prices are cost-prohibitive for the small business owner starting out on the web.

This is not the case for larger corporations. If you find you need some search engine optimization or SEO, the chances are high you can do the preliminary work by yourself during the early phases of your Internet marketing. This is good news for most business owners.

Making Search Engine Marketing Work In The Long-Term

Once you optimize your website in the early stages, you will need to plan for the long-term. The web is an ever-evolving entity. So are most businesses. Part of successful search engine marketing involves keeping up with trends. If you plan to be a trendsetter, then one step you’ll have to take is to keep up with the latest search engine marketing techniques.

This will enhance your page rank and ensure that your business has longevity in the Internet marketing world. Once you understand the basics of search engine marketing, you will find if you keep up with changes as they occur, you will be fine as search engine marketing diversifies in the future. As your business grows you will have an opportunity to hire a professional to assist you with more complex changes in the future.


The Role of Keywords in Targeted Traffic


1. Keywords help visitors find your site


2. Keywords help set a site apart from others





The Elements of Making Search Engine Marketing Work

When looking at search engine marketing, there are several different scenarios that lead to success. A common mistake made by online businesses is that rather than taking advantage of all of them, they only stick with one strategy. While this might result in some traffic, it shortchanges the company in that they could actually increase the number of customers by using more search engine marketing solutions.

If you plan to use search engine marketing for your website, it’s worth learning about the various options you have so you can gain more leverage on the Internet. In this article, we wanted to address the two primary means of search engine marketing, both of which have been proven highly successful when done right. The first is with search engine optimization or SEO and the second, pay-per-click advertising.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The first search engine marketing tool is SEO. In fact, of all options, this is probably the most effective. The process of using SEO is to build a website with rich content that will help you gain more Internet exposure. For instance, the content of your homepage, as well as titles and tags, can help position your site better. By creating strong words within your site that help to get people’s attention, you increase your chances of growing.

Over time, you may need to tweak your website to improve your visibility but eventually you can reach the top three rankings for keywords. The result is a huge increase in the number of people who find your site and click through. Now, while some of the smaller search engines are free, others such as Yahoo and Google will cost. However, the price paid to get a better ranking is money well invested.

While SEO is powerful for search engine marketing, there is a downside. Getting to a top position within a search engine takes time, effort, and often a substantial investment. Therefore, you need to realize that you will not reach a high rank quickly but if you are diligent in your efforts to get better, you will. As your ranking improves, you will also see that profits improve too, as well as your customer base.

Pay-per-Click (PPC)

The second option we wanted to discuss pertaining to search engine marketing is PPC. With this, you have a platform on which you would pay a fee to gain a better ranking within the search engine. The service you use would depend where your advertising would be placed. As an example, for advertisements in AOL and Google search engines, you would use Google AdWords. However, if you want search engine marketing to focus on MSN and Yahoo search engines, the choice would be Overture.

Pay-per-click offers a number of advantages for search engine marketing. The primary advantage is that rather than waiting to build your ranking so you see an increase in traffic associated with SEO, PPC is designed to increase traffic very quickly. Best of all, not only do you end up with more traffic, but you have actual paying customers.

The only drawback of PPC is that the amount you pay is close to what you would get from customers. However, when PPC is used in association with SEO, you come out ahead. Therefore, PPC is another excellent means of search engine marketing.


Effective Search Engine Marketing

Everyone knows the importance of creating a website that has search engine friendly content, but some people are not aware of ways to make search engine marketing effective. Obviously, the goal with using search engine marketing is to draw more people to the website. The more people that stop by, the better the chances of them buying something.

There are a number of search engines that represent the mainstream, such as Yahoo.com and Google.com. These search engines are large and very popular. However, there is another group of search engines that are lesser known but that could still provide website traffic. For instance, Brainboost.con and Hotbot.con can also offer great results. Therefore, smaller, lesser known search engines should never be overlooked.

Another important aspect of making search engine marketing effective is using sites that correlate with your business. Many people have no idea that there are tons of search engines broken down by type. While we cannot list them all, the following are some options that can make your search engine marketing effective more than you thought.

* Lucene.com – Open Source Search Engine

* Powerset.com – Question and Answer Search Engine

* MySimon.com – Price Search Engine

* FindSounds.com – Multimedia Search Engine

* Zillow.com – Real Property Search Engine

For search engine marketing, there are some basic things to know. First, search engines are where people come to find information. You could compare a search engine with a favorite department store. People go there looking for things they want to buy. If they are thrilled with what they find, they return time and time again. If you use strong search engine marketing, you capture the attention of people, drawing them to your site over and over.

The bottom line is that it all starts with a business, followed by the development of a website. From there, you have to ensure your search engine marketing is effective so when people conduct a search for what you have to sell, they find you. Typically, potential customers will type in a phrase or keyword and if your search engine marketing is effective your website will appear at or near the top of the search engine results.

With this, the majority of people conducting the search will click on your link rather than scroll down to some other person’s site. If you find that you are not drawing enough traffic, then something is missing. This could be in the overall design of the site, the tag lines used to briefly promote your site within the search engines, the search engine sites you are using, or the way in which you are marketing the site. Analyzing the problem then gives you the opportunity to make appropriate change so you can become highly successful.