Internet Marketing

Internet marketing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2008) Internet marketing Display advertising Email marketing E-mail marketing software Interactive advertising Cloud marketing Social media optimization Web analytics Cost per impression Affiliate marketing Cost per action Contextual advertising Revenue sharing Search engine marketing Search engine optimization Pay per click advertising Paid inclusion Search analytics Mobile advertising This box: view · talk · edit Marketing Key concepts Product • Pricing Distribution • Service • Retail Brand management Account-based marketing Marketing ethics Marketing effectiveness Market research Market segmentation Marketing strategy Marketing management Market dominance Promotional content Advertising • Branding • Underwriting Direct marketing • Personal Sales Product placement • Publicity Sales promotion • Sex in advertising Loyalty marketing • Premiums • Prizes

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Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Marketing Internet marketing, also known as digital marketing, web marketing, online marketing, search marketing or e-marketing, is the marketing (generally promotion) of products or services over the Internet. Internet marketing is considered to be broad in scope[1] because it not only refers to marketing on the Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media.[2] Digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems are also often grouped together under internet marketing.[3] Internet marketing ties together the creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sales.[4] 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, and Web 2.0 strategies.[citation needed] In 2008, 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.[5]

Contents
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1 Business models o 1.1 One-to-one approaches o 1.2 Appeal to specific interests o 1.3 Niche Marketing o 1.4 Geo-targeting 2 Internet marketing principles o 2.1 6 key principles of persuasion by Robert Cialdini

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3 Advantages and Limitations of Internet marketing o 3.1 Advantages o 3.2 Limitations 4 Security concerns 5 Usage trends 6 Effects on industries o 6.1 Internet auctions o 6.2 Advertising industry 7 See also 8 References

[edit] Business models
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2011) Internet marketing is associated with several business models:
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E-commerce: a model whereby goods are sold directly to consumers (B2C), businesses (B2B), or from consumer to consumer (C2C).[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] Local Internet marketing uses tools such as social media marketing, local directory listing,[6] and targeted online sales promotions.

[edit] 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.[7] 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.[citation needed] [edit] 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.[citation needed] [edit] Niche Marketing Niche and hyper-niche internet marketing put further emphasis on creating destinations for web users and consumers on specific topics and products.[citation needed] Niche marketers differ from traditional Internet marketers as they have a more specialized topic knowledge.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] [edit] 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.[citation needed]

[edit] Internet marketing principles
See also: Marketing

[edit] 6 key principles of persuasion by Robert Cialdini
One of the most famous guides to internet marketing is the book by Robert Cialdini[8] "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion." [9] According to Cialdini there are 6 key principles of persuasion: 1. Connection, 2. Scarcity, 3. Sympathy, 4. Reputation, 5. Popularity, 6. Persistence. See also: Robert Cialdini

[edit] Advantages and Limitations of Internet marketing
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2011)

[edit] Advantages
Internet marketing is inexpensive when examining the ratio of cost to the reach of the target audience.[citation needed] Companies can reach a wide audience for a small fraction of traditional advertising budgets.[citation needed] The nature of the medium allows consumers to research and to purchase products and services conveniently.[citation needed] Therefore, businesses have the advantage of appealing to consumers in a medium that can bring results quickly.[citation needed] The strategy and overall effectiveness of marketing campaigns depend on business goals and cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis. Internet marketers also have the advantage of measuring statistics easily and inexpensively; almost all aspects of an Internet marketing campaign can be traced, measured, and tested, in many cases through the use of an ad server.[citation needed] The advertisers can use a variety of methods, such as pay per impression, pay per click, pay per play, and pay per action. Therefore, marketers can determine which messages or offerings are more appealing to the audience.[citation needed] The results of campaigns can be measured and tracked immediately because online marketing initiatives usually require users to click on an advertisement, to visit a website, and to perform a targeted action.
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[edit] Limitations
However, from the buyer's perspective, the inability of shoppers to touch, to smell, to taste, and "to try on" tangible goods before making an online purchase can be limiting. [citation needed] However, there is an industry standard for e-commerce vendors to reassure customers by having liberal return policies as well as providing in-store pick-up services.
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[edit] Security concerns
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2011) Information security is important both to companies and consumers that participate in online business. Many consumers are hesitant to purchase items over the Internet because they do not believe that their personal information will remain private. Some companies that purchase customer information offer the option for individuals to have their information removed from their promotional redistribution, also known as opting out. However, many customers are unaware if and when their information is being shared, and are unable to stop the transfer of their information between companies if such activity occurs. Additionally, companies holding private information are vulnerable to data attacks and leaks. Internet browsing privacy is a related consumer concern. Web sites routinely capture browsing and search history which can be used to provide targeted

advertising. Privacy policies can provide transparency to these practices. Spyware prevention software can also be used to shield the consumer. See also: Internet security, Spyware, and Internet Privacy Another consumer e-commerce concern is whether or not they will receive exactly what they purchase. Online merchants have attempted to address this concern by investing in and building strong consumer brands (e.g., Amazon.com, eBay, and Overstock.com), and by leveraging merchant and feedback rating systems and e-commerce bonding solutions. [citation needed] All these solutions attempt to assure consumers that their transactions will be free of problems because the merchants can be trusted to provide reliable products and services.[citation needed] Additionally, several major online payment mechanisms (credit cards, PayPal, Google Checkout, etc.) have provided back-end buyer protection systems to address problems if they occur.[citation needed]

[edit] Usage trends
Technological advancements in the telecommunications industry have dramatically affected online advertising techniques.[citation needed] Many firms are embracing a paradigm that is shifting the focus of advertising methodology from traditional text and image advertisements to those containing more recent technologies like JavaScript and Adobe Flash.[citation needed] As a result, advertisers can more effectively engage and connect their audience with their campaigns that seek to shape consumer attitudes and feelings towards specific products and services.[citation needed]

[edit] Effects on industries
The number of banks offering the ability to perform banking tasks over the internet has increased.[citation needed] Online banking appeals to customers because it is often faster and considered more convenient than visiting bank branches.[10]

[edit] Internet auctions
See also: Online auction business model Internet auctions have become a multi-billion dollar business. Unique items that could only previously be found at flea markets are now being sold on Internet auction websites such as eBay. Specialized e-stores sell a vast amount of items like antiques, movie props, clothing, gadgets, and so on.[11][12] As the premier online reselling platform, eBay is often used as a price-basis for specialized items. Buyers and sellers often look at prices on the website before going to flea markets; the price shown on eBay often becomes the item's selling price.[citation needed]

[edit] Advertising industry

In addition to the major effect internet marketing has had on the technology industry, the effect on the advertising industry itself has been profound. In just a few years, online advertising has grown to be worth tens of billions of dollars annually.[13][14][15] PricewaterhouseCoopers reported that US$16.9 billion was spent on Online marketing in the U.S. in 2006.[16] This has caused a growing impact on the United States' electoral process. In 2008, candidates for President heavily utilized Internet marketing strategies to reach constituents. During the 2007 primaries candidates added, on average, over 500 social network supporters per day to help spread their message.[17] President Barack Obama raised over US$1 million in one day during his extensive Democratic candidacy campaign, largely due to online donors.[18] Several industries have heavily invested in and benefited from internet marketing and online advertising. Some of them were originally brick and mortar businesses such as publishing, music, automotive or gambling, while others have sprung up as purely online businesses, such as digital design and media, blogging, and internet service hosting.[citation
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[edit] See also
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Ad server Article marketing Classified advertising Conversion rate Digital marketing Frequency capping Inbound marketing In-text advertising Lead scoring Media transparency Netnography Online identity management Online lead generation Pay per click Post-click marketing Social media optimization Web banner Product feed Search Engine Marketing

Customer engagement
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Customer engagement (CE) refers to the engagement of customers with one another, with a company or a brand. The initiative for engagement can be either consumer- or company-led and the medium of engagement can be on or offline. Unlike marketing terms such as positioning, customer engagement has not been traced to a single source.[1] Customer engagement has been discussed widely online; hundreds of pages have been written, published, read and commented upon. Numerous high-profile conferences, seminars and roundtables have either had CE as a primary theme or included papers on the topic.[2] Customer engagement marketing places conversions into a longer term, more strategic context and is premised on the understanding that a simple focus on maximising conversions can, in some circumstances, decrease the likelihood of repeat conversions (Customer engagement interview with Richard Sedley). CE aims at long-term engagement, encouraging customer loyalty and advocacy through word-of-mouth. Online customer engagement is qualitatively different from offline engagement as the nature of the customer’s interactions with a brand, company and other customers differ on the internet. Discussion forums or blogs, for example, are spaces where people can communicate and socialise in ways that cannot be replicated by any offline interactive medium. Customer Engagement marketing efforts that aim to create, stimulate or influence customer behaviour differ from the offline, one-way, marketing communications that marketers are familiar with. Although customer advocacy, for example, has always been a goal for marketers, the rise of online user generated content can take advocacy to another level. The concept and practice of online Customer Engagement enables organisations to respond to the fundamental changes in customer behaviour that the internet has brought about, as well as to the increasing ineffectiveness of the traditional 'interrupt and repeat', broadcast model of advertising. Due to the fragmentation and specialisation of media and audiences, as well as the proliferation of community- and user generated content, businesses are increasingly losing the power to dictate the communications agenda. Simultaneously, lower switching costs, the geographical widening of the market and the vast choice of content, services and products available online have weakened customer loyalty. So today, leveraging customer contributions is an important source of competitive advantage – whether through advertising, user generated product reviews, customer service FAQs, forums where consumers can socialise with one another or contribute to product development. Amazon recently re-branded into 'serving the world's largest engaged online community', the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has created a 'Blueprint for ConsumerCentric Holistic Measurement' and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) and the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), have put together the 'Engagement Steering Committee' to work on

the customer engagement metric. Nielsen Media Research, IAG Research and Simmons Research are also all in the process of developing a CE definition and metric.[3] Online customer engagement refers to: 1. A social phenomenon enabled by the wide adoption of the internet in the late 1990s and taking off with the technical developments in connection speed (broadband) in the decade that followed. Online CE is qualitatively different from the engagement of consumers offline. 2. The behaviour of customers that engage in online communities revolving, directly or indirectly, around product categories (cycling, sailing) and other consumption topics. It details the process that leads to a customer’s positive engagement with the company or offering, as well as the behaviours associated with different degrees of customer engagement. 3. Marketing practices that aim to create, stimulate or influence CE behaviour. Although CE-marketing efforts must be consistent both online and offline, the internet is the basis of CE-marketing.(Eisenberg & Eisenberg 2006:72,81) 4. Metrics that measure the effectiveness of the marketing practices which seek to create, stimulate or influence CE behaviour.

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1 Definition 2 The need for customer engagement 3 Customer Engagement as a social phenomenon 4 Customer Engagement as consumer behaviour 5 Customer Engagement as a metric 6 References

[edit] Definition
In March 2006, the Advertising Research Foundation announced the first definition of customer engagement[4] the first definition of CE at the re:think! 52nd Annual ARF Convention and Expo: "Engagement is turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context." However, the ARF definition was criticized by some for being too broad.[5] Customer engagement can also refer to the stages consumers travel through as they interact with a particular brand. This Customer Engagement Cycle, or Customer Journey,

has been described using a myriad of terms but most often consists of 5 different stages: Awareness, Consideration, Inquiry, Purchase and Retention. Marketers employ Connection Strategy to speak to would-be customers at each stage, with media that addresses their particular needs and interests. When conducting Search Engine Marketing & Search Engine Optimization, or placing advertisements, marketers must devise media and/or keywords and phrases that encourage customer flow through the Customer Engagement Cycle, towards Purchase. Because the various definitions often focus on entirely different aspects of CE, they are not in every case competing definitions but, rather, illuminate CE from different perspectives. Eric Peterson's definition[6] for example frames CE as a metric: "Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth of visitor interaction against a clearly defined set of goals." At the moment the ARF, World Federation of Advertisers,[7] Nielsen Media Research, IAG Research and Simmons Research are in the process of developing a definition and a metric for CE.[3]

[edit] The need for customer engagement
CE-marketing is necessitated by a combination of social, technological and market developments: 1. Businesses are losing the power to dictate the communications agenda:[8] The effectiveness of the traditional 'interrupt and repeat' model of advertising is decreasing.[9] In August 2006, McKinsey & Co published a report[10] which said that by 2010 traditional TV advertising will only be one-third as effective as it was in 1990.[11] This is due to: • Customer audiences are smaller and specialist: The fragmentation of media and audiences and the accompanying reduction of audience size[12] have reduced the effectiveness of the traditional top-down, mass, 'interrupt and repeat' advertising model. The adoption of new media. Forrester Research's North American Consumer Technology Adoption Study[10] shows people in the 18-26 age group spending more time online than watching TV.[13] In response to the fragmentation and increased amount of time spent online, marketers have also increased spending in online communication. ContextWeb analysts found marketers who promote on sites like Facebook and New York Times are not as successful at reaching consumers while marketers who promote more on niche websites have a better chance of reaching their audiences.[14] • Customer audiences are also broadcasters: A company's position is no longer just inside consumers' minds. As they increasingly speak their minds with the power for circulation and permanence of CGM, businesses lose the power of shouting over everyone else. Instead of trying to position a product using a couple of static messages that will themselves become the subject of conversation amongst a target market that has already discussed, positioned and rated the product, companies must join in. This also means that consumers can now choose not only when and how but, also, if they will engage with

marketing communications;[15] they can rely on CGM. In addition new media themselves provide consumers with more control over their advertising consumption.[16] 2. Decreasing brand loyalty: The lowering of entry barriers (such as the need for a sales force, access to channels and physical assets) and the geographical widening of the market due to the internet have brought about increasing competition. In combination with lower switching costs, easier access to information about products and suppliers and increased choice customer loyalty is hard to achieve. The increasing ineffectiveness of TV advertising due to the shift of consumer attention to the internet, the ability, within new media, to control advertising consumption and the decrease in audience size is bringing about a progressive shift of advertising spending online.[17] The proliferation of media that provide consumers with more control over their advertising consumption (subscription-based digital radio and TV for example) and the simultaneous decrease of faith in advertising and increase of faith in peers[18] point to the need for communications that the customer will desire to engage with. Stimulating a consumer’s engagement with a brand is the only way to increase brand loyalty and, therefore, "the best measure of current and future performance".[19] CE is the solution that marketers have devised in order to come to terms with the social, technological and market developments outlined above. In a nutshell, it is the attempt to create an engaging dialogue with target consumers and stimulate their engagement with the brand. Although this must take place consistently both on and off-line, the internet is the primary vehicle for doing so. CE marketing begins with understanding the internal dynamics of these developments and, especially, the behaviour and engagement of consumers online. That way, business opportunities can be identified. As Max Kalehoff[20] suggests, consumer-generated media should play a massive role in our understanding and modelling of engagement. The control Web 2.0 consumers have gained must, and will be, quantified through 'old school' marketing performance metrics.[21]

[edit] Customer Engagement as a social phenomenon
Online inter-customer engagement is a recent social phenomenon that came about through the wide diffusion and adoption of the internet in western societies during the late 1990s. Although offline CE predates online CE, the latter is a qualitatively different social phenomenon unlike any offline CE that social theorists or marketers are familiar with. People also engage online in communities that do not necessarily revolve around a particular product, but serve as meeting or networking places, for instance on MySpace.

The people in one's MySpace friend's list do not necessarily all share a single consumption habit, although they often do. People's online engagement with one another has brought about both the empowerment of consumers and the opportunity for businesses to engage with their target customers online.

[edit] Customer Engagement as consumer behaviour
CE behaviour became prominent with the advent of the social phenomenon of online CE. Creating and stimulating customer engagement behaviour has recently become an explicit aim of both profit and non-profit organisations in the belief that engaging target customers to a high degree is conducive to furthering business objectives. Shevlin's definition of CE is well suited to understanding the process that leads to an engaged customer. In its adaptation by Richard Sedley the key word is 'investment'. "Repeated interactions that strengthen the emotional, psychological or physical investment a customer has in a brand." A customer's degree of engagement with a company lies in a continuum that represents the strength of his investment in that company. Positive experiences with the company strengthen that investment and move the customer down the line of engagement. What is important in measuring degrees of involvement is the ability of defining and quantifying the stages on the continuum. One popular suggestion is a four-level model adapted from Kirkpatrick's Levels: 1. 2. 3. 4. Click - A reader arrived (current metric) Consume - A reader read the content Understood - A reader understood the content and remembers it Applied - A reader applies the content in another venue

Concerns have, however, been expressed as regards the measurability of stages three and four. Another popular suggestion is Ghuneim's typology of engagement.[22] Degrees of Engagement Low Adoption Medium High Content Creation Upload (User Generated Content), Blogging, Fan community participation, Create Highest Social Adding Friends, Networking, Create Fan Community

Collaborative Filtering Bookmarking, Rating, Voting, Tagging, Adding Commenting, to group Endorsing, Favouritising

mash-ups, Podcasting, Vlogging The following consumer typology[23] according to degree of engagement fits well to Ghuneim's continuum.
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Creators (smallest group) Critics Collectors Couch Potatoes (largest group)

Engagement is a holistic characterisation of a consumer's behaviour, encompassing a host of sub-aspects of behaviour such as loyalty, satisfaction, involvement, Word of Mouth advertising, complaining and more.
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Satisfaction: Satisfaction is simply the foundation, and the minimum requirement, for a continuing relationship with customers. Engagement extends beyond mere satisfaction.[24] Loyalty - Retention: Highly engaged consumers are more loyal. Increasing the engagement of target customers increases the rate of customer retention. Word of Mouth advertising - advocacy: Highly engaged customers are more likely to engage in free (for the company), credible (for their audience) Word of Mouth advertising. This can drive new customer acquisition and can have viral effects. Awareness - Effectiveness of communications: When customers are exposed to communication from a company that they are highly engaged with, they tend to actively elaborate on its central idea. This brings about high degrees of central processing and recall.[16] Filtering: Consumers filter, categorise and rate the market from head to tail, creating multiple, overlapping folksonomies through tagging, reviewing, rating and recommending. Complaint-behaviour: Highly engaged customers are less likely to complain to other current or potential customers, but will address the company directly instead. Marketing intelligence: Highly engaged customers can give valuable recommendations for improving quality of offering.

The behavioural outcomes of an engaged consumer is what links CE to profits. From this point of view, "CE is the best measure of current and future performance; an engaged relationship is probably the only guarantee for a return on your organisation's or your clients' objectives."[25] Simply attaining a high level of customer satisfaction does not seem to guarantee the customer's business.[26] 60% to 80% of customers who defect to a competitor said they were satisfied or very satisfied on the survey just prior to their defection.[27]

The main difference between traditional and customer engagement marketing is marked by these shifts:
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From 'reach or awareness focused' marketing communications and their metrics (GRP or pageview) towards more targeted and customised interactions that prompt the consumer to engage with and act on the content from the outset. From absolute distinctions and barriers between an organisation and its target customers towards the participation of consumers in product development, customer service and other aspects of the brand experience. From one-way, top-down, formal B2C and B2E interaction to continuing, dialogic, decentralised and personalised communications initiated by either party.

Specific marketing practices involve:
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Encouraging collaborative filtering: Google, Amazon, iTunes, Yahoo LAUNCHcast, Netflix, and Rhapsody encourage their consumers to filter, categorise and rate; that is, to market their products. They realise consumers are not only much more adept at creating highly-targeted taxonomies (folksonomies) given that they are more adept at delineating the segment they themselves constitute, but, also, that they are willing to do so for free. And to the extent they cannot, they do it for them. If enough people like the band Groove Armada as well as the band The Crystal Method, there may well be a stylistic connection between them, despite the fact that one’s categorised as 'downtempo' and the other 'beats and breaks'. Such strong associations tell Yahoo! to put the two on the same playlist more often, and if the positive ratings continue to come in, that connection is reinforced. (Anderson 2006:101) Amazon does the same with their ‘customers who bought this item also bought…’ recommendations. Community development: Helping target customers develop their own communities or create new ones. Community participation: (See Communal marketing) Consumers do not filter and rate companies and their offerings within company websites only. Being able, with little effort, cost or technical skills, to create their own online localities, a large percentage of the filtering and rating takes place in non-sponsored, online spaces. Organisations must go and meet their target customers at their favoured online hangouts to not only listen but also participate in the dialogue. Help consumers engage with one another: Give them content (viral podcasting, videocasting, games, v-cards etc) they can use to engage with one another. Solicitation of user generated content: Engage them directly or indirectly with your product by giving them the means or incentive to create user generated content.

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Customer self-service: Help them create a customer service FAQ in wiki or blog format. Create a blog where technical support staff and customers can communicate directly. Product co-development: Create a blog where product developers and consumers can communicate directly.

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[edit] Customer Engagement as a metric
All marketing practices, including Internet Marketing include measuring the effectiveness of various media along the Customer Engagement Cycle, as consumers travel from awareness to Purchase. Often the use of CVP Analysis factors into strategy decisions, including budgets and media placement. The CE metric is useful for: a) Planning:
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Identify where CE-marketing efforts should take place; which of the communities that the target customers participate in are the most engaging? Specify the way in which target customers engage, or want to engage, with the company or offering.

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b) Measuring Effectiveness: Measure how successful CE-marketing efforts have been at engaging target customers. The importance of CE as a marketing metric is reflected in ARF's statement: "The industry is moving toward customer engagement with marketing communications as the 21st century metric of marketing efficiency and effectiveness."[28] ARF envisages CE exclusively as a metric of engagement with communication, but it is not necessary to distinguish between engaging with the communication and with the product since CE behaviour deals with, and is influenced by, involvement with both. Eric Peterson's definition[29] also frames CE as a metric: "Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth of visitor interaction on the site against a clearly defined set of goals." In order to be operational, CE-metrics must be combined with psychodemographics. It is not enough to know that a website has 500 highly engaged members, for instance; it is imperative to know what percentage are members of the company's target market.[30] As a metric for effectiveness, Scott Karp[31] suggests, CE is the solution to the same intractable problems that have long been a struggle for old media: how to prove value.

The CE-metric is synthetic and integrates a number of variables. The World Federation of Advertisers calls it 'consumer-centric holistic measurement'.[32] The following items have all been proposed as components of a CE-metric: Root metrics
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Duration of visit Frequency of visit (returning to the site directly – through a URL or bookmark or indirectly). % repeat visits Recency of visit Depth of visit (% of site visited) Click-through rate Sales Lifetime value

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Action metrics
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RSS feed subscriptions Bookmarks, tags, ratings Viewing of high-value or medium-value content (as valued from the organisation’s point-of-view). 'Depth' of visit can be combined with this variable. Inquiries Providing personal information Downloads Content resyndication Customer reviews Comments: their quality is another indicator of the degree of engagement. Ratio between posts and comments plus trackbacks.

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In selecting the components of a CE-metric, the following issues must be resolved:
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Flexible metric vs. Industry standard: According to some, CE "measurement has never been one size fits-all" but should vary according to industry, organisation, business goal etc. On the other hand, corporate clients and even agencies also desire some type of solid index. Internal metrics could, perhaps, be developed in addition to a comparative, industry-wide one.[33] Other exponents of a flexible CE-metric include Bill Gassman in his comments to ‘How do you calculate engagement? Part I’. Eric Peterson[6] shares Gassman's views. Relative weighting: The relative weighting associated with each CE-component in an algorithm. For instance, is subscribing to RSS more important than contributing a comment? If yes how much more important exactly? Relative weighting links up with the issue of flexible vs. standardised metrics: Is the relative weighting going to be solid – as will be required if the CE-metric is to be standardised – or is it going to differ depending on the industry, organisation, business goals etc? Component measurability: Most of the components of a CE-metric face problems of measurement. Duration of visit for example suffers from (a) failing to capture the most engaged users who like to peruse RSS feeds; (b) inaccuracy arising from leaving a tab open during breaks, stopping to converse with coworkers, etc. Length of measurement: For how long must the various C

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Search engine optimization
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "SEO" redirects here. For other uses, see SEO (disambiguation). Internet marketing Display advertising Email marketing E-mail marketing software Interactive advertising Cloud marketing Social media optimization Web analytics Cost per impression Affiliate marketing Cost per action Contextual advertising Revenue sharing Search engine marketing Search engine optimization

Pay per click advertising Paid inclusion Search analytics Mobile advertising This box: view · talk · edit

Search engine optimization (SEO) is 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. In general, the earlier (or higher on the page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search,[1] news search and industry-specific vertical search engines. As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic. The acronym "SEOs" can refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site and site content, SEO tactics may be incorporated into website development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe website designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure. Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO, search engine poisoning, or spamdexing, uses methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the quality of user-experience with search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.

Contents
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1 History 2 Relationship with search engines 3 Methods o 3.1 Getting indexed o 3.2 Preventing crawling

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o 3.3 Increasing prominence 4 White hat versus black hat 5 As a marketing strategy 6 International markets 7 Legal precedents 8 See also 9 Notes

10 External links

History
Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid1990s, as the first search engines were cataloging the early Web. Initially, all webmasters needed to do was submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a "spider" to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed.[2] The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specific words, and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date. Site owners started to recognize the value of having their sites highly ranked and visible in search engine results, creating an opportunity for both white hat and black hat SEO practitioners. According to industry analyst Danny Sullivan, the phrase "search engine optimization" probably came into use in 1997.[3] The first documented use of the term Search Engine Optimization was John Audette and his company Multimedia Marketing Group as documented by a web page from the MMG site from August, 1997. [4] Early versions of search algorithms relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword meta tag, or index files in engines like ALIWEB. Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content. Using meta data to index pages was found to be less than reliable, however, because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentially be an inaccurate representation of the site's actual content. Inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent data in meta tags could and did cause pages to rank for irrelevant searches.[5] Web content providers also manipulated a number of attributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.[6] By relying so much on factors such as keyword density which were exclusively within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their results pages showed the most relevant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters. Since the success and popularity of a search engine is determined by its ability to produce the most relevant results to any given search, allowing those results to be false would turn users to find other search

sources. Search engines responded by developing more complex ranking algorithms, taking into account additional factors that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate. Graduate students at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, developed "backrub," a search engine that relied on a mathematical algorithm to rate the prominence of web pages. The number calculated by the algorithm, PageRank, is a function of the quantity and strength of inbound links.[7] PageRank estimates the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who randomly surfs the web, and follows links from one page to another. In effect, this means that some links are stronger than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random surfer. Page and Brin founded Google in 1998. Google attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design.[8] Off-page factors (such as PageRank and hyperlink analysis) were considered as well as on-page factors (such as keyword frequency, meta tags, headings, links and site structure) to enable Google to avoid the kind of manipulation seen in search engines that only considered on-page factors for their rankings. Although PageRank was more difficult to game, webmasters had already developed link building tools and schemes to influence the Inktomi search engine, and these methods proved similarly applicable to gaming PageRank. Many sites focused on exchanging, buying, and selling links, often on a massive scale. Some of these schemes, or link farms, involved the creation of thousands of sites for the sole purpose of link spamming.[9] By 2004, search engines had incorporated a wide range of undisclosed factors in their ranking algorithms to reduce the impact of link manipulation. Google says it ranks sites using more than 200 different signals.[10] The leading search engines, Google, Bing, and Yahoo, do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages. Notable SEO service providers, such as Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Aaron Wall and Jill Whalen, have studied different approaches to search engine optimization, and have published their opinions in online forums and blogs.[11][12] SEO practitioners may also study patents held by various search engines to gain insight into the algorithms.[13] In 2005 Google began personalizing search results for each user. Depending on their history of previous searches, Google crafted results for logged in users.[14] In 2008, Bruce Clay said that "ranking is dead" because of personalized search. It would become meaningless to discuss how a website ranked, because its rank would potentially be different for each user and each search.[15] In 2007 Google announced a campaign against paid links that transfer PageRank.[16] On June 15, 2009, Google disclosed that they had taken measures to mitigate the effects of PageRank sculpting by use of the nofollow attribute on links. Matt Cutts, a well-known software engineer at Google, announced that Google Bot would no longer treat nofollowed links in the same way, in order to prevent SEO service providers from using nofollow for PageRank sculpting.[17] As a result of this change the usage of nofollow leads to evaporation of pagerank. In order to avoid the above, SEO engineers developed

alternative techniques that replace nofollowed tags with obfuscated Javascript and thus permit PageRank sculpting. Additionally several solutions have been suggested that include the usage of iframes, Flash and Javascript. [18] In December 2009 Google announced it would be using the web search history of all its users in order to populate search results.[19] The Real-time-search was introduced in late 2009 in an attempt to make search results more timely and relevant. Historically site administrators have spent months or even years optimizing a website to increase search rankings. With the growth in popularity of social media sites and blogs the leading engines made changes to their algorithms to allow fresh content to rank quickly within the search results.[20]

Yahoo and Google offices

Relationship with search engines
By 1997 search engines recognized that webmasters were making efforts to rank well in their search engines, and that some webmasters were even manipulating their rankings in search results by stuffing pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords. Early search engines, such as Altavista and Infoseek, adjusted their algorithms in an effort to prevent webmasters from manipulating rankings.[21] Due to the high marketing value of targeted search results, there is potential for an adversarial relationship between search engines and SEO service providers. In 2005, an annual conference, AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web,[22] was created to discuss and minimize the damaging effects of aggressive web content providers. Companies that employ overly aggressive techniques can get their client websites banned from the search results. In 2005, the Wall Street Journal reported on a company, Traffic Power, which allegedly used high-risk techniques and failed to disclose those risks to its clients.[23] Wired magazine reported that the same company sued blogger and SEO Aaron Wall for writing about the ban.[24] Google's Matt Cutts later confirmed that Google did in fact ban Traffic Power and some of its clients.[25] Some search engines have also reached out to the SEO industry, and are frequent sponsors and guests at SEO conferences, chats, and seminars. In fact, with the advent of paid inclusion, some search engines now have a vested interest in the health of the

optimization community. Major search engines provide information and guidelines to help with site optimization.[26][27][28] Google has a Sitemaps program[dead link][29] to help webmasters learn if Google is having any problems indexing their website and also provides data on Google traffic to the website. Google guidelines are a list of suggested practices Google has provided as guidance to webmasters. Yahoo! Site Explorer provides a way for webmasters to submit URLs, determine how many pages are in the Yahoo! index and view link information.[30] Bing Toolbox provides a way from webmasters to submit a sitemap and web feeds, allowing users to determine the crawl rate, and how many pages have been indexed by their search engine.

Methods
Main article: search engine optimization methods

Getting indexed
The leading search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!, use crawlers to find pages for their algorithmic search results. Pages that are linked from other search engine indexed pages do not need to be submitted because they are found automatically. Some search engines, notably Yahoo!, operate a paid submission service that guarantee crawling for either a set fee or cost per click.[31] Such programs usually guarantee inclusion in the database, but do not guarantee specific ranking within the search results. [dead link][32] Two major directories, the Yahoo Directory and the Open Directory Project both require manual submission and human editorial review.[33] Google offers Google Webmaster Tools, for which an XML Sitemap feed can be created and submitted for free to ensure that all pages are found, especially pages that aren't discoverable by automatically following links.[34] Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site. Not every page is indexed by the search engines. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.[35] Additionally, search engines sometimes have problems with crawling sites with certain kinds of graphic content, flash files, portable document format files, and dynamic content. [36]

Preventing crawling
Main article: Robots Exclusion Standard To avoid undesirable content in the search indexes, webmasters can instruct spiders not to crawl certain files or directories through the standard robots.txt file in the root directory of the domain. Additionally, a page can be explicitly excluded from a search engine's database by using a meta tag specific to robots. When a search engine visits a site, the robots.txt located in the root directory is the first file crawled. The robots.txt file is then parsed, and will instruct the robot as to which pages are not to be crawled. As a search engine crawler may keep a cached copy of this file, it may on occasion crawl pages a

webmaster does not wish crawled. Pages typically prevented from being crawled include login specific pages such as shopping carts and user-specific content such as search results from internal searches. In March 2007, Google warned webmasters that they should prevent indexing of internal search results because those pages are considered search spam.[37]

Increasing prominence
A variety of methods can increase the prominence of a webpage within the search results. Cross linking between pages of the same website to provide more links to most important pages may improve its visibility.[38] Writing content that includes frequently searched keyword phrase, so as to be relevant to a wide variety of search queries will tend to increase traffic.[38] Updating content so as to keep search engines crawling back frequently can give additional weight to a site. Adding relevant keywords to a web page's meta data, including the title tag and meta description, will tend to improve the relevancy of a site's search listings, thus increasing traffic. URL normalization of web pages accessible via multiple urls, using the "canonical" meta tag[39] or via 301 redirects can help make sure links to different versions of the url all count towards the page's link popularity score.

White hat versus black hat
Main article: White or black hat SEO techniques are classified by some into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing. Some industry commentators classify these methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO.[40] White hats tend to produce results that last a long time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites will eventually be banned once the search engines discover what they are doing.[41] An SEO tactic, technique or method is considered white hat if it conforms to the search engines' guidelines and involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines[26][27][28][42] are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see. White hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than attempting to game the algorithm. White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility,[43] although the two are not identical. White Hat SEO is merely effective marketing, making efforts to deliver quality content to an audience that has requested the quality content. Traditional marketing means have

allowed this through transparency and exposure. A search engine's algorithm takes this into account, such as Google's PageRank. Black hat SEO attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the search engines, or involve deception. One black hat technique uses text that is hidden, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible div, or positioned off screen. Another method gives a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique known as cloaking. Search engines may penalize sites they discover using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines' algorithms, or by a manual site review. One infamous example was the February 2006 Google removal of both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany for use of deceptive practices.[44] Both companies, however, quickly apologized, fixed the offending pages, and were restored to Google's list.[45] Additionally, many professionals in the SEO industry refer to "gray hat" tactics that may skirt the lines of black and white hat tactics. Numerous references to gray hat techniques have been published, and these usually constitute practices that are not strictly disapproved by search engines, but may go against the spirit of the regulations that search engines have laid out.

As a marketing strategy
SEO is not an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet marketing strategies can be more effective, depending on the site operator's goals.[46] A successful Internet marketing campaign may also depend upon building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, setting up analytics programs to enable site owners to measure results, and improving a site's conversion rate.[47] SEO may generate an adequate return on investment. However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals. Due to this lack of guarantees and certainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors.[48] It is considered wise business practice for website operators to liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic.[49] A top-ranked SEO blog Seomoz.org[50] has suggested, "Search marketers, in a twist of irony, receive a very small share of their traffic from search engines." Instead, their main sources of traffic are links from other websites.[51]

International markets
Optimization techniques are highly tuned to the dominant search engines in the target market. The search engines' market shares vary from market to market, as does

competition. In 2003, Danny Sullivan stated that Google represented about 75% of all searches.[52] In markets outside the United States, Google's share is often larger, and Google remains the dominant search engine worldwide as of 2007.[53] As of 2006, Google had an 85-90% market share in Germany.[54] While there were hundreds of SEO firms in the US at that time, there were only about five in Germany.[54] As of June 2008, the marketshare of Google in the UK was close to 90% according to Hitwise.[55] That market share is achieved in a number of countries. As of 2009, there are only a few large markets where Google is not the leading search engine. In most cases, when Google is not leading in a given market, it is lagging behind a local player. The most notable markets where this is the case are China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the Czech Republic where respectively Baidu, Yahoo! Japan, Naver, Yandex and Seznam are market leaders. Successful search optimization for international markets may require professional translation of web pages, registration of a domain name with a top level domain in the target market, and web hosting that provides a local IP address. Otherwise, the fundamental elements of search optimization are essentially the same, regardless of language.[54]

Legal precedents
On October 17, 2002, SearchKing filed suit in the United States District Court, Western District of Oklahoma, against the search engine Google. SearchKing's claim was that Google's tactics to prevent spamdexing constituted a tortious interference with contractual relations. On May 27, 2003, the court granted Google's motion to dismiss the complaint because SearchKing "failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted."[56][57] In March 2006, KinderStart filed a lawsuit against Google over search engine rankings. Kinderstart's website was removed from Google's index prior to the lawsuit and the amount of traffic to the site dropped by 70%. On March 16, 2007 the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (San Jose Division) dismissed KinderStart's complaint without leave to amend, and partially granted Google's motion for Rule 11 sanctions against KinderStart's attorney, requiring him to pay part of Google's legal expenses.[58][59]

Search engine marketing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Internet marketing Display advertising Email marketing E-mail marketing software Interactive advertising

Cloud marketing Social media optimization Web analytics Cost per impression Affiliate marketing Cost per action Contextual advertising Revenue sharing Search engine marketing Search engine optimization Pay per click advertising Paid inclusion Search analytics Mobile advertising This box: view · talk · edit

Search engine marketing, (SEM), is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.[1] Search engine optimization (SEO) "optimizes" website content to achieve a higher ranking in search results, for example, by incorporating specific keywords or links associated with the website. [2] Depending on the context, SEM can be an umbrella term for various means of marketing a website including SEO, or it may contrast with SEO, focusing on just paid components.[3]

Contents
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1 Market structure 2 History 3 Distinguished from SEO 4 Ethical questions 5 Major SEM Tools 6 SEM plan 7 Examples of Best Practice 8 See also 9 References

[edit] Market structure
In 2008, North American advertisers spent US$13.5 billion on search engine marketing. The largest SEM vendors are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter.[1] As of 2006, SEM was growing much faster than traditional advertising and

even other channels of online marketing.[4] 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.

[edit] History
As the number of sites on the Web increased in the mid-to-late 90s, search engines started appearing to help people find information quickly. Search engines developed business models to finance their services, such as pay per click programs offered by Open Text[5] in 1996 and then Goto.com[6] in 1998. Goto.com later changed its name[7] to Overture in 2001, and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, and now offers paid search opportunities for advertisers through Yahoo! Search Marketing. Google also began to offer advertisements on search results pages in 2000 through the Google AdWords program. By 2007, pay-per-click programs proved to be primary money-makers[8] for search engines. In a market dominated by Google, in 2009 Yahoo! and Microsoft announced the intention to forge an alliance. The Yahoo! & Microsoft Search Alliance eventually received approval from regulators in the US and Europe in February 2010.[9] 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[10] 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.

[edit] Distinguished from SEO
SEM is an adjunct SEO. SEM uses ad words,[11] pay per call (particularly beneficial for local providers as it enables potential consumers to get in touch directly to a company 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 changing usage. In some contexts the term SEM is used exclusively to meanPay per click advertising,[3] 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.[12] 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 PayPerClick 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.

[edit] Ethical questions
Paid search advertising has not been without controversy, and the issue of how search engines present advertising on their search result pages has been the target of a series of studies and reports[13][14][15] by Consumer Reports WebWatch. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also issued a letter[16] in 2002 about the importance of disclosure of paid advertising on search engines, in response to a complaint from Commercial Alert, a consumer advocacy group with ties to Ralph Nader. Another ethical controversy associated with search marketing has been the issue of trademark infringement. The debate as to whether third parties should have the right to bid on their competitors' brand names has been underway for years. In 2009 Google changed their policy, which formerly prohibited these tactics, allowing 3rd parties to bid on branded terms as long as their landing page in fact provides information on the trademarked term.[17] Though the policy has been changed this continues to be a source of heated debate. At the end of February 2011 many started to see that Google has started to penalize companies that are buying links for the purpose of passing off the rank. SEM has however nothing to do with link buying and focuses on organic SEO and PPC management.

[edit] Major SEM Tools
There are four categories of tools to help you optimize websites.[18][19][20] 1. Keyword research and analysis: (a) Make sure the site can be indexed in the search engines; (b) find the most relevant and popular key terms and phrases for the site and its products; and (c) use those key phrases on the site in a way that will generate and convert traffic. 2. Website saturation and popularity: show how much presence a website has on search engines through the number of pages of the site that are indexed on each search engine (saturation) and how many times the site is linked to by other sites (popularity). Generally, the more Web presence you have, the easier it is for people to find your site. 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.[19] 3. Back end tools (including Web analytic tools and HTML validators): Web analytic tools can help you to understand what is happening to your website and measure your website's success. They range from simple traffic counters to tools that work with log files [18] 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. Who Is tools: show you who owns and operates various webites, can provide valuable information relating to copyright and trademark issues.[20] Useful tools include Who Is Source, ARIN. Read a competitor's source code to look for hidden clues, Use Web analytics tools to find out more about your customers, Use the source code and Who Is tools to research legal issues.

[edit] SEM plan
Through trial and error you will be able to see how SEM drives highly targeted visitors to your online exhibitions. The following are the steps to a successful SEM plan:[21] 1. Research your target audience. 2. Set your online goals and key performance indicators. 3. Build an initial list of important keywords that represent your current and most relevant content and potential content. 4. Validate your keywords by testing and refining them with your keyword selector tools such as Yahoo Keyword Selector, Google Keyword Selector, Google Trends and Keyword Discovery. 5. Check your current ranking. 6. Optimise the website by improving your web design, architecture and web page content. 7. Pursue link-building and partnerships. 8. Colonize the Web by publishing and circulating it in wiki, blogs, and video and picture sites(e.g. Flickr and Youtube). 9. Get in the news such as Google News with RSS feeds.[22] 10. Install good tracking software, and track and analyze your performance for better results.

[edit] Examples of Best Practice

A successful SEM project was undertaken by one of London’s top SEM companies involving AdWords. AdWords is recognised as a web-based advertising utensil [11] since it adopts keywords which can deliver adverts explicitly to web users looking for information in respect to a certain product or service. This project is highly practical for advertisers as the project hinges on cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, thus the payment of the service only applies if their advert has been clicked on. SEM companies have embarked on AdWords projects as a way to publicize their SEM and SEO services. This promotion has helped their business elaborate, offering added value to consumers who endeavor to employ AdWords for promoting their products and services.[11] One of the most successful approaches to the strategy of this project was to focus on making sure that PPC advertising funds were prudently invested. Moreover, SEM companies have described AdWords as a fine practical tool for increasing a consumer’s investment earnings on Internet advertising. The use of free utensils “Conversion tracking” and “Google Analytics” was deemed to be practical for presenting to clients the performance of their canvass from click to conversion.[11] AdWords project has enabled SEM companies to train their clients on the utensil and delivers better performance to the canvass. The assistance of AdWord canvass could contribute to the huge success in the growth of web traffic for a number of its consumer’s website, by as much as 250% in only nine months.[11] Another way Search Engine Marketing is managed is by contextual advertising. Here marketers place ads on other sites or portals that carry information relevant to their products so that the ads jump into the circle of vision of browsers who are seeking information from those sites. A successful SEM plan is the approach to capture the relationships amongst information searchers, businesses, and search engines. Search engines were not important to some industries in the past but over the past years, the use of search engines for accessing information has become vital to increase business opportunities.[23] The use of SEM strategic tools for businesses such as tourism can attract potential consumers to view their products but it could also pose various challenges.[23] These challenges could be the competition that companies face amongst their industry and other sources of information that could draw the attention of online consumers.[23] To assist the combat of challenges, the main objective for businesses applying SEM is to improve and maintain their ranking as high as possible on SERPs so that they can gain visibility. Therefore search engines are adjusting and developing algorithms and the shifting criteria by which web pages are ranked sequentially to combat against search engine misuse and spamming, and to supply the most relevant information to searchers. [23] This could enhance the relationship amongst information searchers, businesses, and search engines by understanding the strategies of marketing to attract business.

[edit] See also
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Search advertising Digital marketing Internet marketing Email marketing Enterprise search marketing

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List of search engines Search engine image protection Search engine reputation management Search engine optimization Keyword cloud Web marketing

Search engines with SEM programs
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Google - global Yahoo! - global Bing - global Ask.com - global

Email marketing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article may be in need of reorganization to comply with Wikipedia's layout guidelines. Please help by editing the article to make improvements to the overall structure. (November 2010) Internet marketing Display advertising Email marketing E-mail marketing software Interactive advertising Cloud marketing Social media optimization Web analytics Cost per impression Affiliate marketing Cost per action Contextual advertising Revenue sharing Search engine marketing Search engine optimization Pay per click advertising Paid inclusion Search analytics Mobile advertising This box: view · talk · edit Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:

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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, and sending email messages over the Internet, as email did and does exist outside the Internet (e.g., network email and FIDO).

Researchers estimate that United States firms alone spent US $400 million on email marketing in 2006.[1]

Contents
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1 Comparison to traditional mail o 1.1 Advantages o 1.2 Disadvantages 2 Opt-in email advertising 3 Legal requirements 4 See also 5 References

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

[edit] Advantages
Email marketing (on the Internet) is popular with companies for several reasons:
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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.[2] 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. Over half of Internet users check or send email on a typical day.[3] Email is popular with digital marketers, rising an estimated 15% in 2009 to £292m in the UK.[4]

[edit] Disadvantages

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.[5] 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),[6] the European Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, or their Internet service provider's acceptable use policy.

[edit] Opt-in email advertising
Opt-in email advertising, or permission marketing, is a method of advertising via email whereby the recipient of the advertisement has consented to receive it. This method is one of several developed by marketers to eliminate the disadvantages of email marketing.
[7]

Opt-in email marketing may evolve into a technology that uses a handshake protocol between the sender and receiver.[7] This system is intended to eventually result in a high degree of satisfaction between consumers and marketers. If opt-in email advertising is used, the material that is emailed to consumers will be "anticipated". It is assumed that the consumer wants to receive it, which makes it unlike unsolicited advertisements sent to the consumer. Ideally, opt-in email advertisements will be more personal and relevant to the consumer than untargeted advertisements. A common example of permission marketing is a newsletter sent to an advertising firm's customers. Such newsletters inform customers of upcoming events or promotions, or new products.[8] In this type of advertising, a company that wants to send a newsletter to their customers may ask them at the point of purchase if they would like to receive the newsletter. With a foundation of opted-in contact information stored in their database, marketers can send out promotional materials automatically—known as Drip Marketing. They can also segment their promotions to specific market segments.[9] A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by an ad server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser. The advertisement is constructed from an image (GIF, Flash, often employing animation, sound, or video to maximize presence. Images are usually in a high-aspect ratio shape (i.e. either wide and short, or tall and narrow) hence the reference to banners. These images are usually placed on web pages that have interesting content, such as a newspaper article or an opinion piece. Affiliates earn money usually on a CPC (cost per click) basis. For every unique user click on the ad, the affiliate earns money.

Typical web banner, sized 468×60 pixels. The web banner is displayed when a web page that references the banner is loaded into a web browser. This event is known as an "impression". When the viewer clicks on the banner, the viewer is directed to the website advertised in the banner. This event is known as a "click through". In many cases, banners are delivered by a central ad server. When the advertiser scans their logfiles and detects that a web user has visited the advertiser's site from the content site by clicking on the banner ad, the advertiser sends the content provider some small amount of money (usually around five to ten US cents). [citation needed] This payback system is often how the content provider is able to pay for the Internet access to supply the content in the first place. Usually though, advertisers use ad networks to serve their advertisements, resulting in a revshare system and higher quality ad placement. Web banners function the same way as traditional advertisements are intended to function: notifying consumers of the product or service and presenting reasons why the consumer should choose the product in question, although web banners differ in that the results for advertisement campaigns may be monitored real-time and may be targeted to the viewer's interests. Behavior is often tracked through the use of a click tag. Many web surfers regard these advertisements as highly annoying because they distract from a web page's actual content or waste bandwidth. Without attracting attention it would provide no revenue for the advertiser or for the content provider.) Newer web browsers often include options to disable pop-ups or block images from selected websites. Another way of avoiding banners is to use a proxy server that blocks them, such as Privoxy. Web browsers may also have extensions available which block banners, for example Adblock Plus for Mozilla Firefox, or AdThwart for Google Chrome and ie7pro for Internet Explorer.

Contents
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1 History 2 Standard sizes 3 References 4 See also

[edit] History

The pioneer of online advertising was Prodigy, a company owned by IBM and Sears at the time. Prodigy used online advertising first to promote Sears products in the 1980s, and then other advertisers, including AOL, one of Prodigy's direct competitors. Prodigy was unable to capitalize on any of its first mover advantage in online advertising. The first clickable web ad (which later came to be known by the term "banner ad") was sold by Global Network Navigator (GNN) in 1993 to Heller, Ehrman, White and McAuliffe, a now defunct law firm with a Silicon Valley office.[citation needed] [1] GNN was the first commercially supported web publication and one of the very first web sites ever.
[citation needed]

HotWired was the first web site to sell banner ads in large quantities to a wide range of major corporate advertisers. Andrew Anker was HotWired's first CEO. Rick Boyce, a former media buyer with San Francisco advertising agency Hal Riney & Partners, spearheaded the sales effort for the company.[2] HotWired coined the term "banner ad" and was the first company to provide click through rate reports to its customers. The first web banner sold by HotWired was paid for by AT&T, and was put online on October 27, 1994.[3] Another source also credits Hotwired and October 1994, but has Coors' "Zima" campaign as the first web banner.[4] In May 1994, Ken McCarthy mentored Boyce in his transition from traditional to online advertising, and first introduced the concept of a clickable/trackable ad. He stated that he believed that only a direct response model—in which the return on investment of individual ads was measured—would prove sustainable over the long run for online advertising. In spite of this prediction, banner ads were valued and sold based on the number of impressions they generated. The first central ad server was released in July 1995 by Focalink Communications,[citation needed] which enabled the management, targeting, and tracking of online ads. A local ad server quickly followed from NetGravity in January 1996.[citation needed] The technology innovation of the ad server, together with the sale of online ads on an impression basis, fueled a dramatic rise in the proliferation of web advertising and provided the economic foundation for the web industry from the period of 1994 to 2000. The new online advertising model that emerged in the early years of the 21st century, introduced by GoTo.com (later Overture, then Yahoo and mass marketed by Google's AdWords program), relies heavily on tracking ad response rather than impressions.

[edit] Standard sizes
Ad sizes have been standardized to some extent by the IAB; they are:[5]

IAB standard ad sizes. Note: This illustration is reduced in size. See actual sizes. Name Width / px Height / px Aspect ratio Rectangles and Pop-Ups Medium Rectangle 300 250 1.2 Square Pop-Up 250 250 1 Vertical Rectangle 240 400 1.67 Large Rectangle 336 280 1.2 Rectangle 180 150 1.2 3:1 Rectangle 300 100 3 Pop-Under 720 300 2.4 Banners and Buttons Full banner 468 60 7.8 Half banner 234 60 3.9 Micro bar 88 31 2.84 Button 1 120 90 1.33

Button 2 Vertical banner Square button Leaderboard

120 60 2 120 240 2 125 125 1 728 90 8.09 Skyscrapers Wide skyscraper 160 600 3.75 Skyscraper 120 600 5 Half page ad 300 600 2 Sizes in bold are part of the IAB's Universal Ad Package.

What is an Effective Internet Marketing Strategy?
If you’re still struggling to finally reach your financial independence & make a nice living from your home, then listen... The only reason why you’re failing is because you don’t have a good website marketing strategy. If you ask any successful offline world entrepreneur how it’s possible to build a great business without a proper strategy, he’ll start laughing. But many internet marketing experts are trying to make money without even realizing what on earth they’re doing online… If you believe that you can jump in, create a website, submit it to a few directories or blogs, sit down, relax & watch those thousands of dollars (that you’ve seen in many marketers’ checks) to come, then you need to stop right there. It ain’t gonna happen. You need to think: who you are and where do you want to be in the future. Whether offline or online, there are only two things that matter: “Buying” and “Selling”. Basically, to simplify, it all comes down to this:
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Who is your customer? What is he or she specifically looking for? You must know their problems or desires. You must be in their shoes and find out what is that would make them feel better (an offer). What is your offer? Why should they buy from you? How come you’re better than the rest? Why should they trust you? Are you offering your own or someone else’s product? How will you create an irresistible offer so they beg you to sell it to them?

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Think about it… There are millions of people buying online every single day. If they’re not buying from you then whose fault is that - theirs or yours? Before you even start creating internet marketing strategy for your website(s), you need to do a research. That’s where it all begins actually. Just like in any business, you have to understand where you are and what can you do.

#1 Phase - Online Research

In this phase, you must research your market. Who are your main competitors? What are they doing online? PPC, SEO, press releases, develop their own products, do affiliate marketing or Adsense? What are their weaknesses? Do they offer a guarantee? Is their product really good? Do they build links constantly or not? Who is your favourite customer? Where do they hangout: MySpace or YouTube? Are they freebie seekers or desperate buyers? What forces them to buy one or another product? Read reviews, forums, testimonials to find out as much as you can about your target market.

#2 Phase – Data Analysis

If you’ve performed a thorough online market research, it’s time to systematize the data you have. Write down what are the main strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. Maybe you have more time than your competitors? Or maybe you know some targeted traffic source that others don’t. How might this affect your business? Which are the places your target market usually visits? What are their main concerns? Maybe they’re not satisfied with the products in the market. Can offer something better, maybe in a form of a bonus? After that, you come to the next step, which is developing your internet marketing strategy.

#3 Phase – Strategy Development

When you already know your target market and your competitors, you are able to start creating your internet marketing strategy (or strategies). Just sit down and think about: who you are and what you can offer to the target market. It involves a little bit of planning. What marketing methods you’ll use and which ones you can afford? PPC, SEO, email, blogging, podcasting, video blogging, webinars, viral traffic generation, link building, banner exchange or others…? You must prioritize your web marketing tactics. Find out what’s going to bring you positive ROI in the shortest time possible. Do you have enough time to perform search engine optimization? If so, then sit and do everything you can, day in day out, to rank at the top in search engines. Don’t have time? Then buy PPC traffic and start testing your landing pages effectively. Or buy resell rights to products and sell them on ClickBank with the help of JV partners. Don’t have time AND money? Then you better get one or another, otherwise you’re dead. Seriously, you must find ways to get time or money. You need to think about how you can exploit other people’s time and money to build your own web business. That’s what rich people do and that’s what you must do if you want to survive in this competitive world.

#4 Phase – Monitoring Performance

When you have an internet marketing plan, you can start implementing it right away. The last step is to start monitoring your internet marketing campaigns. Which keywords people typed into search engines to find your site? Which keywords brought you the most money in PPC marketing? Are you satisfied with your SEO rankings or not? Do majority of your visitors leave your site without even spending 30 seconds? And so on… Only with the help of close monitoring you can discover what works and what doesn’t. Testing landing pages, testing Adwords ads against each other (A/B split testing) can show you some amazing results. And remember – you never know for sure until you TEST it! Web 2.0 A third important part of Web 2.0 is the social Web, which is a fundamental shift in the way people communicate. The social web consists of a number of online tools and platforms where people share their perspectives, opinions, thoughts and experiences.

Web 2.0 applications tend to interact much more with the end user. As such, the end user is not only a user of the application but also a participant by:
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Podcasting Blogging Tagging Contributing to RSS Social bookmarking Social networking

What is Internet Marketing?
by Vimal on Monday, May 16th, 2011 | No Comments

Marketing is ancient. Ever since the first product was sold, marketing was used to sell it. At one time, marketing required the use of massive amounts of print ads, a large investment of capital and a whole team of people to create the marketing campaign. The advent of the internet has made it possible for almost anyone to market their products with a few mouse clicks. Internet marketing is, in essence, a continuation of the old marketing practices of years past. Marketing on the internet has proven to be quite profitable for businesses of any size but there are a few things that can ensure true success in internet marketing. Market Research Market research is the most fundamentally important aspect of internet marketing. The reason for this is that no matter how good someone may be at marketing there are some things that no one is interested in. Anyone looking to get started in internet marketing needs to start with the proper research. From research about what other people are selling to finding out what people are looking for, research is the key to success and without it any marketing endeavor is doomed to failure. A Good Website Marketers of the past needed to rely on physical locations, such as stores and auction houses, to connect with their potential customers. The modern equivalent of a physical store front is a website. Just as a store needs to be well designed and create a positive buying environment for their customers, an internet marketing website needs to look

professional. A good website also needs to present and deliver information in an effective manner and make it as easy as possible for customers to take that last step and hand over their hard earned money. An Audience Internet marketing, as with other forms of marketing, relies on a stream of customers looking to buy the product. Generating large amounts of traffic is the key to success in internet marketing. Driving traffic to a specific site is the backbone of internet marketing and there is an almost unlimited number of different methods for achieving this goal. Internet marketing has made it extremely easy for anyone to make a solid living from selling products or services. While the technology may have changed a bit, the fundamentals have remained the same. From knowing what to sell to setting up an effective website to driving traffic to the site, taking the necessary initial steps will lead anyone down the path to profit in internet marketing.

Yesterday I took part in a roundtable discussion on Focus.com about small business email marketing. (Thanks to Andrew Kordek, from Trendline Interactive, who moderated the chat and invited me to participate.) One of the questions that came up was, if email marketing is meant to sell a product, then how does a small business differentiate itself from competitors? How do you speak to subscribers so they feel more compelled to buy from you?

On the roundtable, I explained that people don't buy from businesses, they buy from people. And it's the role of your email marketing — and your social media posts too — to humanize your business, and to earn the trust of customers. You want to use your communications to build a relationship, not just to sell a product. After all, anyone can offer a sale, coupon, or special offer. Your content is what helps cut through the noise (especially at holiday time) and set you apart.

So what kind of content can you provide that will humanize your business and help differentiate you from your competitors? Here are 4 suggestions:

1. Include a video: Whether it's you thanking your customers for their patronage; a customer raving about your business, product, or service; your expertise or tips for using your products; a cool company milestone; footage of your team to highlight your weird or wacky culture; or you asking for feedback from your subscribers, a video can help you to make a more personal connection because people will see and hear you speaking, and won't be reading.

2. Meet the team: Who are the people you work with, who your customers may come into contact with? Introduce customers to waitstaff, service associates, masseurs and masseuses, dog walkers, or whoever by asking three quick questions. For example, why does this person work for the business, what is his/her favorite aspect of working with customers, or what does this person like to do in his/her spare time. Be sure to include a photo so customers know who to look for.

3. Share expertise: Your customers come to you for your products and services. But the more they learn from you, the more they'll come to rely on you for information as well. And the content you share doesn't even have to be your own. If you come across an article written by someone else that you think will benefit your subscribers, include it in your newsletter or on social media and just write a quick intro to explain why you like it.

4. Involve your customers: Let your customers' voice come through, either by sharing their tips for using your products, picking their favorite dish or service that you offer, or by introducing themselves to their fellow customers.

What are the ways that you put a personal spin on your communications? I'd love to hear them. Post your comments here or on our Facebook Page.

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