Small Business Internet Marketing is not anything new. Small business owners have been promoting their products and services in various ways since the beginning of time.
What has changed is the way that small businesses go about marketing today.
If you have a small business that is struggling to promote itself here are a few things to keep in mind.
What is Small Business Marketing?
This is basically done so that you can promote what you have to sell. Today small business owners include off-line local business owners, and Internet marketers who are building their business online. It also includes home business owners who run their business from the comfort of their own home.
Why do Small Business Internet Marketing?
You have to be out in the marketplace where people can find you. Businesses of all sides struggle with the best way to do this.
The big difference with small business owner is they do not have the staff to hire full-time workers to handle their advertising for them. Unless you’re able to build a business strictly on word-of-mouth advertising, you will need to promote it, and the Internet is the best place to do that.
Where to Do Small Business Internet Marketing?
Internet marketing is great because of the many different avenues available to you. Regardless of your budget you can find ways to promote online.
You will want to consider search engine optimization in any Internet marketing that you do. People still log online looking for information and you have a chance to provide that for them when you promote online.
When to Do Small Business Marketing?
In the past off line business owners would sit down with their yellow page rep and put together their marketing plan for the next year. Then based on how business was going they would throw in additional advertising such as newspaper ads, direct mail, or even radio ads. Today that is not the best approach to take.
Small business Internet marketing should be done year round. You can automate much of this so you do not even have to pay attention to it and you can still benefit.
The best thing to do is to put together a marketing plan and then consistently monitor how it is working. You can make adjustments based on the results you are getting and eventually settle into a consistent successful advertising plan.
How to do Small Business Marketing?
Whenever possible take a broad approach to promoting your business online. Here are a few ways you can do that.
1. Pay per click advertising. This is a fast way to get on page 1 of the larger search engines for keyword phrases that people are searching for.
You see these ads across the top of a page and down the right-hand side. You want to be as high up on the page as you possibly can based on your budget. You will be billed every time somebody clicks on one of your ads.
Googe Adwords is the number one place to promote on the Internet. Because Google gets the majority of search engine traffic today it only makes sense that you advertise with them.
Yahoo Marketing is an affordable alternative. They are the #2 search engine and you can generate more website traffic for considerably less money than you would with Google.
Facebook ads. They now have over 500 million users and have become a power player in the online advertising arena. You can purchase targeted Facebook ads at an affordable rate.
2. SEO. Search engine optimization should be done in every type of advertising you do.
This means you need to develop a keyword list that people are searching for relating to the niche your business is in. Your goal is to rank as high as you can on Google for those keyword phrases.
Once you know what these keywords are you can begin to implement them into all of your advertising strategies.
3. Article marketing. This is a good way to develop backlinks as well as provide information that people could be searching for.
Always remember that people do not come online to purchase something all of the time. Many times they are just looking for information and you may be able to provide that in the form an article.
If you do not like to write you can hire a freelance writer to write for you. Hands Off Article Marketing is a good way to develop an online presence with articles. In this program the articles are written for you, and submitted to online article directories, blogs, and shared video site such as You Tube.
4. Social media. This encompasses a large number of small business Internet marketing opportunities.
For sure you want to start a blog and add content to it on a regular basis. Search engines love blogs and this is a good way for you to develop an online presence and drive traffic at the same time.
When you make a blog post you want to also submit it to online social directories. Use Only Wire to reach the top directories with the click of one button.
Search engines spider these social directories all the time. It’s a good way to get them coming to your blog and spidering it as well.
Social networking is important to be involved in. You should set up a FaceBook and Twitter account for your business. ou should also join LinkedIn and personally interact with people whenever you can.
You can also outsource all of your social media to a professional. This is money well spent because it allows you to reach a segment of the market you might otherwise never reach.
5. Email marketing. Building an email list is smart for the long-term growth of your business.
You can add a sign-up form to your website and let people subscribe to your email newsletter. This is a good way to sell products as well as keep in touch with your subscribers whenever you have something new to announce.
6. Other types of small business Internet marketing. Other things you can do to promote your business online include ezine advertising, classified ads, banner ads, starting an affiliate program, and much more.
Over time you can dominate your market when you have a large number of small business Internet marketing strategies working for your business!
As you probably know by now, real estate is a subject that’s near and dear to my heart — quite literally. My wife is a real estate agent. My sister is a real estate agent. My dad opened his own agency in the 1950s and still works from a home office today as he approaches a tender 80 years old. It’s not just personal, though; real estate is all about small business and I try to watch what’s happening in the industry as much as possible.
Lately, I’ve been watching Google take one baby step after another, pushing into real estate as quietly as Google can do anything. Last night, I wrote about Google’s latest step on Search Engine Land: Google Builds out a National Real Estate Search Engine. The creation of individual “place pages” for property listings is Google’s latest step toward building out what I believe will be a challenger to any web site, big or small, that offers property listings. The article has apparently earned a lot of buzz today around real estate circles, and I want to point out two posts that caught my eye:
Author Brian Boero says, rightly so if you ask me, “Sure, Trulia, Zillow and a hundred other online real estate sites do this. But this is Google, folks – a force so large that it can upend entire categories overnight.”
Despite the apparently contrary headline, I think author John Rowles and I are in agreement on what’s going on here. He makes the smart suggestion that Google could turn the Local Business Center into a Local Property Listings Center and allow the property owner and/or real estate professional to manage the listing the same way local businesses can manage their business information. Says John:
“Given that option, it’s easy to see how people, who are as distrustful of real estate agents as they have ever been in the wake of housing bubble, might migrate to a real estate information platform that is outside the industry’s control and has the added benefit of the familiar Google user experience.
When Google puts something like this out there, THEN its time to freak out if you are NAR, a local MLS, Move Inc, an IDX vendor, etc..
Until then, enjoy the borrowed time.”
Borrowed time. I think that’s a great way to put it right now.
Pay Per Click Management – for your business or a not?
Although search engine optimization (SEO) is an excellent way to get free traffic to your website, it’s not all of the available traffic. Even more exposure for your website can be gained through Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. Research shows that nearly 70% of targeted visitors to a website come through free search results, the remaining 30% come through PPC campaigns. One major benefit of using PPC campaigns is that it enables you to attract the other 30% of customers that you would otherwise be missing altogether. PPC does cost money and it can cost a great deal, however, a properly managed PPC campaign can easily pay for itself. Many PPC management companies in the are experts at creating and optimising successful and economical PPC ad campaigns.
Speedy and Highly Targeted
A major advantage of a campaign is that it is highly targeted to people that are searching for what you have to offer. A professional PPC management company can easily find the right keywords and test them properly, helping make your campaign very cost-effective. Conversion rates are easily measurable if you have knowledge of proper tracking methods. You can collect data related to conversion rate, cost per sale and click-through rate (CTR), allowing you to measure the effectiveness of your ad. Another huge advantage is that all of the vital feedback from your ad testing is immediate. Ad results are available very quickly, and can be adjusted and retested in a short amount of time.
Test, Test and Test Again!
Knowledge of testing various campaigns to determine which will be most effective is vital in helping spend your marketing budget wisely. A professional PPC management company has the expertise to identify keywords for testing, determine maximum cost per click, write effective ads, create compelling copy, conduct detailed tracking, and make adjustments as needed to maximise the effectiveness of your advertising pounds. Without in-depth knowledge in all of these areas, a PPC campaign can end up costing much more money than it needs to. The profits gained from your investment in hiring professionals to manage your PPC campaigns is well worth the cost.
Track It!
The biggest pitfall encountered by inexperienced PPC managers is the lack of knowledge when it comes to tracking. It is absolutely crucial to know precisely what traffic you are receiving, where it originated from, the keywords that were used, where the user went using those keywords, and which keyword combinations get the best results. A successful campaign includes not only selecting and tracking the correct keywords, but determining proper bid prices, writing good ad copy, creating compelling landing pages, creating search engine friendly links and headings, streamlining usability, and writing those all important calls to action. Professional companies managing PPC campaigns are highly skilled in tracking every aspect of a campaign and adjusting all of the crucial items to maximise your PPC profits.
Advertising Local Online Tips to Effectively Getting Your Local Business Advertised Correctly
Getting targeted advertising is crucial and can be a serious money saver. Advertising local online is not that difficult if you use the proper tools and techniques. For example, you need local leads if you are an accountant that has a local office. You then should not waste your money on general online advertising that attracts people that live out of state. You have no benefit when you get a visitor to your site that lives in China. These two examples are why you need to have a geo targeted advertising solution.
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I live in metro Portland, OR so there is several larger known local websites that I can use to advertise locally. One of the most popular local online advertisers is Craigslist.com. To be exact it’s http://portland.craigslist.org. Many businesses post their ads in the appropriate section. A good tip is to put your business phone number in the advertising post. Not that you get more phone calls, but it makes your advertising more believable. You can use this method to attract many leads online in your local area. Just a fair warning for you is to ensure you keep up with their rules. Craigslist has very strict rules to protect their users. Failure to adhere the rules can quickly get you banned from ever posting your local online advertisement.
Kudzu.com is another very popular website for advertising local online. Post your business listing in the appropriate category. As a bonus for good companies your customers can give you a rating score. Also notably give you a good testimonial if you deserve it. Kudzu’s search engine can provide very good targeted results. For example, you can good several results for plumbers with in 25 miles of zip code 30339. Additionally, you can sort by the ratings and review the comments given by users. Another fair warning is that you need to be aware that there is a potential for a bad review that can affect your business. Just understand that you can rebuttal them and I suggest you do. But potential customers know that no business is perfect. You just need to ensure that you have many positive reviews then the negative ones.
CitySearch.com is another great resource to advertising local online. It’s very similar concept to Kudzu.com. Just like kudzu it’ll provide all the reviews and scores from your customers. Word of mouth advertising and having a loyal base of customers is critical in having a successful business online. My suggestion is to ask your customer to give you a favorable rating at citysearch. Normally your customers are not very good with the internet. Take advantage of this and ask them to rate you right on the spot. I always have my laptop around me connected online. After my work is completed I ask them to give me rating. This way they won’t forget.
It isn’t so simple advertising local online by using Google, Yahoo or MSN (Bing) search engine advertising. You can purchase keywords that are specifically from seekers that live in the geographical area you choose. It’s setup where you can choose the country, state, and even the city location of the information seeker. It is a very good way to advertise locally. This can pin point your potential visitors to your site.
Whether you have been purposefully ignoring local search, or simply are not aware of it’s potential impact to your overall marketing strategy — you may want to reconsider your position. Local search marketing can really pay off for “bricks-and-mortar” businesses. It can provide excellent opportunity for garnering both foot traffic and website traffic.
Even as early as 2005, an article in MIT Technology Review, April 2005, “E-Commerce Gets Smarter” reported that for every one dollar U.S. consumers spend online, they spend another five or six dollars on offline purchases that are directly influenced by online research.
Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, says — “We think search is a very viable advertising segment that produces great results and great leads for advertisers. But it has to be managed properly.” It also provides a way to claim more space in the local search engine results pages, thus increasing your chances of getting that valuable consumer click-through to your business profiles and listings. Ultimately, these click-throughs result in sales and increased profits.
As a example, if a local user searches for “pain-free dentistry” and a dental practice has it optimized correctly, there is a very good chance that it will appear prominently in the local search listings. Ideally, a local user will acquire dental related information from the main website of the close proximity dental practice, and thus be influenced to seek out their services. The goal is to shorten the consumer’s path from searching/researching to making a purchase.
Further proof is presented in a study by The Kelsey Group and ConStat, 74% of U.S. households now use the Internet when shopping locally for products and services. This huge trend can no longer be ignored. Even more evidence of this growing trend in local search is presented by The Kelsey Group’s Annual Forecast, which shows that local advertising is shrinking. Going from $155.3 billion in 2008 to a forecasted $144.4 billion in 2013. This means that nearly $11 billion that would normally have been spent on traditional local media (newspapers, Yellow Pages, direct mail coupons, etc.) will shift to local search, social networks, mobile and similar digital media spends.
Bulbwired.com has years of experience in local online search marketing and can manage all aspects of your local online advertising. Call 866.376.7772.
Social media until recently has been a non-tested market for the most part. We will probably look back in a few as 3-5 years and term this era as the “wild West” in Social Media Marketing (SEM). We are all working in uncharted waters where everything we read and hear about social media sites and their effectiveness changes week to week. The role most social media sites are taking as the web grows is a hold position for now in real time search and immediate access of information!
Recently a major hole has been seen in Google’s technology, social media sites like Digg, Reddit and Twitter have seemed to patch; real time search. The design of Google’s index isn’t designed for immediate delivery of information when news breaks. The following article was an eye opener, from SEOmoz about the course of action on the web on one of the largest stories of the year:
Google didn’t index this for a whole 3 hrs and 17 minutes; this being after it was widely available to the web through social media. The effect was so dramatic that Google actually considered it to be spam upon first analysis.
The problem currently for Google is; it basically operates with 2 types of content it needs to display.
1. The slow web
The slow web is what populates most of what we see in Google and filters in information somewhat slowly. Most cases it is estimated that this index is refreshed at a slower rate and new content is added or subtracted based on the basis of importance and originality usually as assessed by incoming links. Don’t expect this to fulfill the needs of real time search addicts and the “instant gratification” seekers.
2. The fast web
Thefast web is more for things like blog search and is designed to handle much faster display of information and populates new information very rapidly. Look at your own search, try “Internet Marketing” and you can see how Google displays more recent information placed in its index.
Notice links coming up here from sites anywhere from 24 minutes to 1 day ago when selecting “recent results” in the search engine. Note that this is significantly different than the “regular results” for the term “Internet Marketing”.
So what does this mean for you and why do I now care about social media?
What this incident shows is that sites like Facebook, Twitter, Digg and Reddit are not going anywhere but rather search engines will have to find methods to either replicate this type of service OR cater to them. In situations like this how will Google model this information and become the landing page for all things search. Will Twitter content be in Google? Will Digg stories populate Google News? Will Google crawl sites like Digg to find the hot content and then list that?
If controlling the Web for your brand or niche is important then you need stay ahead of the curve with things like social media. If you are the first in sites like Twitter for your niche you already have an advantage. You want to succeed in Twitter or sites like it you need to be in there and conversing with others. Build your network and others will follow you.
Google will no doubt evolve and evolve quickly, maybe it’ their Wave product, we’ll see! These “recent results” can handle suffice for the time being, however, a modification in usability needs to be considered to highlight “the fast web” results if Google wants to compete with sites like Twitter to provide this “instant gratification” need.
Google is not flawed as, Google is safe by design. Twitter is somewhat reckless with information that is not screened. If Google is using sites like this to find information you, as an Internet Marketer need to be there. Just like Digg I can imagine that Google will use Twitter popular terms to find directions to populate their results.
We live, we learn, we evolve. Stay ahead of the curve. Immediate Gratification will rule!
A lot of web pages will find an SEO sitemap useful in improving their performance. SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”, the process that aims to create or revise Internet sites so that it can be better found by search engines. The objective of SEO campaigns is to have websites appear in the top listing or first results page of search engines.
Internet search engines, such as Google, maintain a very large database of Web pages and available files. To do this, they devise a program called a web crawler, or spider. This software automatically and continuously surfs and hunts content in the Web. Pages that the spider finds are retrieved and indexed according to text content, giving more weight to titles and paragraph headers. Spiders never stop navigating the web from page to page, to index the relevant content of the Internet. Besides looking at the text of titles and headers, some programs are able to identify default tags and keep a library of these page keywords or key phrases in the index.
When a user connects to the Internet types a query, which is automatically interpreted as keywords, the search engine scans the saved index and creates a list of web pages that is most appropriate to what the user is searching for.
SEO will use all the combined techniques of keyword analysis, smart code, good content literature, link popularity study and website organization to place the subject web page as high as possible in the list of search results in search engines. Web pages displayed on the top of results pages are assumed to get the most attention, and therefore, opportunity for earnings for web businesses and pages with sponsor links.
Search engines usually return a list of results ranking pages according to the number of Internet sites linked to them. Results can be classified as organic, or sponsored links. Sponsored links are shown prominently because their creators or agents paid the search engine. Sponsored links are the main source of income of search engines. “Organic” search results are the lists of actual results from the engines index and are directly related to the keyword typed in the request.
One of the more effective techniques of SEO is the creation of a well-organized site map in a website. Since the site’s main page and other content are directly linked to a site map, spiders can more easily move through the website, identify the key words of the content, and index these for a search engine. This is where the SEO sitemap helps the website creator or administrator.
Site maps are usually pages filled with links. These are shown as tables or lists, although lists are generally more effective. Writing code for SEO sitemaps is very easy and simple to format and maintain. These are ideally basic HTML pages with default tags, logical titles and keywords scattered in the Meta description. Introduction areas can contain more of the keywords. The site should have a main heading for every directory.
A simple list layout helps reduce unnecessary tags that might “hide” your keywords. Some spiders give more weight to the following, than text in the normal body of the webpage: heading text, content within link elements, text nearer the top of the page and the text written for a link. Therefore, writing the keywords and links in these areas could somehow move up the web page’s ranking. This goes for SEO sitemaps as well.
Web sites should be designed consistently, so navigation models should follow the flow of the site map. Therefore, the first section in the site map should be the first link in the navigation bar.
In an SEO Sitemap, and most pages, the headings contain title attributes where more key phrases in the site map can be added. Keywords are generally well chosen and written in the body of a webpage. However, in an SEO site map with little text, key words should be added as much as possible. As much as possible, web links should follow web page titles, and must undergo SEO during coding. Care must be exercised not to cram the page with keywords and links, or the page will be interpreted as blatant spamming and not receive any traffic at all.
There is no way to guarantee that a website will be shown in the topmost ranking of “organic” search results for an extended period of time. However, smart and responsible SEO sitemap techniques can be used to place the website high up in the search position. Regular monitoring and adjustment of the SEO Sitemap and search results would ensure that a website is kept near the top ranking and receiving lots of web user traffic.
In the present day world most businesses want to spread their business through out the world wide web and therefore it becomes essential to follow some SEO strategies. Most business concerns wanting to spread their business world wide are quite concerned about Search Engine Optimization. Most Internet traffic is gained through search engines therefore Search Engine Optimization is a must for all of the business concern. One who fails to do that and is unaware aware of the working methods of the search engines is going to loose business. Period. Let us think of a simple thing if we need to gather some knowledge of some product or some special subject, where shall we search for? It is obvious the search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN, or other such search engines. Whenever we supply our search criteria to these search engines we are provided a list of various websites, which provide the answer to our search query.
Therefore if we want to purchase some product online we also do the same thing by simply typing the need on the search engine. Therefore the business concerns it become essential to gain a good ranking or if possible the top ranking on the search engines so that as soon as the question is typed for searching their page appears on the very first row of the search engine results. And this is what Search Engine Optimization opt for, to gather the largest number of traffic to the targeted webpage or website.
Now the question is how is it possible to get the top ranking through the Search Engine Optimization? This is quite a tough question to be answered. The fact is that this is the very secret of search engine optimization. Moreover in a nutshell it can only be said that this is to examine and understand the working procedure of the search engines and to act accordingly. In fact there are a lot of SEO companies who are engaged in this very respect. And that is what they are paid for. They engage several SEO experts, SEO consultants, and SEO software to examine and judge the working procedure of the search engines so that they can provide their client the desired rank on the search engine pages. But along with that it is also to be said that practically no SEO Company can guarantee the top rank for any company.
Now let us see in brief a small glance of the working process of the search engines: It is that they keep a regular eye on your site and index new topics on your site. They also measure the quality and popularity of your site by the number and types of links on the site by other websites. There are also some other perimeters depending on the site topics, quality and popularity before allotting a rank for the particular site. Therefore it can easily be seen that you need to be up-to-date all the time along with providing all the criteria for the search engine to gain the top rank. And only then you shall be able to have the maximum number of Internet traffic on your site to get the maximum profit out of your business.
Link Popularity is one of key area to increase your site page ranking and search ranking. Incoming links are just like votes in election for your website however there is point as we have to emphases on quality links rather quantity. Valuable links are like 100 of poor links equals to 1 quality link. In this article, I would like to explain how differentiate quality links and how to get them which will effect and improve and strengthen your website ranking.
Mistakes in Link Building
It is never too late to focus on the right direction to get qualified incoming links. Here is few mistakes those may follow by SEOs, Link Builder or website owner and webmasters.
1- Focus on Quantity than Quality: It is the quality of incoming links that will bring your website at 1st page so always you should look for qualified incoming links rather quantity. 2- Link Exchange or Reciprocal Links: Link exchange or reciprocal links should be avoided. 3- Ignorance of Check and Balance for Links: If you don’t check and balance your listings periodically, you may lose your hard gain incoming links 4- Purchase Bulk Links: Search engines become very intelligent these days, you can’t make them fool by purchasing bulk links, because search engine check your incoming links frequency as well with time 5- Paid Links: Paid links can be very healthy but if they are used as a part of the strategy, if you have no idea of how many paid links you are going to have, that can upset your link building campaign.
Do You Have Categorized and Simplified Database?
In link building campaign, your database is your key to success; it is the backbone of your overall link building strategy. If you have a poor database, which is not categorized and simplified, you can’t be comfortable from your link building strategy.
Try to have categorized and simplified database, make a master database with following mentioned fields.
Important Fields for Master Database for any Link Building Campaign
1. URL
2. Direct Link (Direct Link of Submission or Registration)
3. Industry Type (Show Biz, Construction, Telecommunication…)
4. Link Type (One Way, Reciprocal, Paid)
5. Link Style (Anchor link, Title Hyper Link, URL Link, Vote Link)
6. Link Period (1 Year or Life time)
7. PageRank (1, 2, 3…10)
8. Title Limit (Characters Limit)
9. Description Limit (Characters Limit)
10. Keywords Limit (Characters Limit)
Insertion & Update Your Master Database!
Your master database (structure) is ready, now You need to make it valuable by inserting data to it, it requires an on-going updates. Don’t let anything go away as it can be used for your current asa for new projects
Search Engine Marketing is the hottest new career to sweep the employment sector. There are literally more jobs available than there are marketers to fill them, hence the high salaries. Traditionally, SEO/SEM has had a long, steep learning curve, so there is currently a large supply/demand gap.
The growth of the industry has underscored the need for faster, more flexible training options. The demand for trained SEO/SEM staff has accelerated the launch of online training programs in the past three years. The spread of misinformation and the growth of dodgy SEO practices have also highlighted a need for best-practice industry certification.
Advantages of a Career in SEM
Here are the major advantages of having a career in search engine marketing:
1. The search industry is hot, hot, HOT!
2. SEO considered one of four jobs on the cutting edge
3. The pay is (usually) fantastic
4. You can learn it all online
5. You can be your own boss
6. Search marketing has the WOW factor
7. The demand is strong and growing
8. The industry is hip and groovy
9. The skills are portable and global
10. Job satisfaction is high
SEM Training Options
If you decide to start that career in search engine marketing, you have numerous training options open to you:
- Do It Yourself (DIY)
- E-books and online manuals
- Books and offline manuals
- Conferences and seminars
- In-person training
- Online courses
Let’s go through these training options one by one.
Do It Yourself (DIY)
You could try to learn search engine marketing on your own, by conducting your own research, reading widely in webmaster forums and honing your skills on your own sites via trial and error.
The advantages of learning SEM on your own are:
- You can set your own timeframe
- It’s generally inexpensive
- You have the satisfaction of acquiring skills on your own
The disadvantages of learning SEM on your own are:
- There is a very long lead time
- You will be faced with conflicting and unreliable information sources
- There is only a limited ability to network with peers
- Research is time-consuming
- You won’t know what works and what doesn’t until you trial it
- You’ll have no record or proof of skills acquired
E-books and Online Manuals
There are plenty of e-books and manuals about search engine marketing available online.
The advantages of learning SEM via e-books and manuals are:
- They are generally inexpensive
- They are readily available
The disadvantages of learning SEM via e-books and manuals are:
- They are generally considered lower quality than training
- There is no interaction with your peers
- You’ll have no record or proof of skills acquired
As with online versions, there are just as many physical books, CDs and offline training manuals available to persons wanting to learn search engine marketing.
The advantages of learning SEM via books and offline manuals are:
- They are usually inexpensive
- They are readily available
The advantages of learning SEM via books and offline manuals are:
- The information dates quickly
- There is no interaction with your peers
- You’ll have no proof of skills acquired
Examples of SEM books and offline manuals include:
As search engine marketing has grown as an industry, so too have the number of conferences and events dedicated to it.
The advantages of learning SEM via conferences and seminars are:
- They offer cutting edge information
- They often provide access to search engine staff
- They give you the ability to network with peers
The disadvantages of learning SEM via conferences and seminars are:
- You must travel to the venue
- They generally provide no training material
- They can be more expensive than other options
- You’ll have no record or proof of skills acquired
Just as the number of conferences relating to search engine marketing has grown, so too has the demand for in-house training in SEO and SEM subjects.
The advantages of learning SEM via in-person training are:
- It generally includes step-by-step instructions
- Training material is usually provided
- Verification of subjects studied is provided
- You have the ability to network with your peers
- Some form of certification is generally given
- University credits are sometimes available
- Certification may be recognized by potential employers
The disadvantages of learning SEM via in-person training are:
- You must travel to the venue
- The information can date quickly
- It can be more expensive than other options
It’s not always viable or affordable for webmasters to attend conferences or training sessions at a venue other than their home or workplace. For these reasons, the demand for online training in search engine marketing subjects has skyrocketed.
The advantages of learning SEM via online training courses are:
- Courses are available 24/7 from any location worldwide
- Training materials are provided
- They are usually cheaper than venue-based options
- They generally include step-by-step instructions
- Courses are self-paced and interactive
- Certification is provided
- A knowledge benchmark is required to qualify for certification
- Verification of subjects studied is provided
- The lesson materials are updated regularly
- University credits are sometimes available
- Certification is usually recognized by potential employers
- Training institutions can assist graduates with employment
The disadvantages of learning SEM via online training courses are:
- They can be more expensive than other options
- There is only a limited ability to network with peers
Providers of online training courses in search engine marketing include:
Search Engine College – http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=291_1_aaid_2
Benefits of Industry Certification
When it comes to industry certification, there are various schools of thought in the SEM industry. Some suggest certification is simply not necessary, others state that SEO/SEM has no official industry standards, so any certification is meaningless, still others insist that certification is becoming increasingly important to potential employers and persons seeking careers in SEO and SEM.
If you’re skeptical about the value of industry certification, ask yourself these questions: Will you be looking to hire search marketing staff over the next 12 months? Would you prefer to hire search marketing staff that hold industry certification? Will you be seeking a job in the search industry over the next 12 months? Do you think holding industry certification would give you an edge over applicants applying for the same jobs?
Here are some advantages to having industry certification in search engine marketing:
For Staff:
- Proof of subjects studied and skills acquired
- Ability to promote certification on web site / CV
- An edge over other applicants when applying for SEO/SEM jobs.
For Employers:
- Ability to hire based on a proven skill set (e.g. ability to set up a Yahoo! SEM campaign quickly).
- Ability to impress clients with certified status of staff.
- Reassurance that search engine-approved methods are used.
- Less on-the-job training is required.
To Sum Up
Everyone has a different learning style, so don’t assume one method will work for you. Don’t rely on a single source of training for your search engine marketing needs. Attend conferences, purchase books, take a course, network in forums and DIY when you can to acquire a broader knowledge base.
Finally, remember that training should always be supported by hands-on SEO/SEM experience so get those hands dirty!
About the Author:
Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena manages Search Engine College – http://www.searchenginecollege.com/affiliates/jrox.php?id=291_1_aaid_2
- an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses
and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and
other Search Engine Marketing subjects.
Ok, we all know backlinks are a huge part of determining your site worth to most search engines. Each backlink to your site is a vote for it. Backlinks are the building blocks of SEO itself. We’ll look into what should be on your mind as you are acquiring backlinks.
The first intuition is to see how many you can get. That’s just one piece of the whole backlink pie. Search engines like Google have been around some time and have a lot of brilliant minds working for them. A higher quality backlink is worth more towards higher search engine rankings.
Some things to consider about backlinks:
1. Age affects all backlinks. Google specifically weighs a backlink more with age. Backlinks gain in weight over time until after around 6 months they reach their full weight. Basically, it means that the effort you do building backlinks will be worth more and more.
2. Anchor text is hugely important. The words on the backlink itself from the other site also play into it appears the other site views your site. When the keywords you are optimizing for are used, the link gains a much higher quality. The thing to watch out for here is that the text is varying. Google picks up on when all of you backlinks have the same exact text.
3. Getting backlinks from sites with the same theme as yours will benefit you much more than non-relevant sites. This makes sense since a link to your health food site from a car site about old Mustangs isn’t going to do much for a visitor, so it won’t for Google either.
4. The better the reputation or Page Rank of a site that links to you, the higher quality it is. Fairly obvious. If CNN or Slashdot linked to you, that one backlink would likely outweigh all your other backlinks together.
5. The physical location of a backlink on the page can also be a noteable factor for search engines. Google in particular lends more weight to links the higher towards the top of the page. If there is surrounding content the links appear more natural so they are valued higher.
Reciprocal links are always the hot topic when talking SEO. The truth is, reciprocal links are still alive and going well. Reciprocal links between websites with similar themes is natural and expected. Though I have read many many times of claims that reciprocal linking is dead, rest assured that quality reciprocal links are not going away anytime soon. Google for instance has its sights set on backlinks that were bought, and from link farms where 5 minutes after paying some money you have thousands of sites pointing to yours.
While there are many other factors such as the age of your website and how much content is on your website, those will be left to another article.
Backlinks are indeed the cornerstone of getting a website established on the Internet. Without enough backlinks visitors won’t know your site exists, and search engines will put little weight to your website resulting in a further loss of potential traffic, which could make or break your site. The key is to go out knowing what backlinks you want and spend enough time to make your site known. Properly setup, your backlinks will keep your site popular with visitors for a long time to come.
Last night, I wrote about Google’s latest step on Search Engine Land: 
targeted visitors to a website come through free search results, the remaining 30% come through PPC campaigns. One major benefit of using PPC campaigns is that it enables you to attract the other 30% of customers that you would otherwise be missing altogether. PPC does cost money and it can cost a great deal, however, a properly managed PPC campaign can easily pay for itself. Many PPC management companies in the are experts at creating and optimising successful and economical PPC ad campaigns.
Social media until recently has been a non-tested market for the most part. We will probably look back in a few as 3-5 years and term this era as the “wild West” in Social Media Marketing (SEM). We are all working in uncharted waters where everything we read and hear about social media sites and their effectiveness changes week to week. The role most social media sites are taking as the web grows is a hold position for now in real time search and immediate access of information!
Link Popularity is one of key area to increase your site page ranking and search ranking. Incoming links are just like votes in election for your website however there is point as we have to emphases on quality links rather quantity. Valuable links are like 100 of poor links equals to 1 quality link. In this article, I would like to explain how differentiate quality links and how to get them which will effect and improve and strengthen your website ranking.
