Monday, 2 April 2012

What is PPC Marketing?


Pay per click or PPC is a form of internet marketing through which traffic is driven to the website of the marketer and the marketer pays on the basis of the number of clicks which are made on the advertisement. In PPC the advertisers pay for visitors on the basis of cost per click. The advertisements are placed on the websites of third parties or search engine results pages. 


Whenever any visitor of the website clicks on the banner or advertisement of the marketer and visits the website of the marketer, the third party website charges the marketer a decided rate. The third party is not concerned with the fact if the visitor of the website purchases any product or service from the website of the marketer or not and the third party is also not concerned about the duration of time for which the banner or advertisement appears on the third party website.

Third party websites have the banners and advertisements visible for everyone who visits the website and search engine display the sponsored advertisements of the marketer when a relevant keyword is searched by an internet user. Usually marketers have to bid the rates when the pay per click advertisement is placed on a search engine results page but when the advertisement is placed on a normal content website then usually bidding is not required and instead a fixed price per click is charged. 

Pay per click is different from other forms of advertisement and banners like television and newspaper because these advertisements are paid on the basis of pay per impression and not on pay per click basis.

Pay per click advertising has the potential to dramatically increase the relevant traffic to a website. However, in order to receive the results which you want it is extremely important that the pay per click campaign is implemented and managed shrewdly. If the management of the PPC campaign is done inappropriately and the planning of the campaign is poor then it will only increase the expenses of the business without any significant positive effect on the sales.

Pay per click offers instantaneous and direct results. The investment of money in PPC immediately converts into users visiting your website and hence the sales and revenue increase. Other internet marketing types, such as search engine optimization does not offer such immediate and instant results because it takes several months to receive the advantages of search engine optimization process. If your business is in such a position that you need revenue immediately then pay per click advertising is the best option for your business.

Pay per click advertising is also effective because you pay for the number of visitors who visit your website and not for the number of times that your advertisement is shown. This ensures that the return on investment (ROI) is incredibly high because the higher relevant traffic is driven to a website the higher chances exist of increased sales and revenue. So basically the advertiser pays only for performance.

The pay per click campaigns can also be controlled and the costs associated with the campaigns can be restricted by the advertiser as well. The providers of PPC allow the advertisers to limit the amount which they want to spend on daily basis and when the amount limit is reached the advertisement discontinues appearing. Pay per click advertising is definite, flexible and less risky than other forms of internet marketing. 

Pay per click advertising is also implemented quiet straightforwardly and unlike search engine optimization, advertisers do not need to make any modifications to the website for a PPC campaign. Search engine optimization techniques often require modifications to the website and frequent change of website content and this occasionally becomes a hassle for the advertiser.

Friday, 30 March 2012

What is Organic SEO?

Organic SEO or search engine optimization is a chain of processes and techniques through which the visibility and ranking of a website on the organic search engine results page improves. When a user searches for a query on a search engine, two types of results appear; organic and paid or sponsored. 


The paid or sponsored results, as the name suggests are the results for which the companies make payment to the search engine to appear in the search engine results page (SERP) but the organic or natural results are the real results which display the websites which according to the search engine algorithms are most relevant to the query. Since search engine optimization is concerned with only the organic results of search engines hence it is also known as organic SEO.

Search engine optimization is considered to be the most important type of internet marketing because search engines are extremely popular these days and search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing are the biggest sources which drive traffic to websites. Individuals who are searching for a particular product or service use search engines to find the provider of the service or product and when the link of a website appears in good rankings in the search engine results page the chances of people visiting the website increase and when people visit a website the chances of people purchasing the product or service offered increases dramatically as well.

There are many advantages of organic SEO, some of the advantages are mentioned below:
  1. PPC advertisement is paid advertisement in which the advertiser has to make specific payments to the third party websites or search engines for the sponsored advertisements but for organic SEO the advertiser does not have to make any payment to the search engine. The advertiser only has to make sure that the website of the business is popular according to the algorithms of the search engines and the website automatically achieves good rankings in search engine results pages.
  2. As compared to other types of internet marketing, the return on investment of organic SEO is incredible. Although some costs are associated with the process of making a website popular according to the algorithms of search engines but this cost is very low as compared to the increase in traffic to the website when the website achieves good rankings.
  3. The increased relevant traffic to a website evidently means increase in sales and this means the revenue of the business will increase radically due to organic SEO.
  4. Organic SEO makes a website more globally accessible and popular. People from all over the world visit a website which has better rankings in search engines. Traditional channels of marketing like television, newspapers, etc focus specific regions and nations but internet is used globally and when a particular query is entered in a search engine, websites from all countries appear in the results.
  5. The people who visit your website through search engines are already interested to purchase the products or services which you offer because they are searching for the same on the internet. This means that the conversion rate of such visitors is extremely high. It is very intelligent to apply the search engine optimization techniques because if the website achieves good rankings in search engine results page due to these techniques, you will be receiving high relevant traffic on your website which can be very easily and conveniently converted into clients and customers.

 So, when planning your online marketing strategy, organic search should be the cornerstone and the underpinning of that which powers, and connects to, all other channels of communication.

Thursday, 29 March 2012

What is Email Marketing?


Email marketing is one of the types or branches of internet marketing. Internet marketing is the process of marketing products or services through the internet. There are numerous types of internet marketing which include search engine optimization, display advertising or pay per click, social media optimization and affiliate marketing. Email marketing is also among the types of internet marketing which involves sending promotional and advertising emails to a group of people.


Email marketing involves sending emails to potential customers and existing customers. Businesses send promotional emails to people in order to introduce their business and the services or product which they offer and to increase their customers. After reading these promotional emails, a fraction of the individuals who receive the email might be interested in acquiring the products or services offered. Existing customers are sent emails only enhance customer relationship and to encourage customer loyalty.

There are numerous advantages of email marketing, for example, borders are no obstacles in email marketing and email marketing offers a global reach. No matter in which country do you live, if you want to attract the potential customers of another country then email marketing can be the right type of marketing for you. The costs associated with email marketing are extremely low as well as compared to other forms of marketing. The designing, executing, testing and sending expenses are incredibly low. Email marketing involves much lesser time, money and resources as compared to other types of marketing.

Email marketing does not mean that you will only be sending dull text emails to potential customers, but you can also use videos, graphics, music, games and other interesting things to attract your potential customers. This grabs the attention of the receiver of the email and allows the receiver to interact with you. Since every email has a greeting, thus email marketing is highly personalized. You can use the greeting according to your target audience.

Email marketing works even while you are not in the office. It is a round the clock marketing because the emails which you sent will be checked and read by the receivers in different times. You only have to send the emails once and the receivers will be reading the emails round the clock. One of the most important advantages of email marketing is that the results of the email marketing campaign are quantifiable and measurable. There are specific tools which can present you the click through rate, the conversion rate and other standards by which you can access the success or failure of your email marketing campaign.

These days custom-built lists of email addresses are easily available so you can easily find the list which might target the audience which you want to target so email marketing is highly targeted marketing. You can send emails to people who you think will be most interested to buy the products or the services which you offer. You can target your audience based on geography, income, age, sex, and other factors.

The response which is received through an email marketing campaign is unbelievable and incredible. Individuals who have not tried email marketing think that all the receivers of the emails simply delete the emails without even opening the emails but actually the response of email marketing is really great and keeping in view the costs involved in email marketing, the return on investment is great.

Moreover, the task of running an email marketing campaign is very simple. You do not need many technical resources to run this campaign and anyone can even launch an email marketing campaign while sitting at home. 

Tuesday, 27 March 2012

What is Social Media Marketing?


Social media marketing, also known as social media optimization is a form of marketing process which involves increasing the traffic on a website or promoting any business or cause through social media websites. In order to comprehend social media marketing, first it is necessary to know what social media websites are. Social media websites are internet websites which allow people to interact and network with each other. Usually websites provide information to the visitors, but social media websites, besides giving information to the visitors, also allow those visitors to interact with each other. Renowned social media websites include Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Delicious, Flickr, Reddit, Wikipedia, etc. 


People use social media websites to interact and stay connected with each other. People find other people on social media websites who have the same interest, profession, hobbies, etc and intermingle. With the increase in the popularity of social media websites businesses started to make use of this social platform as a means of marketing. Basically, social media marketing is a form of internet marketing which involves the branding and marketing of any business, product, service or cause by participation in different social media websites.

If an organization ingeniously uses social media networks, then they can easily increase the relevant traffic on the website of the business and this relevant traffic can then be converted into clients and customers.

Social media marketing increases the trustworthiness and reputation of a company. This means that social media is a perfect platform for creating a brand. Social media websites allow companies to interact and correspond with their customers and clients and this is a great way to build credibility and to retain existing customers. Moreover, social media marketing is a fantastic method of lead generation.

Having increased relevant traffic to the website of the business is very important for every organization. An organization which performs through social media marketing does not have to worry about having people visit their website. Internet users use social networking websites and users of these websites who might be interested in the services or products offered by the social media marketer will certainly visit their website.

One thing which is extremely imperative to have good standing and reputation in the market is the access to customer’s feedback. The feedback of clients and customers is extremely significant for the improvement in the products and services offered by an organization. Since social media marketing allows people to give feedback about the services or products offered by the company, the company can use this feedback for the perfection and improvement of what they offer.

When a company launches a new product or service, social media websites are the cheapest channels where this company can announce the launch. The news of the launch of the new product or service is spread efficiently and effectively through social media websites. Moreover, companies use social media to discover the preferences of their potential customers. Companies like to offer their customers what they want and the most effective way to know what the customers want is social media marketing.

Just like any other medium, social media websites give internet marketers a voice and a platform to communicate with potential customers and clients. The brand of a company is created on the internet through social media marketing and the message of the company is spread globally very swiftly and effectively.

With the advancement of technology, the techniques of marketing have changed. Today, for every company, the use of internet as a means of marketing tool is indispensable and social media marketing is an important aspect in this regard.