Beginner's Guide to Web and Search Marketing

Simply explained, Internet or Web marketing is the process of connecting with customers via the Internet for selling products and/or services. One of the strategies of internet marketing is SEM or search engine marketing.

Search marketing is the process of increasing one's visibility in the search engine page results. SEM includes following important elements:

1. Search engine optimization 2. Pay per click advertising 3. Back linking strategies 4. Directory listings

Search marketing can be enhanced through organic keyword searches. What does the term organic mean? Simply put, it means you need not pay for the keyword searches. When your website has all the right 'elements'; it can 'get noticed' quickly by major search engines like Yahoo, Google etc. These elements include:

• Fresh content • Blogs • Keyword rich content • Meta data

An essential component of search marketing is researching consumer buying habits. This in turn, helps us find the keywords one uses to find and buy items online. Knowledge of keywords is thus very essential to help get your website indexed by the search engines and drive targeted traffic to your sites.

Most of the search engines themselves offer tools for this critical keyword research. Some of these are paid tools, including Google's AdSense, Correlate and Trends. Inorganic or paid searches do necessitate considerable research on the part of the Internet marketers (like you). Alternatively, marketers also need to advertise their own brand and can earn money by advertising other companies' products on their sites in turn. The search engines can help you find all the places to buy online advertising.

You can also turn to social networking sites like Facebook to achieve this goal.

If you are thinking of purchasing digital advertisements, make sure that you thoroughly research the markets to determine the click-through and conversion rates. Adequate keyword research and multiple advertising strategies should help you attain top ranking for your keywords.

Once your keyword list is ready, you must start creating a valuable website or a sales copy and create wonderful blog posts that inform readers exactly what they are looking for. These blog posts must contain links that direct readers back to the site. You can even incorporate videos and submit them to top online video directories like YouTube. Even the videos can direct readers back to your sites.

Connecting and forming links of this sort is an essential element of search marketing and web marketing. It has an easy to remember name called 'the back-linking strategy'. Back links can be very helpful in bringing targeted traffic to your site; provided you use them correctly. This is because; search engines have become very strict and examine the quality of all such inbound links. Owners of web sites must continuously educate themselves and understand all these elements of search and web marketing.

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Effective Link Building = Higher Conversion Rates

Most people have heard of the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and understand its impact on the effectiveness of their website through improved search engine rankings. A site with no SEO is much more difficult - if not impossible - to find unless you already know its direct URL.

Link building is the most important element of any SEO campaign. Each link to your website acts like a vote on search engine rankings. This helps make your website more visible and easier to find when people search for related queries.

Google assesses and assigns a page rank to each web page individually, not to the overall site. For this reason, link building must be employed for every page of your website. This process is called deep linking, which means that some of your inbound links go to the internal pages of your website, rather than simply to your home page.

If your site includes merchandise information, for instance, think about each of your products and the categories they fit into. Conversion rates can benefit greatly from highly relevant inbound links that direct targeted traffic to specific products, sending visitors straight to items they are interested in purchasing.

Deep linking is also highly appropriate for informational pages, galleries of images, and blogs. The deep-linking process, although rather time consuming, enhances user experience and increases your ranking in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), which in turn helps improve your site's visibility and conversion rates. A well optimized website should make use of deep linking whenever possible.

Another important aspect of link building is anchor text - the set of words used to connect a target URL to information housed in a different page, or on a different portion of the same page. It is very important to choose highly relevant keywords when creating your anchor texts for inbound links, rather than using generic phrases such as "click here."

It is important to understand that link building is a process, not a task. An SEO program is not a project with a clear beginning and end. Rather, it is an ongoing progression that involves continuous updates. It is most likely that your organization will not see an overnight Return On Investment (ROI) that can be directly attributed to link building, but it certainly pays off over time. The truth is that any business with a solid web presence can't afford to ignore the importance of SEO.

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Backlink Building Software - Top 5 Features You Should Always Be Looking For

Backlink building software - that is, software which automates the process of creating one-way inbound links to your site - may well be regarded by many online marketers as the potential and proverbial "holy grail" for achieving a first page ranking on Google and other search engines.

What's key to understanding the above paragraph is the use of the word "potential" since actually being able to find software that gets the job done is not so easy.

And if you think about this logically it makes perfect sense. After all, how many marketers do you think would be willing to sell a proprietary software solution that has already flooded their own bank accounts with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars? And for less than a hundred dollars?

The answer... not many!

As a result the majority of backlink building software applications remain quietly hidden...

However - and this is a big however - there remains a huge need in the marketplace for such programs even though in reality most marketers would rather keep such programs to themselves.

This creates a major opportunity for unscrupulous marketers to create highly polished and convincing sales pages which are otherwise completely incapable of delivering a product that works half as well as what these sales pages would like you to believe.

Fortunately you can beat such marketers at their own game by knowing in advance what specific features a backlink building program must contain before you would ever consider buying it.

So to give you a head start (as well as an edge over your competition), here are the top 5 features you should always be looking for (otherwise it's just more money down the drain):

1. Fresh, relevant links - program must provide links from frequently updated sources which are either directly or closely related to your niche as represented by your chosen keyword.

2. Links must be from high ranking, do follow authority type websites - Google places a lot of weight on not just the relevancy of your backlinks but also the quality of those links which is a reflection of the quality of the site from where the backlinks emanate.

3. Ability to find .edu and .gov links - This is important as Google considers such backlinks as being the "cream of the crop". Get just a few of these links and your ranking will improve significantly.

4. All links are "white-hat" - Again, this goes back to the quality of the links identified by the software. Anything that's considered shady, deceptive and so on will weaken your backlink. Programs that filter out such sites increase your efficiency and profitability.

5. Program must work fast - This almost goes without saying but naturally you want software that delivers results quickly. Otherwise it's a bit like watching paint dry...

Now having said all this, it should be noted that backlinking alone is not enough to rank highly on Google. Being able to select the right keywords combined with useful and monetized content are equally important factors, perhaps even more important as it's not uncommon for sites with great content to be on the first page of Google despite having very little if any links! (It's true... )

The bottom line is that by taking advantage of backlink building software that meets the above criteria then getting onto the first page of Google and other search engines can be achieved with relative ease assuming the remaining factors have also been adequately addressed,

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Create Viral Content With 3 Simple SEO Guidelines

When you write articles and submit them online, that is your representation of you to the rest of the world. To build a strong reputation upfront always aim to provide a service FIRST and optimize later. Google has changed their algorithms and search crawlers are now a lot more aware of spamming methods and old link baiting tricks. It's important to create quality content because above all this purely offers a free service to anyone, beneficial for Google in their methods and slowly builds your website's Page Rank. Create viral content that's high quality, relevant, and creatively articulated. Eventually as you practice and implement these skills on a continual basis, your passion for writing will be rediscovered.

1. ) Quality - Creating quality content is highly important to search engines nowadays. With so many changes in Google's algorithm's and so many fighting over the first pages of Google, it's extremely crucial to have something new and of high value. Quality content will always dominate on Google search engines with your targeted keyword. To create viral content consider the following qualities:

Create lots of information covering all aspects of what you're targeted educational goal is for the reader. Strong educational content allows the user to make a better formulated decision in your favor.

Follow general user friendly experience through organization. Use paragraphs, bullets, photos, videos, infographics and call-to-action buttons. Allow the user to easily navigate through and find the information they're looking for. Call to action buttons leave room for your content to be shared through various social media networks.

Have longer articles. It's more writing but the payoff is a lot more rewarding because people like to stay on your site to learn more, instead of having to go somewhere else because a smaller article didn't cover what they were looking for. Create viral content with intent of servicing the readers first ALWAYS.

2. ) Relevancy - Relevancy is important for two reasons. One, being it builds strong credibility with your readers because your words sound naturally articulated. Second, search engines place highly relevant websites onto their top pages because it gives their consumer's exactly what they want. Relevancy will be trust with search engines, but I admit it's weird that they can think in that fashion. What's relevant:

Take an informative approach that's organized and split each section of information up amongst the proper categories. It's also easier for readers to find what they're looking for.

Create viral content that aligns and honors the title, summary, targeted keywords, and keyword backlinks associated with the post/blog/article. It's all about creating a good first impression, do that by honoring what it is you chose to put and represent on your site.

Create How To Do lists and Write reviews these are examples of a clear goal and that's how a relevant article is easily identified. Clear objectives creates a simpler user friendly experience.

3. ) Anchor Text - Anchor text is the main keyword that's displayed when you click on any link. It's extremely important and vital to building your page rank, developing trust with search engines, and pushing your keywords onto the first pages of Google. When you create viral content always leave room in your articles for adding anchor text keywords so you can easily direct your readers to more relevant information. Relevant anchor text keyword backlinks that link to other high quality posts, pages or sites with your targeted keyword is a good way to educate new visitors on your targeted topics and various niches. What's considered relevant & important:

Create anchor text keyword backlinks for all your targeted keywords. This helps build search engine rankings because Google search crawlers count these back links, just as importantly as they do external back links from other sites. Bottom link, the more keyword targeted high quality links you build the more traffic you bring to your site.

Create viral content by only using links for keywords that are relevant and flow with the body of the article. It's important not to spam and link a bunch of random words because it can create a non-user friendly experience, but make it easily accessible for new visitors to learn more about your targeted topic related to long tail keywords.

Make sure that your anchor text keyword backlinks are linking to HIGH QUALITY RELEVANT posts. Link new posts to your older posts and vice versa, follow relevancy that aligns with the goal of the article and create viral content through natural link building. This always wins the trust of search engines and in a way allows them to consider your website to be placed on the first pages before others. One of the many ways computers "thinking" nowadays.

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4 Important Google Search Verticals

1. Local Search

A local search listing appears on the first page of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for a search that includes a local search term. (Eg. See the image above for "Car Hire Cape Town") These listings are very important to businesses where your physical location is important to your service offering.

To load your free listing onto these pages you require a Google Places page where you can load company information such as contact and address details, services, working hours, photos & videos, as well as pinpoint your businesses location on a Google map. You don't even need a website to create a Google Places listing!

Your ranking within the local place page results is determined by the number of positive ratings for your page, and the relevance to the keyword searched. Your places page also comes with a dashboard to measure activity, actions and top search queries which is great for analysing the effectiveness of your listing and performing ongoing optimisation.

2. Image Search

Image search is probably the most popular search vertical, and has been around on the Google SERPs for the longest. As in the example above optimised images appear within the search results and link through to an expanded image with the page that contains the image. Images in the SERPs are a great way of grabbing and holding a searchers attention over the standard results.

Image optimisation is very similar to optimising a web page. Your keywords should be loaded in the image filename, alt tag, the text around the image, and image link anchor text. Images should also be interesting enough to encourage users to share and link the content.

3. Video Search

Your video search listing in Google's search results generally appears in the lower part of the page with links to your YouTube videos as well as a thumbnail and basic video detail. Video optimisation can be done within the YouTube video information editor on your channel or profile. Be sure to include all your researched keywords into the video filename, title & description, as well as video tags. Try to also include the word "video" on the page with your embedded video, as well as the HTML surrounding the video as well. You can also create a XML video sitemap to ensure your videos get noticed by Google.

Videos also encourage interaction with your brand, and comments and social shares will certainly increase the visibility of your videos, so be sure to offer methods of easily sharing and embedding your video. Well produced videos are also an excellent method of quickly explaining your service offering or concept.

4. Social Search

With Google+ on the scene social search is now becoming essential to maintaining an effective ranking in the SERPs. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ profiles are featuring often in the first page of results, as well as +1s from your Google+ friends.

In the screenshot above I've included an example of results received when you are logged into a Google+ profile. When logged in you also have the option of +1′ing a result, and also viewing your own and friends +1 and page view data. Pages that have been +1′d by you or your friends will obviously appear higher in the rankings, so offering social sharing options on all your content pages is becoming essential for content distribution, and link building.

Although there are several other search verticals available on Google (News, Shopping, Blogs) I feel the above are the most important Google search verticals. Please let us know in the if you feel differently, or feel free to add others in the comments section below.

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Search Engine Optimization Tips for Travel Websites

Do you own a travel company website? Are you getting frustrated because trying to rank your site highly on Google is very difficult? There is already too much competition from mega companies like world-class hotels, global airliners, and rental companies. To overcome these hurdles, and move your website to the top, you need to implement the widely used online strategy of search engine optimization (SEO). This refers to the practice of adding or modifying content on your site to make your web pages more inviting to Google and other search engines. SEO for travel websites is a particularly competitive field, and therefore, requires unique solutions that are not commonly found in normal search engine optimization plans. So, just what exactly are these unique search engine optimization strategies for travel websites? Let's find out.

One of the most effective tips for improving any travel website's ranking on search engines is by narrowing down the focus of any particular webpage to a specific geographical area or city. This is important because Google and other search companies deliver search results that are tailor made to the particular location that the search starts in. For example, a search for the word "car rental" that starts in New York is likely to return search results that reflect the car rental market for New York. It is highly unlikely that a similar search for "car rental" that is performed by a user in London will bring up the same results in Google.

What the above situation means for your business is that your site needs to target specific geographical areas and cities in order to bring in more visitors. This is actually good for you because when one particular city or area is too competitive for your site to rank highly on a search engine, you can always concentrate on another location. As there are so many potential sources of tourists in the world, you have a wide open field where you can compete that your competition simply isn't even trying to establish itself into.

Another very important tip regarding SEO for travel websites is to make sure that your site can be accessed by users who do not use English as their primary language. Help these visitors out by translating your site into a variety of languages. So, just what languages should you consider translating your website into? Your best bet is to start by translating the site into the primary language spoken by people of the region or city that you are trying to attract. Another great way to discover what language translation is in demand on your site is by checking the visitor log of the server which hosts your website. You can gleam a variety of information about your site's visitors, including their country of origin, and the language set on their computer. Also, don't forget to check out the competition to see what language translations they offer their visitors.

Once these important tips are successfully implemented, expect to see a large boost in the number of visitors your site sees on a daily basis!

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