So someone might ask, why would I bother with all the time and resources needed for SEO when I can just buy my way to the top with PPC? The easiest answer is that PPC can be expensive. Paying for placement at the top of a page, especially in one of a competitive industry, requires a significant budget. Curious what a certain keyword will cost you? Try using  Google’s Keywords tool. SEO is much less expensive, especially for someone who has a significant number of keywords they want to use.

SEO also has the benefit of more permanent results. What I mean by that is the results of a well done SEO campaign take much longer to fade than that of a PPC campaign. Once the money runs out with a PPC campaign, the search rankings are gone, whereas the links and tags involved with an SEO campaign can take years to go away, if they go away at all.

Finally, people and web users are becoming more aware of ads and are ignoring them.  Look at this really cool study done on how people read webpages.  As you see, more people are ignoring the paid sections of results pages and focusing on the actual search results. Do you really want to spend your money to get the top spot on a page if the searcher is just going to ignore you?

It may seem like I’m saying SEO is the only way to go for marketing. While it’s true that SEO may have better long term results, PPC does have its place. PPC campaigns are great for short term sales or for limited time promotions like Cyber Monday. I would also recommend a PPC campaign for a new website in order to get a lot of exposure right away.

PPC and SEO both have their place in the search-marketing world. The key is to figure out which works best for both your short and long term goals. Each strategy has positives and negatives and figuring out which will help generate the most business can be the difference between success and failure in the online world. What do you think? Is PPC worth the investment?

Good question. Why DO you need Internet marketing?

Before we answer that question, let’s answer this one: when was the last time you used a phone book?

*crickets chirping*

Exactly. These days, most people use the yellow pages more for propping up uneven table legs than for finding a local dry cleaner or dentist.

Why is the Internet better than a phone book?

The Internet is a reliable source of contact information because it’s more up-to-date than anything in print. If your company changes its address or phone number, you can update that information online with a few quick edits — meaning potential customers can still contact you or find you right away.

Another major benefit of the Internet is the ability to shop and sell online. Imagine if you told your grandparents that they could simply point to a company in a phone book and immediately have the product shipped to their home. Amazing, right?

But simply having a website isn’t enough.

Setting up a website is a great first step in the right direction. But it’s crucial to have a website that actually works well and looks appealing. If users can’t easily navigate your site and find what they’re looking for, your website might be doing more harm than good.

And even if you have the best website on the Internet, if no one knows about it then it won’t do you any good.

This is where Internet marketing comes in.

The basic goal of Internet marketing is to generate more leads for your business. Simply stated, it puts your company’s website in front of the right audience. From blogging and social media to strategic site design and pay-per-click campaigns, effective Internet marketing drives more quality traffic to your site.

Online marketing refers to the techniques available to a business to market, promote and advertise their products, services or brand on the World Wide Web. There are two main sub channels of online marketing that utilise different angles to help a business promote themselves online. Below is an outline of the online marketing channels that businesses may integrate into their marketing campaign.

Pay per click advertising (PPC)

Pay per click is a form of inbound marketing where by advertising is used to promote businesses via advertisements alongside organic search results. Each ad is triggered by a search for a particular keyword and the advertiser only pays when their ad is clicked and user visits their website – hence the name, pay per click.
Pay per click advertising is available with all the major search engines including Google, Yahoo and Bing as well as with smaller search engines and websites.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimisation aims to increase the visibility and traffic to your website by achieving higher rankings in search engine results. The process of search engine optimisation refers to making improvements to your website, ensuring that it is attractive to the search engines – both in regards on-site content and coding as well as off-site web presence. The more search engine friendly your website is the more likely it is to appear higher in the organic search results for selected keyword phrases.

Search engines use complex algorithms to determine the order of the results they display for selected search phrases. These algorithms take into account hundreds of different factors, from the way the website is coded, to the relevance of the website content to the search term and how many inbound links there are to the website.

Online marketing is the general term used to describe SEO and PPC together as a single marketing strategy. Many companies will undergo both pay per click advertising for immediate results and search engine optimisation as a long term strategy – this can be considered a completed online marketing campaign.

Regardless of the size, majority of businesses nowadays are practicing Internet marketing. That’s because it is the most inexpensive way for them to reach millions of their target market. But what is Internet marketing really?