Get answers to some commonly asked
questions relating to Internet marketing
What is
Internet marketing?
Internet
marketing refers to the use of any and all strategies available to
promote your business. In most cases it involves driving targeted
prospects to your website where they can perform the desired objective.
These objectives will vary based upon the marketing strategy of your
business, and might include the viewing of product information,
requesting a quote, downloading a whitepaper, contacting you, purchasing
product, or a host of other objectives.
It is the process of improving the
volume and quality of traffic to a web site from
search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic")
search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search
results, or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that
site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image
search, local search, and industry-specific
vertical search engines.
As a marketing strategy for increasing a
site's relevance, SEO considers how search
algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve
a site's coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems
that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully
spidering a site. Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding
unique content to a site, ensuring that content is easily indexed by
search engine robots, and making the site more appealing to users.
Our approach will
vary and is based upon a detailed needs analysis conducted at the
beginning of the project. Components of our Internet marketing strategy
might include keyword analysis, search engine optimization, public
relations, competitive intelligence, pay-per-click advertising, e-mail
marketing, inbound and link development.
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What is search engine marketing?
Search engine marketing lets
search engines know that your website exists and shows them that it's
well maintained and accepted by other sites that offer similar
information, products or services. It helps to make sure your website
shows up near the top of their search results.
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What is search engine optimization?
Search engine optimization
adds code and text to your web pages that match what your customers are
typing into search engines. It helps to make sure your website shows up
near the top of search engine results in the correct categories.
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What
is a search engine spider?
A web crawler (also known as a web spider or web robot) is a program or
automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical,
automated manner. Other less frequently used names for web crawlers are
ants, automatic indexers, bots, and worms. This process is called web
crawling or
spidering.
Many sites, in particular search
engines, use spidering as a means of providing up-to-date data. Web
crawlers are mainly used to create a copy of all the visited pages for
later processing by a search engine that will index the downloaded pages
to provide fast searches.
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What is a
meta-tag and alt-tag?
Meta elements are
HTML or
XHTML elements used to provide structured
metadata about a web page. Such elements must be placed as tags in
the
head
section of an HTML or XHTML document. Meta elements can be used to
specify page description, keywords and any other metadata not provided
through the other head
elements and attributes.
Alternative text is the
alt
attribute used in HTML and XHTML documents to specify text that is
to be rendered when the element to which it is applied cannot be
rendered. In HTML, the attribute is required for the
image (img)
and area
element types.
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What are search engine site maps?
A site map (or sitemap) is a graphical representation of the
architecture of a web site. It can be either a document in any form used
as a planning tool for web design, or a web page that lists the pages on
a web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion. This helps
visitors and
search engine
bots find pages on the site.
While some developers argue that site
index is a more appropriately used term to relay page function, web
visitors are used to seeing each term and generally associate both as
one and the same. However, a site index is often used to mean an A-Z
index that provides access to particular content, while a site map
provides a general top-down view of the overall site contents.
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What is pay-per-click advertising?
Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising model used on search engines,
advertising networks, and content websites/blogs, where advertisers
only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser's
website. Advertisers bid on
keywords they believe their target market would type in the search
bar when they are looking for a product or service. When a user types a
keyword query matching the advertiser's keyword list, or views a page
with relevant content, the advertiser's ad may be shown.
These ads are called a "Sponsored link"
or "sponsored ads" and appear next to, and sometimes, above the natural
or organic results on search engine results pages, or anywhere a
webmaster/blogger chooses on a content page. Pay per click ads may also
appear on content network websites. In this case, ad networks such as
Google AdSense and
Yahoo! Publisher Network attempt to provide ads that are relevant to
the content of the page where they appear, and no search function is
involved.
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What is
email marketing?
Email marketing is a form of
direct marketing which uses
electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or
fundraising 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:
- Sending emails with the purpose of
enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or old
customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.
- Sending emails with the purpose of
acquiring new customers or convincing old customers to buy something
immediately.
- Adding advertisements in emails
sent by other companies to their customers.
- Emails that are being sent on the
Internet
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What if I don't have an email list to get started?
We can help you begin building one immediately. First, just putting the
opt-in page on your Web site will start your list. Also, we use trusted
email list vendors who rent and broadcast your email, which is a good
way to get started with an offer to begin building a list.
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What is
link-building?
Building link popularity includes
reciprocal links,
link exchange,
one-way links, and
hyperlinks. Link popularity assumes that not all
incoming links are equal, as an inbound link from a major directory
carries more weight than an inbound link from an obscure personal home
page. In other words, the quality of incoming links counts more than
sheer numbers of them.
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What is
affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a method of promoting web businesses
(merchants/advertisers) in which an
affiliate (publisher) is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber,
customer, and/or sale provided through his/her efforts. It basically
uses one site to drive traffic to another, and is the stepchild of
online marketing.
Affiliate marketing is also the name of
the industry where a number of different types of companies and
individuals are performing this form of internet marketing, including
affiliate networks, affiliate management companies and in-house
affiliate managers, specialized 3rd party vendors and various types
of affiliates/publishers who utilize a number of different methods to
advertise the products and services of their merchant/advertiser
partners.
Affiliate marketing overlaps with other
internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates are using
the same methods as most of the merchants themselves do. Those methods
include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine
marketing, email marketing and to some degree display advertising.
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What is social
media / social Internet marketing?
Social media is anything that uses the internet to
facilitate conversations. Social Media is the democratization of
information, transforming people from content readers into content
publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many
model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers.
Social media uses the “wisdom of crowds” to connect
information in a collaborative manner. Social media can take many
different forms, including
Internet forums,
message boards,
weblogs,wikis,
podcasts,pictures, and video.
Technologies such as
blogs, picture-sharing,
vlogs, wall-postings,
email,
instant messaging,
music-sharing, group creation, and
voice over IP, to name a few.
Examples of social media applications are Google (reference, social
networking), Wikipedia (reference),
MySpace (social networking),
Facebook(social networking),
Last.fm (personal music),
YouTube (social networking and
video sharing),
Second Life (virtual reality),
and
Flickr (photo sharing).
Social Media is a term that is used for a broad
spectrum of topics, and has several different connotations, however in
the context of internet marketing, Social Media refers to a collective
group of web properties that are primarily driven by the users. For
example, blogs, discussion boards, v-logs, video sharing sites and
dating sites. Social Media Optimization (SMO) is the process of trying
to get one's content more widely distributed across multiple Social
Media networks.
What is a Webinar?
Web conferencing is used to conduct live meetings
or presentations over the Internet. In the early years of the Internet,
the terms "web conferencing" and "computer conferencing" were often used
to refer to group discussions conducted within a message board (via
posted text messages) therefore not live, but the term has evolved to
refer specifically to "live" or "synchronous"
meetings, while the posted message variety of discussion is called a "forum",
"message board", or "bulletin board".
What is viral marketing?
Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to
marketing techniques that use pre-existing
social networks to produce
increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating
viral processes, analogous to
the spread of
pathological and computer
viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network
effects of the Internet. Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that
facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message
voluntarily.Viral promotions may take the form of funny video clips,
interactive
Flash games,
advergames, images, or even
text messages.
What is a blog?
A blog (web log) is a website where entries are
written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse
chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to
maintain or add content to a blog. Many blogs provide commentary
or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online
diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs,
web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers
to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many
blogs.
What is RSS / an RSS feed?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a family of
Web feed formats used to
publish frequently updated content such as
blog entries, news headlines or
podcasts. An RSS document,
which is called a "feed," "web feed," or "channel," contains either a
summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS
makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in
an automated manner that's easier than checking them manually.
A web feed is a data format used for providing users
with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web
feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of
web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is
performed by an Internet
aggregator. A web feed is also
sometimes referred to as a syndicated feed.
What sort of web analytics do you offer?
Web analytics is the study of the behavior of
website visitors. In a commercial context, web analytics especially
refers to the use of data collected from a web site to determine which
aspects of the website work towards the business objectives; for
example, which
landing pages encourage people
to make a purchase.
Data collected almost always includes web traffic
reports. It may also include e-mail response rates, direct mail campaign
data, sales and lead information, user performance data such as click
heat mapping, or other custom metrics as needed. This data is typically
compared against
key performance indicators for
performance, and used to improve a web site or marketing campaign's
audience response.
We analyze your
website's performance and give you a report that includes guidelines to
improve its ranking.
How many search engines will you
submit our website to?
We'll submit your website's URL, optimized title and detailed
description to Google, Yahoo!, MSN and DMOZ. This will cover more than
90% of all U.S. search engine queries.
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Do you guarantee search
engine placement?
No. The search engine algorithms are modified on a
regular basis and the search engine sites control the rankings. We
conform to best practices for getting your site optimized across
multiple search engines. With that strategy, if a search engine changes
its algorithms, your site will not suffer a dramatic loss in traffic
because you put all of your marketing focus on one search engine. This
strategy will also put your site in a good position as new search
engines emerge.
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When can I expect to see results?
Once IMG's Internet marketing
services are in place, you can expect to see a significant increase in
your search engine ranking within 30-90 days.
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What
kind of results can I expect to see?
The majority of our clients are listed within Google's top 20 results
for their targeted industry keywords and key phrases. Results may vary
depending upon your selected plan, the age of your website, the number
of links to your website, and your industry.
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