Bharati Ahuja

About Measuring ROI Of The Various Forms Of Search Engine And Social Media Marketing

A lot has been spoken about the fact that online marketing is getting priority in the marketing strategies and budgets of the SMEs as well as Fortune 500 companies. It is true that the online behavior of the people is evolving and there is an exponential increase in the no. of people buying online, making online reservations for travel, hotel bookings and searching for information and updates on search engines. Social media sites also have become the source for real time search results. When priority and importance is given to any marketing media, calculating the ROI from that media is the focal point of that campaign. Calculating the ROI from the amount spent on SEO needs a base of atleast 6 months to 12 months of data as a basis. The data that is required to calculate the ROI from SEO is as follows: • The no. Of Inquiries received from the search engines • The no. of Sales closed from these inquiries received • The Amount spent on SEO • The Profit accrued from these sales. If the SEO on the website has been according to the norms of the search engines and is ethical with a long term perspective kept in mind by future proofing it in a way that the rankings are maintained over a long period of time then the amount spent on SEO gets written off with every successful sale as a result of inquiries generated from organic search and in due course the amount spent on SEO ceases to remain and expense but is in reality reflected as an investment made. The same can be said for the paid, sponsored listings got by spending on a PPC campaign but, the benefit from a PPC campaign ceases to exist as soon as you stop spending on the campaign as the PPC campaign does not create any footprints on the web for you which in future any return can be accrued. So, PPC truly remains an expense and does not become an investment in the long run like an SEO campaign. A PPC campaign also has the same potential like an SEO campaign to generate business for your company but you cannot future proof your PPC campaign but you surely can future proof your SEO campaign and have a long term web presence in a truly planned way with every web page of your website targeting for different keywords and with the possibility of ranking on page 1 of the search engines for every product and service that your company offers. When it come to social media , calculating the ROI from the amount spent on social media is still a very relative and approximate – A direct calculation is still not possible as this media is still at the experimental stage and it is still not being used as a focused media for marketing or generating inquiries and thereby sales. But this media surely has great potential to serve as a strong platform for after sales customer grievances & after sales support. It also can be used for answering queries for the to be or potential customers and achieve the main objective of putting forward the right image of the company by voicing the objectives of the products, policies and people of the company. It is a very good link to connect to the customers and potential customers. Nevertheless, as the real time search results are being sourced from the social media sites like twitter, facebook, etc. the posts and tweets on social media surely do have a potential of diverting targeted traffic to your website which again in return serves the purpose of any SEO or PPC campaign. Hence, if you truly want a return from the online marketing budget that your company has set aside , decide upon the best online marketing mix suited for your organization.

How And From Where To Learn Search Engine optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization or SEO is the process of optimizing web pages or a web site for top search engines. By optimization, search engines can easily locate the web pages and display them when searching for information.

By optimizing your web site for top search engines, they can index and easily locate it from among the billions of web pages. If your web page is embedded deep in the search results, it is unlikely that any person would visit the page for specific information. So, you need to make your site search engine friendly, and promote the traffic levels and search engine rankings.

SEO is one of the aspects of Search Engine Marketing and it is referred to as an art as well as a science. SEO professionals are in great demand presently and the demand for this service is expected to increase in the coming years as all those who have a website today want it to rank high on search engines. A person who wants to pursue his/her career in SEO must gain the substantial knowledge on the subject.

Being in this industry for nearly 10 years and observing the evolution of search I would like to say that SEO is here to stay and selecting SEO as a career option is the wisest decision one can take if you have an interest in marketing, have an understanding about website development and have the qualities of patience and perseverance in you.

SEO is no rocket science. It is very easy and simple to understand the way the search engines churn out results and rank websites. But, once you have understood the basics , the constant working on the websites and monitoring , tweaking and tracking the results is an ongoing process which in the bargain will go on giving you additional SEO knowledge.

Learning the basics of SEO is very easy and simple as mentioned but to keep yourself upgraded and at par as per the changes and challenges of the search industry is something which is where you got to prove your metal.

The Basics of SEO can be learnt from various sources :

• From the umpteen SEO blogs and FAQs available on the net

• Books and guides available on the subject

• Google and Bing webmaster resources and forums also have a plethora of information on SEO

• The best way is to formally attend a training programme on SEO so that you can clear your doubts and discuss issues and learn maximum in a cohesive way in a short time period.

After this stage of learning the basics people usually ask me Do you offer a course in Advanced SEO?

The stage which is referred to as Advanced SEO by novices is actually the stage you reach when you have got the experience of working on sites and achieved the rankings. This journey that you undertake to interact with the search engine robots after learning the basics and making your sites reach page 1 on the search engines is the journey which leads you to the stage of Advanced SEO.

In order to embark on that journey one can either start working with an SEO company as a trainee and gain experience and do some actual SEO or develop some sites on your own and gain experience.

In conclusion, all said and done there is a lot of scope for growth, creativity and good monetary return to be achieved in this industry provided you are ready to upgrade your knowledge all the time, have loads of patience and perseverance and have a flair for marketing with a basic understanding of other functions which help the business run like accounts, legal issues, sales, costing , purchasing and PR.

Web marketing is replacing the traditional methods of marketing at a very alarming rate. We see more and more people wanting to market on the web and are willing to divert a larger part of the marketing budget for online presence of their business.

The options of creating an online presence are many and what will be the optimum fit for your business type shall solely depend on the nature of your business, the online advertising budget, the willingness and the knowledge of your marketing team.

There are various platforms available on the internet , for advertising on the web. Some of them are as follows:

• Search Engines

• Email Campaigns

• Advertising Networks And Affiliates

• Web Directories And Portals

• Press Releases

• Social Media Sites

Search Engines

For building a web presence on the search engines the website has to be made SEO friendly and optimized so as to rank high for the targeted keywords. This can also be achieved by enrolling for a PPC program and pay the bid amount in order to get a ranking under the sponsored listings list on the search engines.

The footprints can be created on the search engines even if you do not have a website . You can add the details about your business on the Google maps or Bing maps and get a local listing for your business.

Now a days search engines have many options on which your business can have a presence on. For eg. Videos, blogs, discussions, news, books, shopping, images, maps, updates.

Email Campaigns

Email campaigns are conducted by sending details and information about your company products and policies via a newsletter or well designed emails. In order to gain success via this method one needs to collect a long list of email ids or develop a subscriber base through your existing website. There are many professional marketing companies offering this service and there are many bulk emailing softwares also available in the market.

But there are certain factors to be borne in mind when you have email campaigns:

You should have a web server which follows the standard norms for sending bulk emails (i.e the no. of emails sent per hour should not increase the limit else it will result your domain being enlisted in the spam list.)
The email should have an unsubscribe link in it so that people who are no longer interested in receiving the newsletters can opt out of it.
The email should have a complete email signature with all your contact details and links to your social media accounts and website.
The email should not be sent very frequently.
You should not expect everyone to reply to you or contact you as the conversion ratio for email campaigns is very very low.

Advertising Networks And Affiliates

An online advertising network or ad network is a company that connects advertisers to web sites that want to host advertisements. Increasingly, ad networks are companies that pay software developers as well as web sites money for allowing their ads to be shown when people use their software or visit their sites. The best example is Google Adsense where the website which displays the Ad. gets a certain percentage of the Adwords amount bid as per the bid for those keywords and Ad.

Affiliate marketing means using one website to drive traffic to another it is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers.

In both these types of advertising it is obvious one needs a very strong targeted network to drive traffic and achieve conversions.

Web Directories And Portals

A web directory also indexes the web and lists websites but unlike the search engines the directories are classified into categories and the websites are listed under the relevant categories and are human edited.

The listing in the web directories can be free or at a price depending on the policies of the web directories.

A web portal, also known as a links page, presents information from diverse sources in a unified way. Apart from the standard search engine feature, web portals offer other services such as e-mail, news, stock prices, information, databases and entertainment.

Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple applications and databases, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether.

Getting the website on directories and portals may or may not result in traffic to the site but surely adds to the web presence and if the portal or directory is of some repute and standing on the web then it is a valuable inbound link which in return helps in affecting the rankings of the site in the search engines.

Press Releases

A press release, news release, media release, or press statement is a written or recorded communication directed at members of the news media for the purpose of announcing something claimed as having news value. Commercial press release distribution services, such as PR Newswire, PR NewsChannel and Business Wire, distribute them on the web and this in turn results in a multifold web presence for the website.

Social Media Sites

According to Wikipedia Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media use web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues.

The most frequented social media sites by the netizens are Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin, wikis, myspace, etc. these social media sites are conversational platforms hence these sites help you to develop business relations and also can be used to interact with customers and to be customers using strong Public Relations.

Being a socially responsible netizen and keep in mind the theories of inter-personal relations, etiquette, ethics and develop a social reputation which will by itself give a boost to the business objectives you have.

One cannot create an identity on the social media by just tweeting quotes or retweeting famous top tweets or by following the herd mentality. Carve a niche for yourself by being unique and by sharing knowledge and information.

Sales and conversions no doubt are the business objectives but social media is not a market or a mall for displaying goods and services but a platform for interacting with each other and developing the goodwill and a genuine online reputation for your company which surely will result in recommendations and a good WOM and needless to say that in return the realization of the business objective cannot be far behind.

Just like in the real world there are many options for advertising – Newspapers, Magazines, TV, Radio, etc. similarly, you have options for online advertising also . As all these forms of advertising are in one or the other way connected to each other.

The best option is to have a healthy balance of the marketing mix online so that your website gets the maximum value for money spent and the maximum web presence for all the effort put in.

Next time you think for an online marketing strategy , please discuss with your online marketing team regarding what would be the best option and the right mix and prepare a priority list because online strategies take time in churning out results and sending you targeted traffic.

As this targeted traffic has the potential for getting converted to the online business that you are aiming for.

Once the web presence has been achieved and your website starts getting targeted traffic , analyzing the data and taking corrective and decisive actions is the only way to future proof your online presence.

Hence, It is the complete holistic approach to online marketing which will spell SUCCESS for your business online.

You must have surely read in many offices and shops – We cannot spell Success without ‘u’

On the web ‘U’ stands for the ‘USER’ & ‘USER EXPERIENCE’

It goes without saying that right from the time the website is designed or the domain name is decided till it acheives the world wide web presence it is the user who has to be the focus around which all decisions have to be taken.

Search Marketing A Valid Career Choice

If one fine morning you go to your parents and tell them that you have decided to be a search marketer then it is quite likely they will expect a detailed explanation about what this career choice is all about and what will the future be like a few years down the line.

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of search engine optimization, paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.[Usage of the term "search engine marketing" has been inconsistent. The trade association Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) includes search engine optimization (SEO), and SEO is also included in the industry definitions of SEM.

The world wide web has reached nearly every nook and corner of the world and people refer the search engines for more information, buy and sell online and also make friends online. The web has got woven in our social and business fabric like never before and is here to stay and influence our life decisions.

Hence, traditional methods of marketing have been replaced by web marketing and as a result there is a lot of demand for people who are equipped with the knowledge of web marketing.

A Classic example of this can be read on this link:

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/pepsi-ditches-super-bowl-embraces-crowdsourced-philanthropy-inste

Like in every field in this field also you can take up a job in a web marketing firm or start on your own as an entrepreneur with a small investment or work as a freelancer.

A few years back Search Marketing mainly meant SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or PPC (Pay Per Click) but now search has a wider connotation and the search engine also have wider search options. Social media Optimization has also come under the umbrella of Search Marketing now.

Once you decide to take up search marketing as a career then be prepared to constantly upgrade yourself with the latest developments as regards their algorithms and techniques which keep on changing.

Enroll yourself for a training course on Internet marketing
Work on projects passionately without giving much importance to the pay packet initially
Once you gain the expertise and skill for marketing a website the future is promising, provided you are prepared to work hard.

WebPro Technologies has been optimizing websites since 2003 and conducting training on SEO since 2007. At WebPro we believe that one never ceases to be a student. The charm of being truly educated is to accept that we all keep on learning something new at every stage of our lives and career. This applies very aptly to the field of SEO.

Read More On The Following Related Articles:

http://www.webpro.in/seo-training-at-webpro-technologies-ahmedabad-in-depth-courses-as-well-as-week-end-courses-for-corporates/

http://www.webpro.in/the-pros-and-cons-of-being-a-solo-entrepreneur/

http://www.webpro.in/using-the-internet-effectively-for-studies/

http://www.webpro.in/pagerank-obsession-patience-perseverance-and-seo/

The Quest To Differentiate Between Knowledge And Information

Knowledge is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as

(i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject;

(ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information; or

(iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.

The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject with the ability to use it for a specific purpose if appropriate.

The shortest possible definition of knowledge is When information is packaged or used for understanding or doing something, it is known as knowledge.

The shortest possible definition of information is a message received and understood.

In order to equip ourselves with knowledge or educate ourselves about a certain topic we either go to an educational institution for gaining knowledge formally or constantly read about it or discusswith experts and peers about it.

Before this age of the internet people visited libraries, went to social gatherings, attended workshops and lectures to serve the above purpose. But, currently the trend is to sit in front of your computer and google or bing for the information.

Recently I read a blog post titled Doctors Warn Against Relying Too Much On Google which came to the following conclusion.

The study warns consumers and health professionals about relying on commercial health sites, except for the “most reputable sites” like WebMD and eMedicine.

But, I think this applies to all the information available on the web. Considering the millions of blogs, social media accounts and websites mushrooming on the web. The main concern is the teens and tweens who are gathering life and world perceptions by reading what is written on the web.

People in their teens and twenties are most of the time gathering information about everything under the sun on the web. How many of them after they google or bing a search can differentiate the grain from the chaff and decide which are the authority sites about that topic.

I think though search engines are trying to put in their best to rank the most relevant sites for the searches made. The main drawback is that any website can be made SEO-friendly but how will the search engines decide which website is having the correct content for the related topic.

Yes. The no. of inbound links determine the popularity of a site which is assumed to be the certificate for correct content also. But is this right?

I am not saying that all content on the web is crap but when it comes to certain important topics like health, career, relationships all the read content should be analysed and cross-checked with over a wide range of websites available for that topic and also discussed real time with actual experts on the topic.

As many time blogs and social media posts are the personal opinions expressed by people rather than the facts. Recently one the film directors from India had tweeted that everybody is a critic today everybody seems to have an opinion … where is the audience?

I personally believe that the partial onus is on us as web developers, content writers and web marketers to always try our best to put forward and market websites with true factual information.

Related Links:

Consulting 'Dr. Google': Study finds much Internet-based sports medicine information is incorrect or incomplete

Evaluating Information Found on the Internet

With Google Webmaster Tools Becoming more efficient and Elaborate And Bing Coming With An Improvised Version Of Bing Web Master Tools Do SEOs Need Third Party Tools?

Search Engine optimization requires a constant tracking and monitoring of the websites on the web. For getting the required data and metrics SEOs need tools which can render accurate and correct data related to crawling, indexing, traffic and SERP (Search Engine Ranking Position) of your website.

As only on the basis of this data, the future plan of action can be chalked out for the SEO process. A few years back when the tools offered by the search engines were not that sophisticated, I am sure all SEOs have searched for the SEO tools on the net and tried nearly each and every tool available.But, Google Web Master Tools now offer a wide range of data. Moreover, with Google caffeine the speed of indexing also has become faster and fresher.

Following suit is Bing which is going to unveil the new more sophisticated and updated version of its websmaster tools in October 2010.

I am sure if Bing has to compete with Google in the field of search then the goodies awaiting the SEOs in its forthcoming tools is going to surely be worth waiting for instead of jumping on a hasty decision of buying third party tools.

All the data and reports available from any of the support software used by SEOs is never 100% accurate and is always has to be cross checked on the search engines actually before confirming it and sending it to the client.

Hence, I think relying on the Google web master tools, Bing web master tools and Yahoo Site Explorer ( this may get discontinued once the Yahoo results start getting powered by Bing) is the most sensible decision an SEO can take.

Moreover, you never know when which search engine may block the third party tools from their server as has been the case in the past .

Last but not the least getting too much involved in the data and metrics sometimes diverts you from the core objective.

As someone has rightly said – Too much of analysis can cause paralysis. Focus on the future course of action by whatever reports and data you get from the tools mentioned above. Take the SEO process and the website presence ahead instead of just getting stuck up with metrics.

Read For More Information:
http://www.bing.com/toolbox/blogs/webmaster/archive/2010/06/28/bing-crawler-bingbot-on-the-horizon.aspx
http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Though this post is not related only the to the analytics tool but seems quite relevant to me to share it here . This is what Avinash Kaushik – The Google Analytics Expert has to say about data.

More WebProNews Videos

Is There A Sudden Increase in the inbound Links To Your Site In Google Webmaster Tool ?

If yes do not panic or think it is some kind of a spam attack to your site or a bug on the webmaster tools. It is not even your SEO or client having a secret spammy link building strategy but this is as a result of Google Caffeine working efficiently to index more and more data per website.

Due to Google caffeine going live from all Google datacenters, indexing is much faster, fresher and it collects more data for every website.

So, atlast you get a clear picture of how widespread your website is as the link:domainname.com parameter in Google never gave the right information of no of websites linking to your site.

Caffeine has indeed made the website data lively !

The Search (SEO) And Social Media Integration –Will The SERPs Be Influenced By The Social Graph

The latest buzz in the SEO world is about the integration of SEO and social media. We all know that Search Engine Optimization is a must for every website. No website can rank high for the targeted keywords on the search engines unless it is optimized according to the norms of the search engines.

As the main purpose of any website is to have conversions , conversions are possible only if there are visitors to the site and these visitors 80% of the time find your site through search engines. So, SEO is important and the lifeline of web marketing.

Now, the fact is that the social media sites like www.facebook.com, www.twitter.com , etc. have started having a lot of traffic as these social media sites appeal to the intellect by having business and social objectives with a micro blogging conversational platform. So, people find answers to certain queries by sharing links as well as get an opportunity to voice their opinion.

If the web traffic is found on these social media sites then it is simple marketing logic that you need to display the message about your products and services where you will get the targeted audience. If your targeted audience is on Facebook and Twitter then your company surely needs a presence there.

Once your company decides to allocate valuable time on facebook and twitter then it is very important to work out a strategy for putting forward the right impression about your company and create a valuable online reputation.

But, before that let us understand how has the search and social media started integrating with each other and how they supplement each other.

Google and Bing both have real time search results and organic search results. Organic search results have the list of sites which have been optimized for the targeted keywords. But, the real time search results are displayed from the latest posts and tweets from the social media sites as real time search is all about fresh and latest content on a certain topic, happening or event.

The netizens are always info hungry and want more and more latest content on the web. So, as the law of economics goes if the demand increases the supply also increases. All the search engines have started working on how they can roll out the best results for real time and organic listings because when we talk about real time search results from social media sites we cannot ignore the umpteen no. of links being shared on twitter and facebook.

The million dollar question is : will these shared links, comments, likes and votes have a direct co-relation to the rankings to the sites for organic search?

Well, we can get the answer to this question only once the search engines update their algorithms regarding the influence of the social graph on the rankings in the time to come. But, we as website owners and SEOs surely can keep all the options open and be in a win-win situation by engaging in social media by being a socially responsible netizen, keep in mind the theories of inter-personal relations, etiquette, ethics and develop a social reputation which will by itself give a boost to the business objectives you have.

The more you share it shows that more you care the more you care the better you fare.