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Online Marketing

The permeation of the Internet through the business world has brought with it a gaggle of buzzwords large enough to drive any reason-able person insane. Search engine marketing, landing pages, conversion ratios, social net-working; what do they all mean? Even more important, should you really care about it?

The bottom line is, yes. You should care as the chances are your company is already spending money promoting itself online, and you might want to know where some of your investment is actually going the next time you pay your social media consultant or Webmaster. Below is a list of common terms that are used throughout the Inter-net marketing world that should help you make informed decisions when it comes to your marketing needs.

Domain: Think of a domain as a phone number or mailing address. It is the main subdivision of Internet addresses. The last two or three letters after the final dot tells you what kind of organization you are dealing with: .com (commercial), .edu (educational) and .org (organization). Two letter domains represent countries; .ca for Canada.

Geo Targeting: Delivery of ads or content specific to the geographic location of the searcher. This allows a more localized and personalized user experience and often re-sults in better advertising performance, since you do not waste money advertising to people who cannot use your service due to location.

Inbound Link: An inbound link is a hy-perlink to your Website from an outside site.

Inbound links are important because many search engine algorithms use the quality and quantity of inbound links to measure the popularity of a Web page. Additionally, the chances are the more inbound links you have, the more traffic your Website receives.

Keyword/Keyphrase: A word or phrase used by Internet users to search for online content. Search engines look for sites that are associated with the word or phrase the user is searching for. If you are a custom home builder in Hamilton, you want to make sure that your Website has lots of key-words and phrases communicating that.

Return on Investment (ROI): Return on in-vestment = (Revenue - Cost) / Cost. This is the calculation of the financial return on an Internet marketing initiative. Determining ROI of Internet marketing is much more ac-curate than calculating the ROI for television, radio, and traditional print media because you can track exactly how much revenue your marketing campaigns are generating.

Search Advertising: Paying for an ad to display when a user searches for a given word or phrase. These ads are typically text ads, which are displayed above or to the right of the organic search results. Most search ads are sold by the pay-per-click (PPC) model, where the advertiser pays

only when the consumer clicks on the ad.Search Engine: Software that searches Web-

sites for specified keywords and returns a list of the Websites where the keywords were found.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and search-ers. SEO makes it easier for search engines to find a site for the appropriate keywords. Prop-erly done, search engine optimization helps a site gain top positioning on the search engines for relevant words and phrases.

Social Media: Sites that depend on and encourage user participation and user-gener-

ated content. They include social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

Twitter: Twitter is an online application that lets you send short updates to people who “follow” you. In its limit of 140 charac-ters or less, posts can share good articles, industry insights, etc. It is a great tool for keeping in touch with a group.

Universal Search: Also known as blend-ed search results, universal search pulls data from multiple sources to display on the same search result page. The search results for any given topic can include images, videos, maps, local information, product information and current events. Viral Marketing: The creation of a market-ing campaign that is so compelling the audience shares it, and it spreads like a virus. Despite what some “Internet Guru” might tell you, you cannot make a cam-paign “go viral.” Viral is impossible to pre-dict, anyone who tells you otherwise is just looking to take your money.

A cursory understanding of some important Internet terms will help businesses make more informed decisions around online marketing initiatives.

BY JOSH KERBEL

Cutting Through Buzzword Hype

Josh Kerbel is Managing Director of Sales Funnel, a digital marketing agency that specializes in lead generation and prospect management systems. To get a copy of the free white paper, 8 Steps to Internet Marketing Success, please send an email to report.ca@thejoshkerbelproject.com.

Despite what some ‘Internet Guru’ might tell you, you cannot make a campaign ‘go viral.’