How to Successfully Market a Business Online
Introduction
Marketing is the heart of business, and most of the aspects of businesses depend on successful marketing. For the success of business, it is essential that buyers or consumers of the product or service know it. The success of the business is dependent upon the recognition of the brand and marketing plays an important role in building positive reputation of the business. Over the past twenty years, the internet has entirely changed the way businesses market themselves. For companies, it is easy to access customers through online marketing. Companies through successful online marketing enhance their customer base and therefore, their profitability. Online business marketing has become an important aspect of business because in current arena everyone has access to the internet not only in the United States but also all over the world. For successful online marketing, it is fundamental for businesses to have a good website in this regard search engines play very important role as they make sure the ranking of the website on search engines such as Yahoo, Bing, and Google.
The paper discusses the ways through which businesses can market themselves online in successful manners and for the accomplishment of this purpose; the paper discusses the benefits of search engine optimization (SEO) for businesses. Further, the essay elaborates on pay per click advertisement and the importance of creation and management of social media accounts for business.
Importance of search engine optimization (SEO) in online marketing
In current competitive and fast-paced business arena, having a good website is vital for companies for having access to their customers and for being successful. If a potential consumer of the product or services of the business is not able to access the company’s related information or product/service, they will move to the competition by clicking a single button of their computer. Search engine is a part art and part science, search engine requires the optimization of URLs, sub headings, headings, images, meta-tags, texts, categorization of content, interlinking structures, load time and much more. Search engine optimization ensures that the website of business organically comes on diverse search engines. The way people access the information on the internet hugely influence search engines. WebPages that are of high rank has high visibility to customers. Hence pushing the ranking has become the major priority for the makers of the web (Ao-Jan et al., 2014).
Search engines have become the major source of retrieving knowledge; they drive all internet users towards the WebPages that are ranked higher and therefore, helps businesses in attracting more clients. Businesses can improve the ranking of their web pages through SPAM farms, and the other way is the optimization of search engines. Companies through understanding the type of web page design valued by the ranking algorithm enhance their web page optimization. Businesses use the search engine optimization (SEO) technique for enhancing the numbers of links that are inbound, building of these, links also help companies in promoting their websites. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of methods that aims to improve the ranking of websites in the listing of search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important process for improving the prominence of the website. Automated programs that are recognized as bots or spiders are used by search engines through which they travel the Internet that collects web pages and data and then start the categorizing those web pages so they can return for relevant searches (Ao-Jan et al., 2014).
Search engine optimization includes the coding, writing, and designing of a website in a way that supports in improving the quality and volume of website traffic. The most basic types of search engines include human powered directories and the crawler-based search engines (Dahake & Thakre, 2014).
Human powered dictionaries are those dictionaries that are complied by the reviews of a human. based on the human reviews, their examination, and evaluation of the short description of the website that is provided by the companies who want to list the websites online. Then reviewers rank the website content based on specific criteria that is not known by the public (Dahake & Thakre, 2014).
Crawler-based search engines such as AltaVista and Google are complex applications of software that are computerized to survey the internet for finding websites. The major aim of designing search engines is to try to rank and find the best websites; best websites refers to the most informative, most usable, and most credible websites. For ranking the websites, search engines consider the quality and numbers of websites that connect to the website. Search engines also consider the credibility of websites that are associated with the website. The ways crawler based search engines rank the website content is not a public knowledge (Dahake & Thakre, 2014).
For marketing the business online successfully, businesses use diverse approaches of search engine optimization. However, the most common optimization techniques include (Dahake & Thakre, 2014):
Off Page Optimization Techniques
Off page optimization, techniques or search engines are the technologies that separate from company’s site. Off page optimization, refers to the influence of other websites on company’s website’s ranking and these are the external factors that are not in control of any company. Off page optimization, involve techniques that are conducted off the page with the aim of increasing traffic to the website such as blogging, forum posting, directory listing, and link swap. Off page, optimization is a combination of social bookmarking, link building, and social media. Social bookmarking is amongst the best methods used to manage, store, organize, and search for online resources’ bookmark (Dahake & Thakre, 2014). The players of SEO search for interrelated websites of social bookmarking, so they can bookmark their websites for getting a back link from the site (Jain, 2013).
On Page Optimization Techniques
On page search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the things that are in control of companies such as the content of the website. For maintaining, the ranking websites review the content of constant basis and include domain names, headings, and sub-headings, key words, key phrases, user friendly navigations, pictures images, optimized internal links, and quality and fresh content. Some most common on page optimization techniques include title optimization, website structure optimization, webpage optimization, and link optimization (Dahake & Thakre, 2014).
Pay per click advertising
For successfully marketing the business online, businesses try to boost traffic to their websites and pay per click is another advertising technique that is used in this regard by companies widely. Internet search engines, content sites, networks, and blogs use PPC method as an online advertising technique. The online marketing success of the business through pay per click advertising technique is dependent upon the ability of the company to persuade viewers to take action by utilizing few well-selected words. Pay per click advertising is a relatively new concept with little academic understanding. Being noticed among the hundreds and thousands of businesses is the key to business success. Pay per click advertising is a way to attract people’s attention and take them to the way where their interests convert into sales. Pay per click is a key to controlling the cost of advertising, it makes easy for marketers to budget advertising and track ROI while qualifying sales and leads and attracting traffic to the website of the company (WSI Corporate, 2010; Douzet, n.d).
Pay per click advertising is the “sponsored links” on the pages of search engines. The organizations that are listed here pay to appear under a specific search phrase; however, they only pay when they get a response to their ads. The cost of pay per click is likely to be driven by the market competitiveness of the product and regular marketing expenditures. The more expensive the product will be and the more competitive the industry will be the more a company will have to pay to keep prominent in the listing. The company is successfully marketing the product when its marketing is in the budget, and it earns more than what the company invested in marketing. Hence, when adapting pay per click advertising strategy, the company should determine its regular budget and the convert in to the rates of pay per click advertising. Before starting the campaign of pay per click and for being successful in online marketing, it is pivotal for businesses to set their goals that what they want to attain from pay per click either they want to drive the website traffic or trying to sell the product. Search engine online tools can help the business in meeting the marketing goals of businesses more efficiently and effectively (Douzet, n.d).
Companies should use analytical tools that can help them in understanding that from where visitors are coming. For having a higher volume of clicks, businesses can use higher keywords. In pay per click advertising, it is essential that content and search is used as separate entities for maximizing the values of resources. Several advantages are associated with pay per click advertising that makes PPC an ideal advertising technique some of the core advantages include the speed to market, the ability to create level playing field, and control over search results. Above all, PPC allows marketers or organizations to have control over their advertising budget (Douzet, n.d).
Role of social media accounts in successful online marketing
Social media marketing must be an internal part of any business. Social media plays an immense role in driving the success of any business and influence the choices of customers. At social media, popular sites are likely to appear higher in the query of search. It enables customers to have information about the company and recent trends. Constantly refining the content on social media and maintaining the quality can maximize the website search engine optimization (SEO) (Carroll, 2014).
Social media is a way of improving communication with customers. In addition to search engine optimization, social media is an opportunity to engage marketing. It helps companies in understanding the perspective of client and trends that are affecting them. Creation of new page on the company’s website is like having an immense selfie. Social media is a way that can drive the traffic to companies’ websites. Social media posts can make a huge difference and can take the online marketing towards huge success. Utilization of social media can boost the search engine optimization (The Content Factory, 2016).
Crawlers know that what pages are constantly gaining more traffic as compared to other pages and why. However, companies through driving the traffic to the optimized pages can climb them much faster as compared to other pages in the pages of search results. Social media is the best tool that helps companies in building relation with consumers. Social media include blogs, Twitter, instagram and multiple other platforms. Social media can also be used to market the complementary services. People view diverse websites such as instagram, Twitter, and Facebook as social networks. Hence they will be more likely to hear what companies say rather take the message as an advertisement. This attitude of customers translates to considerable web traffic when companies link to posts and sites (The Content Factory, 2016).
The one major reason to use social media as an online marketing strategy is its nature of customized social media advertisements. Social media marketing allows businesses to target and retarget potential and existing audience and gain their attention towards the business. Social media influence customers and through building good relation allow companies to turn the general customers into loyal customers. These loyal customers them more likely to generate leads and sales for businesses; social media is the best way to leverage the presence of business. It is a way to respond to major problems immediately and creating a positive image of business. Being social is also important for business because of the increased competition. Blogging is an important aspect of social media and a solution for developing continuous new content. Companies through posting new and refreshing images and content on blogs can gain immense customer attention and can enhance the web traffic that can help businesses in being prominent amongst several other competitors (Baltzell, 2016; The Content Factory, 2016).
Conclusion
It has been determined that online business marketing has become an important aspect of businesses. Search engine optimization is an important aspect of online marketing of business as it ensures that the website of business organically comes on diverse search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process of improving the prominence of the website. It includes the writing, coding, and designing of a website. The two basic types of search engines include human powered directories and the crawler-based search engines. However, the two most common techniques of optimization include off page optimization and on page optimization. After Search engine optimization, the best technique that is widely used by business is pay per click advertising. Pay per click is a solution to controlling the cost of advertising. Through pay per click, marketers are able to budget advertising and track ROI. Moreover, the most important technique that helps business to make their online market success is social media advertisement. Social media marketing is a method of improving communication with customers and building good relations. These good relations then help companies in generating leads and sales through loyal customers.
References
Ao-Jan Su, Y., Hu, Y. C., Kuzmanovic, A., & Cheng-Kok, K. (2014). How to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking: Myths and Reality. ACM Transactions On The Web, 8(2), 1-25.
Baltzell, K. (2016). Using Blogs to Boost Your Brand. Veterinary Team Brief, 4(1), 16-19.
Carroll, B. (2014). Capitalizing on Search Engine Optimization. Audiology Today. 26(1), 12-14.
Dahake, S. S., & Thakre, V. V. (2014). Search Engine Optimization Techniques- The Analysis. International Journal Of Advanced Research In Computer Science, 5(4), 163-167.
Douzet, A. (n.d). An Investigation of Pay Per Click Search Engine Advertising: Modeling the PPC Paradigm to lower Cost per Action. The Ladder. Retrieved June 28, 2016, from https://cdn.theladders.net/static/doc/douzet_modeling_ppc_paradigm.pdf
Jain, A. (2013). The Role of Off Page Search Engine Optimization in Search Engine Ranking. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering. 3(6), 239-244.
The Content Factory. (2016). 16 Reasons Why Your Business NEEDS Social Media Marketing. Retrieved June 28, 2016, from http://www.contentfac.com/9-reasons-social-media-marketing-should-top-your-to-do-list/
WSI Corporate. (2010). Understanding Pay-Per-Click Advertising. WSI White Paper. Retrieved June 28, 2016, from http://www.wsiwebmark.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/UnderstandingPPCWhitepaper.pdf
