This is an extremely difficult question to answer because there are so many complex factors involved. Specifically there are techniques you employ in your Internet marketing campaign in addition to  executing  techniques that can determine whether or not Internet marketing will work for your business. Additionally, the likelihood of your target audience using the Internet and responding to your marketing efforts should also be considered as part of  the equation. This article will outline the potential for successful  internet marketing .

Before making the decision to embark on an Internet marketing campaign you should carefully consider your target audience. The Internet is used widely around the world but whether or not members of your target audience are likely to utilise the Internet to research or purchase the products or services you sell is not guaranteed. This is significant because investing a great deal of time, effort and money into internet marketing when your target audience is not likely to respond to these efforts is not worthwhile.

Conducting market research can do a great deal to help you determine whether or not you should invest in an Internet marketing campaign for your business. This step is very important because it will give you a good indication of whether or not you should even begin marketing your business on the Internet. Hiring a firm specialising in market research is recommended because they can conduct this research quickly and efficiently and will likely gain a great deal of valuable information as a result of their research efforts. If they determine your business can benefit from an Internet marketing campaign, it is time to start thinking about how you want to advertise your business online.

Again, seeking the help of professionals can be an extremely worthwhile investment. If you are not well versed in the industry of Internet marketing, hiring a firm with a great deal of expertise in this industry can be very helpful. They can assist you by consulting with you to determine which marketing strategies will be most effective, designing advertisements for your campaign, helping you to orchestrate your internet marketing campaign and evaluating the results of marketing efforts to determine which strategies are working and which are not.

The potential for success with an Internet marketing campaign is virtually limitless. The success you enjoy is only limited by your ability to promote your products and services and execute effective marketing strategies. Some of the marketing strategies you may wish to employ may include optimising your website for relevant search terms, placing links to your website judiciously on the Internet, writing and publishing e-newsletters and utilising affiliates to promote your website.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is one of the most important aspects of any Internet marketing campaign. SEO is so important because it dictates the ranking of your website on popular search engines. Internet users value these results and are not likely to seek out websites which do not rank well with search engines. Conversely, high ranking websites can enjoy a great deal of increased website traffic as a result of these rankings.

Inbound links to your website are also important in Internet marketing. Inbound links are links on other websites which direct users to your website. These links are important in an Internet marketing campaign. First of all many search engines factor inbound links into their ranking algorithms which means inbound links can result in higher search engines rankings. Also, these links can be used directly by website users to access your website. This means you can gain traffic directly from these links.

Another way to enjoy a successful internet marketing campaign is to orchestrate an affiliate marketing campaign. Affiliates are essentially website owners who place a banner ad on their website to direct traffic to your website. Typically, affiliates are only compensated when the advertisement on their website produces a desired effect such as enticing the users to click through the advertisement, resulting in a sale or resulting in another action such as filling out a survey or registering with your website. Affiliate marketing can not only be highly effective but it is also cost effective because you only pay the affiliates when they produce results.

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As with any marketing campaign you may run to assist your business, it is important to track the results of your Internet marketing campaign. This should be done on a continual basis so you can ensure the strategies you are utilising are working. It can also help you to determine when a strategy is not working so you do not continue to invest time and money on a strategy which is not beneficial to your business. This article will discuss some of the options for tracking the results of your Internet marketing campaign.

Business owners who use banner ads have a simple way to track whether or not their banner ads are effective. This is possible because they can place code in the banner ad which will supply them with feedback each time a user clicks on the banner ad. This information is transmitted to the business owner so he can evaluate which of his banner ads are generating the most interest. If the business owner is currently using two different styles of banner ads on comparable websites he can use this information to determine which design is most effective. This is important because if one style is significantly more effective than the other it might be worthwhile to convert all of the banner ads to this style or to make changes which will make the two different styles more similar.

If the business owner is using the same banner ad on a number of different websites, the feedback can help him determine which websites are generating the most traffic for him. If he determines some websites are not generating a great deal of traffic it makes sense to discontinue the banner ads on these websites as they are not cost effective.

Business owners who utilise affiliate marketing during their Internet marketing campaign may also be interested in tracking the results of their affiliates. This is necessary because affiliates are often paid according to the results they generate but it is also useful for determining which affiliates are most successful. This information can be useful if different ads are running on different affiliate websites because it can be an indication of which websites are most effective. Tracking the results of affiliate marketing is similar to tracking the results of banner ads. You can place code in the ads which appear on the affiliate’s website to provide you with feedback each time a user clicks on the ad.

Another way to evaluate the results of an Internet marketing campaign is to simply closely monitor your own website traffic and sales. This is especially important when it is done in consideration with the type of marketing you are currently running. For example if you launch a new banner ad campaign with ads appearing on numerous high profile websites concurrently, you may notice an almost immediate increase in website traffic and sales. This information most likely indicates the banner ads are successful.

However, the problem with using this type of evaluation is it does not pinpoint successes or failures. If you launch your banner ad on five different websites at once you may notice an immediate increase in traffic and sales but will not be aware which websites are the most effective. For example, your advertisement may be running on five different websites but only one of these websites may be attracting attention for your business. Similarly if you are running several different styles of ads, some styles may attract more attention than others but you will not be able to differentiate simply by evaluating your website traffic and sales. The other four may only be generating minimal interest in your products or services. If you wish to use this method for evaluating the feedback on your Internet marketing efforts, it is worthwhile to only make one change at a time so you can more accurately determine what is working and what is not. Alternatively you can ask customers to fill out a survey stating where they saw your advertisement so you can solicit feedback on your marketing efforts.

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Just like there are no magic weight loss cures or ways to earn money from home without a great deal of effort, there is no one simple solution to guarantee internet marketing success. However, internet marketing is not overly complicated and many business owners can enjoy at least some degree of internet marketing success with only limited knowledge about the industry. This article will discuss some of the simplest internet marketing strategies business owners can implement to promote their business online.

Participation in industry related message boards is one of the easiest ways a business owner can use the Internet as a promotional tool. Message boards are websites which provide a forum for internet users who share a common interest to share information related to this subject or just socialise. Business owners may opt to join message boards which closely relate to their industry or the products or services they offer. This is important because doing this gives the business owners access to a group of Internet users who fall into the target audience for his products or services. It also gives the business owner the opportunity to promote his own website. Many message boards allow users to place a link to their own website in their signature. Business owners who do this and also contribute useful commentary on the message boards may attract potential customers via the link they place in their signature.

Additionally, some message boards may even allow users to post links in the body of the message. This gives the business owner the opportunity to offer his link in response to questions and comments when doing so is relevant and offers something of value to the online conversation. However, care should be taken to carefully review the terms of service and all guidelines on the message board before posting links to ensure this is not a violation of the policies of the message board. Failure to adhere to message board policies may result in removal from the message board or the posts being viewed as spam by other users.

Another simple, but effective, internet marketing strategy is to hire a consulting firm with search engine optimisation (SEO) experience to assist you in achieving high search engine rankings. While the concept of SEO can be rather complex and understanding the most effective strategies and how to properly implement them may take years of experience as well as continual education, the ability to hire a qualified SEO firm is as simple as knowing how to interview candidates and select the most qualified one. Handling your own SEO efforts can be rather difficult but hiring another firm to take care of this for you is not only easy but it can have a significant impact on your website traffic because high search engine rankings typically translate to improved web traffic. This is because Internet users trust search engines to serve the most relevant websites first and typically only visit the best ranking websites when they search for a particular term.

Similarly another simple way to enjoy Internet marketing success is to hire a consulting firm to plan and execute your Internet marketing strategy. Just like SEO, Internet marketing is essentially a full time job. Business owners may have a great deal of difficulty trying to run their business and organise their Internet marketing. Outsourcing this work eases the burden on the business manager and will likely produce more favorable results.

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Kefentse Francis Nkakelang
SEO Analyst

Internet marketing for beginners is somewhat of an oxymoron. This is because while in theory the concepts behind Internet marketing might be quite simple, executing effective strategies can be extremely difficult. This can even be tough for those who are quite experienced in the world of Internet marketing. With this in mind, this article will attempt to explain the concept of Internet marketing for beginners and will outline some basic strategies which can help a business owner to launch his own Internet marketing campaign. We will cover concepts such as creating a website, placing banner ads, sending out e-newsletters, orchestrating an email marketing campaign and optimising your website for search engines.

One of the most basic steps for starting an Internet marketing campaign is to create a website. If you don’t have a website or have a poorly designed website you should consider creating or re-designing a website to adequately market your products. If you do not have experience in web design, there are a number of software packages which make it simple for those with no design experience to create a functional website. However, hiring a web designer is worthwhile because he can work to create a website which is attractive, functional and suitable to your products and series. He can also help you include more advanced features on your website.

Banner ads are another popular option for advertising your business on the Internet. Banner ads are advertisements which typically appear along the top of a website but it may also include smaller ads in other locations. Banner ads typically include graphics and text which entice Internet users to click on the advertisement. Once a user clicks on the ad, they are directed to your website. This type of advertising can be very effective when care is taken to place the advertisements on high traffic websites which attract an audience who may have an interest in your products.

Sending out e-newsletters can also be a part of an effective Internet marketing strategy. E-newsletters are essentially emails which may contain a variety of information including informative articles, useful quizzes, relevant advertising or any other information which is deemed worthwhile for the recipients of the e-newsletter. The importance of these newsletters is that they can be used as marketing tools which are not viewed by the recipients as an advertisement. One way to do this is to incorporate links or other soft sale approaches into the copy of the e-newsletters. However, care should be taken to keep these references minimal so the e-newsletter is not viewed as spam.

Email marketing campaigns can be another successful aspect of an internet marketing campaign. Email marketing essentially involves sending out emails to a group of individuals who may be interested in your products and services. Care should be taken in sending out these emails to avoid sending emails which are unsolicited and will be viewed as spam. One way to do this is to only send out the emails to users who have requested inclusion on an email mailing list. Another way to do this is to provide value in the emails as opposed to just including advertisements. This can be done by offering relevant advice in your emails and other useful information which may be of interest to the recipients of the email.

Finally, optimising your website for search engines is a critical aspect of an internet marketing campaign. Search engines rank websites according to quality and relevance for particular search terms. Many Internet users appreciate the effort by search engines and use these search engines to find the best websites on a particular subject. This means the Internet users are likely to only visit websites which rank well with search engines. Therefore if your website is not high ranking, you are not likely to generate a great deal of traffic from Internet users who use search engines to find relevant websites. Top ranking websites are likely to obtain the most traffic from search engines and all websites falling on the first page of the search engine results will likely enjoy some degree of success in improving their traffic.

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Victor Quinteros CEO  Rotapix SEO

The holiday email marketing season takes the overdrive with the onset of Halloween. Certainly, this isn’t the time to design the marketing program from the scratch. But a small fixes can do the trick to raise the deliverability by a few percent without the need to shift to another completely new program. These fixes won’t take major investment in money or time.

As they say the first impression is the best impression, a very important aspect is to include the brand or company name as the sender and not individual name or email. The “from” line acts as the basis for the readers based on which they recognize and trust the sender. So it is best to use the brand name which is widely used by the readers for recognition. Following it is the subject line. It also plays a major role in the opening of the email. The subject line should not only be irresistible but trustworthy. Many subject line tools are available on the internet which can be of great use. The trick followed by most is to phrase the first twenty eight characters with the most important information. Usually the first twenty eight characters are of high importance to get the message across to the client. Putting the brand name in the from line helps to free up space for the critical information, which is the heart of the message, in the subject line. If the email is send to a mobile, the brand name should be first thing the reader should see. If there is space, special offers will be worth mentioning.  

The email should have a link to the complete information which is posted on the website. The link should redirect the reader to the complete article just by one click. Subscribe and unsubscribe links should be working always and the directions should be displayed promptly. If this isn’t done, it is going against the US email marketers law. The email should also include information about the company’s name, address and other contact information such as telephone, link to web contact page, and email. It is good to have links to other offers and services provided by the company. Effects of the previous offers and customer testimonials can also be included to draw attention.

The email shouldn’t resemble to a print ad which has bright colors within which the information is contained. Although, most of the HTML designers love to design this type of emails, but another fact is that most of the readers would have their block images option activated which will stop the image from downloading and the recipient will not be able to see any part of the message. The email should be broken down into manageable chunks. One large image should be replaced with many smaller images and important information should be placed in a text boxes which will be displayed in spite of the images being displayed or not. Alt tags can also be used to describe the images or the offers contained within it. This information will be displayed if the images do not show up.

Coding and spelling mistakes are a big no-no. If there is, this is a sure sign of a spammer. Miss spelt brand or company name can never be forgiven. It is a good habit to get the entire email proof-read by a professional before sending it to the readers. The links should be check individually to see whether they are working or not. Although it is a tedious task, it will save the readers from getting irritated and from losing sales. Past performances shouldn’t be trusted upon and regular checks must be made constantly.

The most important thing is to keep an eye on the competing company and the offers being offered by them. Try to design a better offer and test it on sample readers before committing to the offer. Like every one will be offering free shipping during the holiday season, so try to think of something which will differentiate you from the rest.

The last point to be considered is that because of the overwhelming flow of emails during the festive season, the subscribers can get irritated and complaints may arise. This can be tackled by throttling the frequency of emails. Delivery logs should be read constantly to handle the problem at the proper time. 

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Video Optimisation and Promotion

Optimising for video search is much like optimising for image search. The video search engines can’t easily see the video content (note the exceptions covered below), so you need to use manual tagging in the video file metadata itself. Use a good title, a good description, and a solid list of keywords.

Using keywords in the file name of the video is also useful. Note that file format you use for your video does not matter, as long as you use one of the standards (e.g. MOV, AVI, WMF). Do be careful to not use Flash only, or use entirely dynamic players. You can run into duplicate content issues if you offer your video in multiple file formats, so make sure to steer away from that by using robots.txt to pick one version as the focal point for the search engines.

Of course, the context of the web page where the video resides matters a lot too. That page should have its own abstract, links to other related content, a supportive title, etc. Anchor text of links to the web page is supportive too.

Promotion starts with submitting your videos to video search engines, placing the videos on readily accessible web pages, and getting links to those web pages. That’s the easy part. You should also create a video site map, and use an H1 tag of “video site map” in that file.

It’s also important to embrace the social web. Having people tag the video, share it, rate it, and comment on it is valuable. For one thing, this type of activity has the potential to go viral, which is one of the beauties of video. Make this easier by providing an RSS feed of the video, complete with appropriate tags and a transcript (or a summary).
Looking Inside Video

Video search engines are starting to look inside the video itself. Here are some of the things that were mentioned during this session:

   1. Detecting flesh tones to find adult content
   2. Checking for audio match with the sound track
   3. Logo detection
   4. Face detection
   5. Object detection
   6. Everything generates a transcript from the audio
   7. On screen text recognition

It will be fascinating to see how this marketplace unfolds. As broadband usage expands, and as more and more people become aware of the quality and quantity of videos which are available, this market will continue to grow. Also, technology advances will have a real impact too. As video search engines get better and better at looking inside videos, the quality of their results will improve. This should drive adoption even further.

 Victor Quinteros CEO of Sydney SEO Firm  Rotapix

There has been a lot of  talk and hype on search relevancy scores recently. Some of those well in the know, attribute this to latent semantic analysis. Even if they are not using LSA Google has likely been using other word relationship technologies for a while, but recently increased its weighting.

The next question for all those who are not in the know is   “What is Latent Semantic Analysis ” ?

Latent semantic analysis (LSA) is a technique in natural language processing, in particular in vectorial semantics, of analysing relationships between a set of documents and the terms they contain by producing a set of concepts related to the documents and terms.

LSA was patented in 1988 [1] by Scott Deerwester, Susan Dumais, George Furnas, Richard Harshman, Thomas Landauer, Karen Lochbaum and Lynn Streeter. In the context of its application to information retrieval, it is sometimes called latent semantic indexing (LSI).

Occurrence matrix

LSA can use a term-document matrix which describes the occurrences of terms in documents; it is a sparse matrix whose rows correspond to terms and whose columns correspond to documents, typically stemmed words that appear in the documents. A typical example of the weighting of the elements of the matrix is tf-idf  (term frequency–inverse document frequency): the element of the matrix is proportional to the number of times the terms appear in each document, where rare terms are up-weighted to reflect their relative importance.

This matrix is also common to standard semantic models, though it is not necessarily explicitly expressed as a matrix, since the mathematical properties of matrix are not always used.

LSA transforms the occurrence matrix into a relation between the terms and some concepts, and a relation between those concepts and the documents. Thus the terms and documents are now indirectly related through the concepts.

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_semantic_analysis

How Does Latent Semantic Indexing Work?

Latent semantic indexing allows a search engine to determine what a page is about outside of specifically matching search query text.

A page about Apple computers will likely naturally have terms such as iMac or iPod on it.

Latent semantic indexing adds an important step to the document indexing process. In addition to recording which keywords a document contains, the method examines the document collection as a whole, to see which other documents contain some of those same words. LSI considers documents that have many words in common to be semantically close, and ones with few words in common to be semantically distant. This simple method correlates surprisingly well with how a human being, looking at content, might classify a document collection. Although the LSI algorithm doesn’t understand anything about what the words mean, the patterns it notices can make it seem astonishingly intelligent. 

By placing additional weight on related words in content, or words in similar positions in other related documents, LSI has a net effect of lowering the value of pages which only match the specific term and do not back it up with related terms.

LSI vs semantically Related Words:

I realised that many SEO’s analyst (like me) blended the concepts of semantically related words with latent semantic indexing, and due to constraints of the web it is highly unlikely that large scale search engines are using LSI on their main search indexes. Nevertheless I  can only make an assumption on limited research on current retrieval model builds for search engine technology .

Nonetheless, it is overtly obvious to anyone who studies search relevancy algorithms by watching the results and ranking pages that the following are true for Google:

Search engines such as Google do try to figure out phrase relationships when processing queries, improving the rankings of pages with related phrases even if those pages are not focused on the target term

pages that are too focused on one phrase tend to rank worse than one would expect (sometimes even being filtered out for what some SEOs call being over-optimized) pages that are focused on a wider net of related keywords tend to have more stable rankings for the core keyword and rank for a wider net of keywords

Given the above, here are tips to help increase your page relevancy scores and make your rankings far more stable…

Mix Your Anchor Text!

Latent semantic indexing (or similar technologies) can also be used to look at the link profile of your website. If all your links are heavy in a few particular phrases and light on other similar phrases then your site may not rank as well.

Example Related Terms:
Implement other anchor text combinations to make the linkage data appear less manipulative.

Instead of using SEO in all the links some of them may use phrases like

search engine optimisation
search engine marketing
search engine placement
search engine positioning
search engine promotion
search engine ranking
etc.

Instead of using book in all the links some other good common words might be
ebook
manual
guide
tips
report
tutorial
etc.

How do I Know What Words are Related?

There are a variety of options to know what words are related to one another.

Search Google for search results with related terms using a ~. For example, Google Search: ~seo will return pages with terms matching or related to seo and will highlight some of the related words in the search results.

Understanding the semantic relationships of words is just another piece of the relevancy algorithms, though many sites will significantly shift in rankings due to it.

Copy-writing and keyword relevancy on your site will attribute building the relationship between keyword density and ROI (return of investment)

Victor Quinteros  (SEO Analyst)
CEO
Q Interactive Pty Ltd