Internet Marketing @ DiscoverTec

What is Internet Marketing?

Internet marketing refers to any activity aimed at drawing in traffic to your website and then converting that traffic into sales and leads. The landscape and skillsets involved in internet marketing are broad and varied; consisting of optimizing your website to rank well in search engines such as Google and Yahoo to managing an army of affiliate marketers that promote your products and services on a commission basis.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to the collection of tools and techniques aimed at driving targeted traffic to a specific website through search engines and directories. SEM largely consists of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and managing ads through Pay-per-Click campaigns using services such as Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Refers to the act of altering a site so that it may rank well for particular terms, specifically with crawler-based search engines. Consists of determining appropriate keywords to optimize your site, ensuring the site is well coded, adhering to web standards and employing a XHTML and CSS based layout, generating incoming links from respected and relevent websites, and developing unique and content that is of interest to your visitors.
• Pay-per-Click (PPC): The most common form of paid listings on the modern web. In this model you pay each time a user clicks on your advertisement, taking them to your website. The names of the major programs are Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN AdCenter. There a host of terms associated with PPC which will be discussed during a later presentation on PPC.

Social Media Optimization (SMO)

Social Media Optimization (SMO) leverages the amazing viral impact that social media sites can have on your website. Becoming a participant in social media sites such as myspace.com, del.icio.us, and digg.com has the potential to instantly bring large amounts of traffic and potential customers to your site. Using this form of marketing takes dedication and is often part of a long term marketing strategy.