Having a great business website is not enough in the realm of Online Business. “Build it and they will come” is not an effective point of view or strategy when it comes to building your online empire. There is much to be done to get the best results from your business online.

Search Engine Marketing or SEM is divided into 3 major elements namely, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay per Click) or paid advertising and Social Media marketing.

Using these elements, either individually or in conjunction with one another, is crucial – especially for new businesses or existing businesses looking to expand into the online world.

As a new website, or a website that has not implemented any online marketing strategies, your products, services or solutions will not rank for any of the valuable industry keywords that your potential customers are searching for in the major Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc). This of course means that traffic to your site will be low and that ultimately you will achieve less conversions, sales and revenues without a proper online marketing strategy for your business.

PPC Advertising

Many consider PPC to be the easier strategy of the two. This may be true from an implementation point of view, but there is a lot to know in order to run an effective PPC campaign. Considerable research would need to be done, but with a little insight and savvy you will be able to find all the tools and knowledge you need from Google’s Adwords support system.

PPC is very effective in quickly attracting targeted traffic, depending on your budget.

Advantages of PPC

* Your PPC campaign can be up and running in minutes.

* No modifications to your website are necessary.

* You pay only when users click your ads.

* You can choose exactly how much you spend on the campaign.

* You control who sees your ads by use of keyword targeting.

* You can choose the language and geographic target that your ads are displayed in.

* Your campaign can be effectively tracked and monitored for optimum results.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO as a whole consists of a myriad of elements that will be used to analyse your business and business needs, create a strategy, and to implement and Optimize that strategy to maximize results.

The following Questions are the Answers to your perfect strategy:

1. What does your target market want? And where are they from? (Keyword research and Geo Targeting)

2. Who are your competitors, and what will it take to beat them? (Competitor Analysis)

3. Does your website facilitate competing with these competitors? (Web layout and structure)

4. What are the most suitable online strategies for your business?

5. How long will it take to implement the strategies, and what results are achievable?

6. How can we improve your strategy to improve your performance?

Improved SEO rankings take time. Although you may see improvements in both rankings and traffic within 3 months it generally takes between 3 and 6 months to see a noticeable increase in performance.

The reason for this delay is that Google and other search engines have to crawl millions of sites daily and this takes a little bit of time. Google has large scale updates where the number and quality of inbound links toward your site, as well as the quality of resources and information that appears on your site, is ‘weighed and measured’ and then will add or subtract from your online authority and credibility – this determines whether or not your rankings improve.

Social Media Marketing

Another online marketing strategy is Web2.0 and Social media. Social bookmarking, blogging and networking can facilitate an influx of traffic and links from other sites that will add to your online reputation and credibility. But we delve deeper into social media and viral marketing at a later stage.

So as you can see, there are quite a few things to consider when starting your Online Marketing campaign. To get the results you are after you will either have to learn the ins and outs of online marketing and the online world, or you’ll have to find the right people who know the right stuff about what your business requires.