Internet Website Marketing and Promotion

Many web site managers and owners make the mistake of accepting the notion that "if you build it, they will come." Even the best-planned internet development projects require deliberate promotional and marketing initiatives. The internet is too broad and deep to hope that customers will "stumble" upon a website. Marketing efforts should be centered on aggressively working to make a website known.

Using Search Engine Marketing (SEM) techniques, websites can gain relevance, improve search engine rankings, and become more visible to customers. SEM is a process in which deliberate steps are taken to maximize the potential for matching search results to web pages. By doing so, websites are able to improve their rankings on search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and others and gain the attention of a potential customer.

Search Engines look for relevant terms and keywords in the text of page titles, metatags, body copy, links, and other areas of the website. You can optimize select keywords and terms on your webpage that are relevant to your potential customers’ searches. Once these pages are optimized and re-indexed with search engines, the likelihood of them being found by searchers is increased.

The Ridgefield Group focuses on three different methods of SEM with our clients:

1. “Organic Search” is what most people who use search engines are familiar with. The term "organic" simply means that the results are the most natural results. The results are returned in order of relevance based on search engine indexing and categorizing. Ranking of the results is a natural placement based on the likeness of term and website. A good tactic to increase ranking within search results is “search engine optimization” (SEO).
    
2. “Sponsored" or "Paid Inclusion” is a search campaign in which larger search engines allow websites owners to pay a premium to have their website associated with specific keywords. Sponsored websites typically appear above organic search results in a specifically labeled “sponsor search” section.
    
   There are multiple methods of charging for Sponsored search listings. The premium charged by search engines can be based on bids by other firms also hoping to purchase the word. Companies must purchase keywords at the market value if they wish to improve their search engine ranking and become more visible to their customers. Some engines will offer flat-rate pricing. Each search engine is somewhat different.
    
   “Pay-per-click” is one process used to gain relevance in search engine rankings. Essentially, you pay the search engine firm each time someone clicks on your website from the search results. You can easily and quickly increase page rankings, but you are charged for each “click” to your site.
    
   Some of the larger Pay-per-click systems, like Google's AdWords program, allow you to set daily or monthly spending budgets to help keep expenses in check.
    
3. Directory Listings are free listings, usually controlled and maintained by volunteers. The largest directory, the Open Directory, is volunteer. Because directory results are fed to almost every major search engine, they should not be avoided by SEM.

We employ a specific pattern to select the most relevant and powerful keywords and optimize web pages. The ideal method is a collective approach that utilizes all three SEM processes. By engaging multiple SEM techniques, we offer a thorough and comprehensive approach to gaining and maintaining rankings in the most important search engines.

In addition, traditional marketing efforts are critically analyzed to ensure that website activity and traffic is not solely the responsibility of good SEM. Print, television, radio, PR, and all other marketing efforts must be coordinated to help ensure that all customers are aware of your website.