What Exactly Is Internet Marketing?Written by Neil Street
The internet, like every other field, has a language all its own. And when it comes to marketing on internet, labels proliferate rapidly. Can you tell “search engine marketing” from “search engine optimization?” How about “website promotion” from “online promotion?” Can you tell your Yahoo Yellow Pages from your Yahoo Local? Or “pay-per-click,” from “pay for performance,” not forgetting “paid inclusion?” Is it any wonder people are confused? Adding to confusion, many of these phrases are shortened to acronyms (SEO, PPC, SEM, to name a few). Next week, at a seminar for professional marketers, participants will wrestle with issue of SEM for SMEs. This rapidly growing field is in dire need of simplification and organization. As a starting point, it would be good to just have a name for all of it. And that’s where term “internet marketing” comes in.Consider this: twice in past week I have seen an online press release turn into an offline publicity placement. In first instance, an online press release about an antiques-related website was picked up by a leading consumer magazine, who wanted to use images from client’s website in an upcoming article. Full credit, of course, goes to client and their website. In second instance, an online press release about marketing was picked up by a writer for an offline business magazine. The writer wants to interview creator of press release for an article about migration of local print advertising onto internet. I especially love irony of second one – an online release is picked up by an offline magazine for a story about how advertising is moving from offline to online space. But are these example of traditional P.R? Or is it online P.R? Perhaps it’s website promotion? The answer, of course, is that in this amazing new world of interconnectivity, a P.R. campaign can be any of these things, often more than one thing, and it can frequently morph into something unexpected. That’s beauty of internet. And because internet is cause of this phenomenon, most obvious choice for an umbrella term, under which a growing variety of promtional techniques can be organized, is “internet marketing”. The term “internet marketing” is still somewhat slippery, and may mean different things to different people. But as an umbrella phrase it is very useful because it’s so comprehensive. It is clear that a broad new discipline is emerging, one which crosses media lines in many directions. As this broad discipline emerges, its various subsets - “search engine optimization,” for example, or rather ambiguous “search engine marketing” - should be seen as tools within larger framework, components to be utilized, with or without other components, depending on marketing needs of each project.
| | Switchboard.com: The King Of Great Local SearchWritten by Dean Phillips
Forget about local search with Google, Yahoo! or MSN. They don't have a clue. When it comes to great local search, Switchboard.com is king!And no matter how hard Google, Yahoo! and MSN try, when it comes to local search, they'll never even be in same league as Switchboard, because Switchboard.com gets it. Local search is what Switchboard does better than any other search engine or directory on planet--period! You won't believe how easy it is to get incredibly relevant results for virtually anything you can think of--and I do mean anything! Before writing this article, I played around with Switchboard for hours, trying to trip it up. No matter what I typed into search box, Switchboard found it. I typed in "ice cream parlor," no problem. "Old books," no problem. "Post office", no problem. "Italian restaurants," no problem. "Stuffed animals," no problem. "Soft pretzels," no problem. And it not only gave me amazingly relevant local results every time, it gave me businesses web site, directions on how to get there, and what other businesses were nearby. Plus, you can search town directories, by category, classifieds, address and distance--there's even a trip planner!
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