Market Research on the Internet

July 5th, 2008

Doing some kind of market research is the best and in fact the only way to get to know your consumers, what they want and need from the internet, from their businesses and from you.

As a business on the internet today, you know that services are competitive and you need to deliver a product or a service that is high enough in quality that it can sell itself.

If you don’t, the other company is going to do that rather than you.

Creating your business, or making your company’s services when you haven’t done the right research is a design for disaster, because you’re going to end up creating products or services that are not cost effective, wasting money and time, as well as your valuable people resources and offering something that isn’t really needed or wanted on the internet.

Market research is going to help you to know your internet customer better, to analyze what they really want from you and to give you valuable insight into the things they want from the companies they deal with.

One of the largest frustrations with people trying to do business online is that it is difficult to discern the next new trend, what their customers require from them and how to deliver that in a cost and time effective way.

Market research on the internet will help to alleviate that frustration and to make you and your company more effective in delivering a quality service for your clients, if you simply take the time to research a little more about what they really do need to make them more effective as a business.

Some of the strengths that the internet offers when used for market research that can help you with doing great market research online and getting your customers the information and services they want in a timely way are;

 

  • The information is cheap or free and it is plentiful.

  • Many of the subjects that you are going to be seeking online are quite well covered and there is great background information.

  • The information that you need is speedily acquired, it’s fast to get to. Its not like the old days when we had to wait several days or weeks to have it delivered to us. Market research on the internet is nearly instant.

  • The range of geopolitical information is quite broad in its scope, and is rapidly increasing in its coverage, internationally.

  • With so many new companies opening brand new web sites for their own companies, the range and depth of information available to us is increasing all the time.

Market research is imperative, and makes a difference in the quality and effect of the service that you offer to your clients. Doing good market research only makes sense if you are trying to discern what kind of things your clients expect from you and how to offer them a service they will be pleased to pay for.

You have the option of making good use of the information that the internet affords you, to make sure that you provide a good service to the companies that you work for, simply by taking advantage of the vast array of information that is available to you here, on the information super highways of the internet.

 Since we primarily market on the internet now, it makes sense that we obtain the information we need from the very place where we will ply our trade.

Don’t neglect this most important aspect of business.

 

Article Marketing

June 6th, 2008

What can online article marketing really do for you? It not only has the ability to get enough targeted traffic to your website but it will help you to build your brand. At the end of the day, it is all about product or service visibility and brand awareness. Only when your product or service has the required visibility, will it transform into a brand and bring in the moolah!

 

Article marketing is considered to be one of the most promising aspects of online marketing as well as SEO. There are several vehicles of online brand awareness but none of them are as cost effective as well as more powerful than article marketing.

 

Article marketing can be defined as a branch of advertising where businesses find keywords and use them in short articles that are related to the services or products offered by them or their industry on the whole. Once the articles have been written, they are made available for distribution as well as publication in the online marketplace.

 Benefits of Article Marketing 

Article marketing definitely has its own set of benefits especially for a start-up or small business. Some of the benefits that you can derive include:

 

1.       Credibility: This is the first and foremost. If your business doesn’t get the required credibility then that will be the end. What article marketing can do is help increase your credibility. For eg: If you have a blog or a website that presents information regarding loans then you can always use numbers and statistics within your articles and yes the topic should have some credibility too. The more factual, relevant and to the point your article is, the higher will be your credibility.

 

2.       Link popularity: This is one of the important aspects of search engines optimization and goes a long way to drive targeted traffic to your website. Providing links of your website as well as other websites related to the same industry will attract more clicks to your website as well as the article submission directories. For example: If you post your article on www.ezine.com with the link of your business and if your article is of high standard then you can expect a high rate of visitors to your website.

 

3.       Search Engine Ranking: Sprinkling your articles with the highly rated keywords and adding a resource box at the end with your link or URL will ensure that internet user click on the links. The higher the number of clicks, the faster you will climb up the PageRank of some of the top search engines like Google, Yahoo, etc.

 

There are no immediate drawbacks of article marketing except the fact that if your article is not of high standard then you might not be able to get as many visitors. Secondly if you don’t submit your article in the top directories that have high PageRank then it will be a lost cause. The crux of the matter is that article marketing is the cheapest way to get noticed and can boost your overall internet visibility as well as Page Rank.

Search Engine Optimization, SEO Vs. Pay Per Click, PPC (SEM)

June 5th, 2008

The war is on! Yes! The hottest war over the internet is not between businesses but between two options of online marketing: SEO and PPC. According to a research, almost 85% of internet visitors start their product or service or information search using some of the top search engine like Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. All internet users while looking for relevant information type a word that is more commonly known as the keyword and it helps search engines to bring up result pages that have natural organic listings as well as pay per click (PPC) advertisements.

 SEO Vs PPC  

SEO and PPC are two different sides of the same coin and are an integral part of major Search Engines and can increase your overall brand visibility.  According to a research, 60% of search engine visibility will depend on effective SEO vis-à-vis PPC. The average states that almost 70% of all clicks received from various search engines take place through SEO. The fact of the matter is that SEO clicks are able to convert 25% more than PPC clicks according to BusinessWeek. A Marketing Sherpa study has shown that most organic referrals are able to convert at 4.2% vis-à-vis 3.6% for PPC.

 SEO  

Let us look at what are the different benefits of using SEO:

 

1.       Most of the listings through SEO campaigns have a definite psychological advantage vis-à-vis sponsored links.

2.       SEO is a long-term investment

3.       It has recorded some of the highest conversion rates as well as best ROI

4.       SEO can increase your PageRank

5.       Brands get top positions so searchers trust more on organic search results.

6.       If you are planning to go with SEO on long-term then it will be cheaper vis-à-vis Pay Per Click.

7.       SEO can get you or your business almost 30 times the traffic as compared to sponsored links for the same cost.

 

Some of the drawbacks of SEO include:

·         SEO takes more time to fall into place and provide good returns as compared to PPC

·         You will not be guaranteed of Top Rank on Search engines always

·         Determine the actual value of a high organic ranking is difficult

 PPC 

Now let us take a look at the various benefits of PPC:

 

1.       Pay-per-click is a great option for a business looking for immediate exposure.

2.       PPC campaigns work well with a bidding model i.e: you select the keyword and bid on it. The advertisement of the highest bidder will reflect at the top.

3.       In PPC, you will have to pay only if a user clicks on your advertisement.

4.       It is a good platform for testing the effectiveness of a new product

5.       It is easy to measure the effectiveness of PPC

 

Some of the drawbacks of PPC include:

1.       It is expensive on a long-term basis. Popular keywords can cost around $10 per click

2.       The targeted traffic to your website will stop the moment you stop paying

3.       You will need to manage your PPC campaign and keep a tab on the clicks vis-à-vis conversions

 

The crux of the matter is that you need to use SEO and PPC both if you want to keep ahead of the race.

Selecting an SEO Specialist

May 1st, 2008

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the buzzword over the internet and an SEO specialist is someone who helps in keeping the buzzword alive. In more technical terms, an SEO Specialist is someone who has acquired in-depth understanding and knowledge regarding the functioning of various search engines and has the ability to use this knowledge to your advantage. What SEO specialists can do is that they can use their experience and expertise to get your website on the top most positions for various targeted keywords through application of various methods. The SEO specialist is more often than not is also referred to as the Internet Marketing Specialist, Web-marketer, E-marketer, SEO Expert, SEO Guru, or even SEO Consultant.

There are different aspects that you should consider while searching for or choosing an SEO Specialist for improving the overall internet ranking and visibility of your business. The various aspects are:

·         An SEO specialist should have a reputation or a good amount of experience in handling optimization of web sites successfully. The specialist should have a record of dealing with different types of design features as well as development languages. Always make it a point to ask for client references and check their portfolio.

·         The SEO specialist will be completely and single-handedly responsible for the way your site will be displayed on various search engines as well as directories. You need to gauge how good the SEO expert is and how much visibility he/she can offer you on various search engines so that you can get high targeted traffic as well as have a good ROI.

·         The goal of every search engine marketing/SEM campaign is long-term results that are sustainable as well as effective. This basically means that your SEO specialist should avoid using anything that most search engines will consider as spam.

·         Your SEO specialist needs to have complete knowledge of what are the ranking criteria of the most popular or top search engines is and what type of deals they have in place?

·         Last but not the least, one of the most important aspects is that the SEO Specialist should be able to use all the different methods of mix the various methods of search engine optimization so that you can get the maximum benefit. The various methods he can incorporate include:

a)      Keyword driven content: Finding the top keywords and implementation in your web copy and the links.

b)      Navigation: Ensuring that your website has an easy to understand navigation and optimized layout.

c)      Tags: Meta Tags, Image Alt Tags and individualized Titles are important for ranking purposes. The SEO expert should be able to ensure that it is embedded into the code.

d)      Code: The cleaner, error free, smaller your website code is the more easily it will be identified by search engines and it will also make your website look good.

e)      Sitemap: Sitemap is like a guide of the various pages on your website and will help search engines and visitors to locate the different pages of your website.

f)      Link Popularity: He should be able to link your website with other relevant websites of good repute.  

g)      Social Media Marketing: A relatively new concept, it is an integral part of SEO. Always ensure that the SEO Specialist you are speaking with is familiar with the various platforms where Social media marketing can be implemented.

h)      PPC: The SEO specialist should be able to guide you through an effective PPC campaign so that you can get maximum traffic to your website and generate revenue.

i)      Others: The other methods he can use include Affiliate Marketing, Buzz Marketing, Article submissions, Press Releases and Viral Marketing.

Outsourcing to Pakistan – Information Technology inlcuding SEO

March 30th, 2008

With tremendous improvement in communication technologies like telecommunication and internet, Pakistan offers virtual globalization of highly skilled human capital to the world.

There are always other options to outsource to other countries like China, Russia Philippine and some of the Eastern European countries e.g. Romania, Ukraine and Poland but these choices are marked up with poor English skills, lack of exposure to Western business culture, shaky foreign relations and immaturity of processes all pose risks.

No other economy can match Pakistan’s labor pool of educated English-speaking workers. No other economy can match Pakistan’s scalability, reliability and low-cost environment.

 

The rapid growth of the sector is largely due to foreign IT firms setting up operations in Pakistan in a bid to reduce costs and raise profits.

Pakistan’s Advantages

1. Western experience: Executives at IT firms in Pakistan often have worked and gone to school in the U.S., which is Pakistan’s largest export market. The willingness of Pakistanis to return home from the West stands in marked contrast to most Indians who arrive for school or work in the West and never look back.

2. Professionalism and integrity: The personal integrity of Pakistani managers is easy to identify and appreciate, especially by Westerners with business experience elsewhere in the region.

 3. Higher labor availability: Fewer holidays in Pakistan means less slippage in staff availability compared to India. IT firms in India are advised to hire a diverse workforce so that members of one community can enjoy important festivals while members of other communities cover the phones and keep production going.

4. Good accents: Pakistan’s official language is English. Language skills and accents provide Pakistan with a major advantage over all other Asian outsourcing destinations.

5. Low cost talent pool: Escalating turnover rates are one of the Indian outsourcing industry’s dirty secrets. In comparison, Pakistan’s top-tier talent pool is largely untapped and turnover rates are less than 20 percent.

Pakistan offered Services Types

ITO — Information Technology Outsourcing

BPO — Business Process Outsourcing covers things like running call centers, processing insurance claims.

Software R&D — Offshore Software Development

Search Engine Optimization- that is to apply SEO tactics to achieve top search engine placement and increased traffic to your website. This branch of outsourcing is relatively new to Pakistan as SEO Industry is still in its initial stages here. The top SEO Consultants and Specialists are working hard to convince the world that Pakistan is a good place to outsource SEO and web marketing work as well. With the growth of SEO industry, there are many quality content writers, link-builders and other people related to SEO industry directly or indirectly.

In short Pakistan is proud about her ability to outshine India in outsourcing. According to some International think tanks, that makes Pakistan an able partner for India’s overflowing outsourcing work.The experts claim that eventually India and Pakistan will team up together to provide the South Asian hub for outsourcing. Pakistan can easily serve as subcontractors to India’s unending contracts from all over the world.