In today's tech-savvy marketing community, SEO, PPC and Social Media are common buzz words in the industry. There are endless blog posts, articles and webinars on maximizing your ROI and perfecting these areas of business, but for those who are completely new to the Web Marketing arena, we want to provide a quick and easy guide to get you started.

1.     Why should you consider web marketing?

After you put your time, effort and money into creating or redesigning a website - it is likely that getting potential clients and customers to your site is important to you. Instead of waiting for customers to find you, web marketing will help you find them when they are in the buying mindset. The costs of web marketing are much lower than traditional advertising and there are more measurable results. For example, a Google AdWords advertisement can cost as little as $0.25; once placed, you can determine how many people viewed and acted on your ad.

2.     What is web marketing?

Search Engine Optimization: Often called "organic" or "SEO," this type of web marketing is represented in the listings that appear on the left hand side of Google, outside of the yellow Sponsored Ads box. The position that your company holds is dependent on 100+ factors; your goal is to optimize your website to satisfy as many of those factors as possible to boost your organic ranking. This can be done through selecting keywords and using them in web copy, increasing credible inbound links, submitting sites to search engines and ensuring that back end items like ALT tags and H1 headers are optimized. Not only does a higher ranking give you credibility, but once you secure a comfortable ranking it takes a long time lose it. With SEO, potential customers are actively looking for your product or service and you have the ability to be at the top of the list when they search.

Pay Per Click Marketing: PPC is often considered the opposite of SEO. It is represented in the yellow Sponsored Ads box at the top of the page, and down the right hand column. You select the keywords you want to advertise your company on, and ads only appear when that keyword is entered into the search engine. When your ad does appear, you only pay when someone clicks on it. Your advertisement position depends on your bid and past click through history, so it is important to choose relevant keywords and ad copy. Companies like PPC because it is a quick way to advertise on the web, it offers good visibility and there is complete control over advertising costs when you set budgets for your campaigns. After setting up your account on Google, Bing or Yahoo! (which will soon merge with Bing) you can select keywords and write ad copy. As you move forward and tweak your campaign, you should shoot for a position between 1-3.9 and pay attention to click through rates.

Social Media: Social Media is essentially a variety of websites and tools that allow you to share information, connect with other users, and increase brand awareness. Some common avenues of social media are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Blogging. The benefits of social media include the ability to communicate with existing or potential customers, develop your brand, and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Getting started it easy, just sign up for accounts with a consistent username, determine your goals, create a strategy and begin publishing content that is consistent with your strategy and meaningful to followers. It is important to interact with others through various methods on each site. On Facebook you can "like" companies and post on user's profile walls. On Twitter you can reply, retweet and use hash tags (#) to engage in conversations. On LinkedIn, you can follow companies and respond to posted questions. You should continually monitor what is being said about your brand, and engage in discussions with people who are talking about your company, or the industry it is in.

3.     How do I begin web marketing?

There are a few strategies for beginning web marketing. Companies can choose to do all work internally, hire an agency to do the work for them, or a combination of the two. We recommend the combination, especially when it comes to social media. The people representing your brand should have an in depth knowledge of your organization, which only comes from being immersed in it. In order to determine what is right for your company, ask yourself:

• How much time do we have?

Typically social media is the most time consuming avenue of web marketing, with SEO close behind. PPC Advertising requires the least amount of time because once it is set up, only minor maintenance is required.

• How much money do we have?

In general, you will find that PPC Advertising is the most expensive, since you pay for every click on one of your ads. You can always set budgets, however, to control these costs. SEO requires ongoing maintenance, which can introduce costs for items like directory submissions. Social media is likely to be the least expensive option, as networking sites are free to use.

• How soon do we need results?

The quickest option to get results from your web marketing efforts will be PPC Advertising. To set up an account and post ads, you only need a couple hours to start receiving leads. Social media demands more time to build a following and establish your company as a leader. SEO efforts need to be spread out over a longer period of time so search engines don't perceive the website as spam. In order to increase your organic ranking, a few changes should be made each month, rather than all at once.  

With this brief overview of web marketing, you now have the ability to select what areas you would be most beneficial for your company. All industries, companies and customers have different needs, and they like to be communicated with in different ways. Make sure you have a firm understanding of these things before diving in to any of these web marketing tactics.