Online Marketing – A Beginner’s Guide

ByDr.-Ing. Erik Neitzel
Online Marketing – A Beginner’s Guide

SERPBOT serves as a tool for all those who want to earn money on the Internet with their websites. You do marketing in this, that or interwoven way on the Internet and are therefore mostly self-employed. At this point we want to give you an overview of the various options for online marketing. At a suitable point, reference is made to suitable sub-categories and / or suitable articles.

What is marketing?

In order to approach the question of what online marketing actually is, we first have to clarify the basic term “marketing”. Science defines marketing as follows:

[Marketing means] all activities of a company to promote sales through customer care, advertising, observation and control of the market as well as through appropriate control of its own production [Translated using Google Translate].

This definition is very broad, but that also applies to marketing as a whole. It is about making the products known, the characteristics of which are geared towards specific customer needs, and thus demand. There are various forms of marketing that will not be discussed further here. What is important for us here is how online marketing as a special form of marketing is designed.

What is Online Marketing?

The world of online marketing is also very extensive in itself. Primary forms of online marketing include:

  1. Search engine optimization or Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  2. Search Engine Marketing or Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
  3. Email Marketing
  4. Social Media Marketing (SMM)
  5. Affiliate marketing
  6. Direct banner marketing
  7. Mixed forms of the aforementioned areas

In the vast majority of cases, a single form of online marketing is not operated, but many tools from several areas are brought together in an overall mix. It is therefore important to clarify which online marketing tools are available and which goals they each serve.

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Objectives, areas and tools of online marketing

Basically, all marketing activities on the Internet should be aimed at the following points:

  1. Increase in traffic (addressing as many users as possible who visit your own website)
  2. Increasing the length of stay of the user or increasing the rate of return to the website
  3. Maximizing the relationship of trust between visitor and operator
  4. Increase in conversion (the conversion of visitors into buyers of products)

To address these goals, various tools are used that directly serve those goals. These are then assigned to the sub-areas of online marketing and then discussed in more detail. Similarities and differences to one another are also explained.

Note: A basic technical tool for modern online marketing is undoubtedly the WordPress content management system. This can be assigned to areas equally. Tools are mentioned below that require integration in WordPress as a CMS (e.g. plugins).

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As a “free” method, SEO ensures that your own website is ranked higher by search engines for certain keywords and thus found by search engine users. Your own website is optimized according to various factors and made high-quality and tasty for the search engine / user. In addition to first-class, well-researched content, a clean technical basis, a short loading time for the website and the linking of other websites are particularly important.

Over time, every search engine will classify your site as more valuable than other, similar sites on the net. SEO is therefore a cost-neutral, medium to long-term traffic tool, which, however, always pursues cold acquisition. You can find out more in the blog category “SEO”.

SEO tools are:

  • First-class, very well researched and originally prepared content is your main tool for a good SEO-optimized website
  • Keyword tools for obtaining keywords with high search volume (traffic) and low SEO competition (so-called niche keywords)
  • Content management systems such as WordPress as a high-performance and technically clean basis for blogs and pages with regularly published specialist articles
  • Ranking Checker for regularly checking your rankings on Google
  • Backlink Checker for tracking your external links received from other websites
  • Web Auditors for checking technical aspects of your website

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

As a paid method, SEM ensures that your own website is displayed as advertising on search engines for certain keywords. You then act as an advertiser and enter self-defined advertisements in the search engine provider’s own administration interface. The payment is based on the value of a click, which results from the demand for this keyword, i.e. the competition on the market. This is where the term “cost per click” (CPC) comes from.

SEM is thus a short-term, scalable traffic tool that requires less time, but financial expenditure. In addition, like SEO, it always does cold acquisition.

SEM tools are:

  • Keyword tools for obtaining keywords with high search volume (traffic) and low SEO competition (so-called niche keywords)
  • Google AdWords for placing ads on Google
  • Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) for serving ads on Bing
  • Gemini for serving ads on Yahoo! and other networks
  • WordPress plugins like OptimizePress* for optimized landing pages on your own website
  • Online providers for landing pages such as wix.com, jimdo.com or leadpages.com

Email Marketing

Email marketing means:

  • the collection of e-mail addresses via existing marketing measures
  • building trust through free e-mail newsletters or autoresponders (predefined e-mail series) that contain valuable tips
  • the economical sending of links to landing pages containing product presentations

E-mail marketing can trigger very high traffic and also high sales at the push of a button by sending e-mails to a large group of people manually or automatically. If the recipient of such an e-mail clicks on a link that appears to be valuable to him, he becomes a potential prospect and thus a potential buyer of the product on offer.

While collecting e-mail addresses can take a lot of time, the user base is usually relatively stable afterwards and the conversion rates are very high later, as a lot of trust can be built up via the upstream e-mails. This trust is a prerequisite for successfully selling products online.

The special thing about e-mail marketing is that it is always offered to a “warm” group of interested parties. This is different with SEO and SEM, which always do cold acquisition and thus have far lower conversion rates than email marketing.

Email marketing tools are:

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

SMM can run at no cost or subject to payment.

In a cost-neutral sense, SMM means building followers for profiles, pages, groups or other presences in social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, XING, LinkedIn and co. Regular postings about your own articles and / or products can lead to successful conversions, especially if the followers have known you for a while and have built up trust. You then have the same advantage as email marketing and do warm acquisition. The financial outlay is very low, but it takes time, as does SEO.

In the paid sense, SMM means acting as an advertiser, analogous to SEM. However, you then do not place your advertisements in search engines, but offer them to self-defined groups of people on the respective social network. This can lead to a large number of people being reached per day even without your own followers. However, it is then cold acquisition, just like with SEO and SEM. It can also mean high financial costs, as with the SEM.

SMM tools are:

Affiliate-Marketing

In your existing online marketing channels such as SEO-optimized websites, SEM landing pages, emails in your email marketing campaigns or in posts / ads in your social profiles, you will sooner or later recommend products that you will find in the In the past. The respective providers often offer you a so-called partner program for these products.

If you are registered and approved for this partner program, you can receive a commission for sales that are based on your product recommendation. You are then an affiliate (or partner) of the respective product provider. We call this affiliate marketing, which only really makes sense in combination with other techniques.

Affiliate marketing tools are:

  • Marketplaces and sales platforms such as Digistore24, which give you access to a marketplace of recommendable products as well as commission processing and payment. You can also offer your own products and give affiliates the opportunity to advertise your own products.
  • Amazon PartnerNet as one of the most successful affiliate networks ever, with access to a very large selection of products
  • Awin as an alternative or supplement to the products offered via Digistore24 and Amazon, for which you can also receive a commission

Direct banner marketing

Probably the oldest form of online marketing that worked in the 90s is the exchange of advertising banners on your websites. You can of course still act like this today. As a rule, however, a banner exchange is more lucrative for the landing page on which your banner should appear if you offer an affiliate program.

Then the link that you receive via nofollow is invalidated, but more people will be willing to place your banners on their website – and do so without being asked if they like your product. SERPBOT, for example, receives 80% of all new customers through banners from voluntary partner sites.

However, you can also display advertisements from other people directly on your site without knowing them personally. For example, Google AdSense, as a counterpart to Google AdWords, allows you to place advertising banners on your site. You will then receive remuneration for every click that one of your visitors makes on such a banner. The advantage here is the easy access to suitable banners. The disadvantage is that you have less control over which banners are shown.

Conclusion

The field of online marketing, whether as a small part or a main part of the marketing of a company, has many sub-forms. So you can primarily optimize your own website using SEO measures and save money, or attract a large number of visitors to your site at short notice using SEM measures. Or maybe you’re the social media type and prefer SMM. E-mail and affiliate marketing can be wonderfully combined with other areas.

You can get very creative here and, for example, collect e-mail addresses via social media, and advertise your website in the e-mails that are then automatically sent – and also optimize it for the search engine SEO. There are hardly any limits to your imagination, and the successes of many bloggers speak for themselves – also in a financial sense.

But in order to be really successful with a blog, you should learn to understand your website in its entirety. To understand the technical requirements, also when using WordPress, we have created a PHP MySQL tutorial, which introduces you step by step to the creation of a web-based database application, so that you can better understand WordPress and in the future problems when dealing with themes and Solve plugins yourself.

SERPBOT wishes you a lot of fun and success in your online self-employment and is at your side as a tool at any time with advice and action.

* -Products are affiliate links where SERPBOT receives a commission without increasing the price for you as a buyer.

Dr.-Ing. Erik Neitzel