Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimization

Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimization - A Perfect Marriage & Popular Viral Marketing Techniques 

Pay per click or search engine optimization, which one should you use? Many view PPC marketing as a colossal waste of money while others disdain search engine optimization. In reality, the two marketing strategies for a perfect marriage. 

Pay-Per-Click - PPC 

PPC marketing is a love it or hate platform. For the "love it" crowd, PPC marketing is a way to get instant exposure and feedback on site design. Within a few minutes you can begin receiving traffic and adjust your site to convert traffic at the best price. For those in the "hate it" crowd, bids are too high and you never know how many of the clicks are fake and worthless. 

Search Engine Optimization - SEO

As with PPC, seo marketing has its proponents and critics. Those who love to look at free traffic and glorious profitability of a website that converts traffic at a decent rate. Critics view SEO as an unnecessary waste of time because it may take a year or more to get high rankings, especially Google. Critics also claim that large retailers are subject to changes in search engine placement process, which means that you can lose your position. 

So who is right? In truth, both sides precise arguments. PPC is expensive, and click fraud is a huge problem. Seo produces free traffic, but it takes along time to get to the top and locations are subject to the whims of search engine placement changes. The truth is, of course, is both marketing platforms should be used whenever possible. 

Marketing Marriage 

Each site is unique, but most should combine SEO and PPC marketing as part of an overall internet marketing strategy. When you start out, the PPC campaign is critical to get immediate traffic and tweaking the site to maximize conversions. At the same time an SEO campaign should be implemented. As the site rises in search results, PPC campaign should be phased out in the relevant high listings. 

PPC and seo marketing are not mutually exclusive. When married together as part of an overall marketing strategy, both platforms will deliver. 

Popular Viral Marketing Techniques 

Viral Marketing is about giving away your own free product or service with your ad copy (contact information, links, email, etc.). In contrast, recipients of your free product allowed to pass it on to their customers, potential customers, visitors and others as a cost-free. This is a quick way to multiple your marketing at no additional expense and without extra effort on your part. 

Here are a few popular viral marketing techniques to follow:

1. Ebooks - Share your free ebook with your website visitors. Include a nice full-color ad for your most popular product line with links to your site and email. Tell recipients to share copies of e-book with their visitors and other contacts. 

2. Software - Share a trial or "lite" version of your software with your website visitors as a free. Do not forget to include this ad for your most popular product line with links to your site and email. And tell recipients to share copies of the software with their own site visitors and other contacts. For help creating software, hire help from online bid sites like Elance.com. 

3. Web Host - Offer to host small business websites on your server free of charge. In return, place your own banner ad at the top of the website for viral marketing. You can set a fold for their site and they can choose their own domain name and have it redirected to that folder. 

4. Templates - Design your own website or other templates, include your own marketing information on them and give them away as a free download or as an electronic package. Permit recipients to pass them along. 

5. Articles - write articles about your industry. Include your website and contact information in the byline and grant permission for others to publish, as long as they keep the byline intact. So people can use your contact on websites, in Ezines, newsletters and other places where, once again, viral marketing will speed the spread of information about your business. 

6. Discussion Board - Creating a discussion forum on your website with your banner ad attached at the top. And invite others to link to it and use it for their own sites. 

In summary, using viral marketing strategies you can reach across the Internet with much less effort. See which methods works best for you and repeat them as often as necessary.