If you’re looking to begin a career, hobby or part-time job in online marketing, you have to get your facts straight from the beginning. If your goal is to make money by working from home and building websites than these internet marketing terms will also come in handy as you make your journey. Here are some key words and phrases that a beginner internet marketer must know.
Affiliate marketing –
In affiliate marketing there are two separate parties involved. You have the advertiser and then you have the person showing the advertisement or otherwise spreading the word. The person showing the ads or recruiting people to get to a different website don’t actually sell or offer anything, rather they get commissions or fees for getting customers for the advertiser. When you become an affiliate, you can display ads on your website, write blog posts about products or engage in countless activities geared towards generating sales for somebody else, which you then receive a portion of.
Search Engine Optimization –
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of fine tuning a website, article or other online presence towards being found and rated highly on the search engines. Google uses a complex algorithm for ranking web pages based on their Page Rank system, keywords, page titles, links into the site and more. When you participate in SEO activities therefore, you’re literally optimizing your content by trying to supply what a search engine like Google is looking for, in the form of appropriately placed keywords, keyword density, quality content and so on.
Search Engine Marketing –
It’s easy to get search engine marketing (SEM) confused with search engine optimization (SEO), which is described above. The main difference is that everything you do with search engine optimization you are doing organically, meaning that you aren’t paying for anything. Search engine marketing also incorporates paid elements of marketing a website, product or other online content online. This can include advertising in search results on Google, paying for directory listings on Yahoo or paying for other marketing services.
Pay Per Click (PPC) –
When you advertise on a search engine such as Google, you are participating in a pay per click, or PPC, program. Just as it sounds, you are paying an amount based directly on how many people actually click on your ads. So if nobody clicks on your advertisement, it was free! Of course, then nobody actually went to your website and you didn’t get any traffic either. When you rank highly in Google using SEO techniques, you’re said to be fostering organic search engine results. PPC or sponsored listings on the top or side of a Google page are not counted in organic results, but rather as paid results.
Niche store/niche website –
An online niche store or niche website is a very narrowly focused website that offers information about a specific subject. The more narrow the focus of a niche website is, the more likely it actually falls into the “niche” range and is generating highly interested traffic. A website about tools would not be a niche website, but a website about cordless power drills would be considered a niche website. A less focused website may gather more visitors but have most of them be uninterested to buy a product, click a link or sign up for something.
