Marketing concepts have changed rapidly in the recent past as a result of numerous technological advancements. Marketers focus on online marketing because it reaches a wider audience and gives results quickly. Customers on the other hand have been empowered, which makes it is possible for them to acquire relevant information about different companies, their products and authenticity.
Online marketing comprises of activities, which aim at creating online customer relationships. Analysis of needs of customers and strategising on how to satisfy them is done online.
Online marketing also makes it possible for customers to purchase their products with ease and learn more about new products in the market. This encourages globalisation due to removal of barriers that prevent buying and selling between different countries.
Online marketing is also used to make reference to internet or direct marketing. It is relatively cheaper, when compared with other marketing channels such as print and electronic media advertising.
Companies can use email and websites to communicate their messages to their customers since it involves little costs. There are different types of online marketing . This paper is a report to a hotel marketing manager explaining issues surrounding online marketing.
Search Engine Optimisation
Search engine optimisation (SEO), refers to techniques and strategies that are applied in order to increase the number of people who visit a website. This is achieved through acquiring a high rank in terms of placement, when internet users use a search engine.
Some of the most popular search engines include Google, Yahoo and Bing among others. SEO increases accessibility of a site to search engines and makes it possible for the website to be found through search engines. Internet users click through thousands of pages and scrutinise the search results. As a result, the ranking of a site during data search is crucial since it enables more traffic to flow towards it.
A higher ranking of a site indicates more chances of the site being visited by internet users. SEO is basically a combination of best practices that experts and webmasters who produce web content use to attain good ranking after search engine results .
One important thing that should be understood about SEO is that it does not have human qualities. However, search engines and human beings view web pages in almost similar ways. Search engines are driven by text and despite the fact that numerous technological advancements have taken place, they do not possess features of intelligent human beings.
They crawl the web, scrutinising various site contents to understand the basic idea. In order to achieve the desired results, search engines carry out different tasks such as processing, crawling, calculating, indexing and data retrieval (Spindler, 2010).
A search engine starts by crawling the web for available content. A software known as a spider or a crawler is responsible for this function. The software follows links in different pages and indexes all content that is found. Crawling is followed by indexing of the content found.
A page that has been indexed is saved in a large database for future use. The importance of indexing is to identify the most suitable words that describe a page and use of particular keywords that are peculiar to the website. Human beings cannot process large amounts of information but search engines do it effectively.
Once a search request appears, it is processed by the search engine. This involves making a comparison between search engines used in a search request and indexed pages available in a database. Finally, the search engine calculates page relevancy .
Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing is a technique that enables internet users to type complicated phrases on a search engine and obtain answers instantly. Search engines copy webpages and then store available content. The information is later used to provide answers to search questions.
When an internet user types key words, a search engine lists pages with particular sites, which are ranked on the basis of their relevance. This is tricky to companies because relevance is a difficult concept to explain especially with rival companies, which rank higher during internet search .
In order to understand the concept of search engine marketing clearly and how it is applied in marketing, it is important to look at the players involved. The first player, who is involved in search engine marketing, is a search engine company. The most common search engines are Yahoo, Google and others such as Ask.com and Live Search, which are operated by Microsoft Windows.
The second player in search engine marketing is the web spider. This is an automated script, which is relayed to the internet by search engines. It functions like a crawler and visits different websites through their page links. Every piece of information that is available is copied, and then transmitted to the search engine where it is indexed. The spiders ideally rely on text.
However, some of them can process information that is not based on text, although they do not do it effectively. Successful websites that benefit from a web spider use text. The web spider plays an important role in dictating how companies redesign their websites and marketing strategies.
The idea is that for companies to have information about their products displayed on a webpage, which can be seen via a search engine, internet users must be able to access the page. In addition, the spider must be able to view the content .
The third player in search engine marketing is the index. A search engine breaks down the content it receives into metadata. Different search engines have their own secret algorithms, which are used in analysing data on the basis of relevancy .
The fourth player in search engine marketing is a searcher. Most internet searchers do not know how to search for information because they type long phrases that do not make sense. Internet searchers should use relevant keywords in order to get the right information.
The fifth player in search engine marketing is a search engine specialist. This is an expert who offers assistance to individuals on how to develop high ranking websites. Most specialists campaign for link popularity and paid searches.
Application of Website Marketing
Since use of the internet has been beneficial to business organisations, the hotel can use its current website as a marketing tool. The first way through which the website can be used as a marketing tool is through posting product descriptions together with their photos on the website. This is an important strategy because most customers search for products and services offered by different companies via their websites.
This would create competitive advantage for the hotel. The second way through which the website can be used is through direct sales to customers. This would place the hotel ahead of its competitors. Most consumers prefer purchasing their products online rather than in stores or via telephone. The third way through which the hotel can use its website is through reaching many customers.
This would enable it to build relationships with customers in different parts of the world because the internet has no limitations. Finally, the hotel can also use its website to generate sales through other methods apart from sales to customers. This would be done through selling advertising space to different business organisations in order to market their products .
Application of Blogging
Another marketing strategy that the hotel can use is blogging. To use blogging successfully, the hotel should establish a blog that its customers would be able to identify with. The blog should also be visually and textually appropriate. For instance, the hotel can look for relevant content that would be appealing to the customers. It can also provide numerous graphics, videos and other types of content to attract its customers.
Blogging is aimed at creating internal traffic on an organisation’s internet channels. Through blogging, the hotel can post phrases that would enable internet users to get the right information about products and services offered. It also enables business organisations to post links on the blogs, which are used by clients to search for information.
Application of Social Networking
Marketing through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter has become a popular marketing strategy. To begin with, the hotel would be able to create a fan page on Facebook through which customers would get information about goods and services that it offers.
Social networking would also enable the hotel to learn more about preferences of the customers and things that they would like to be done. Finally, the hotel would be able to attract new customers through social networking and build close and beneficial relationships with its customers .
Application of User-generated Content Sites
Finally, the hotel can employ user-generated content sites to attract customers, increase sales and learn more about the market. A user-generated content website is a website whose content is developed by people who visit it. Since most of the people who would visit the hotel’s website are its current and potential customers, this would be beneficial to the hotel.
The first benefit of a user-generated content site is that there would be increased engagement between the hotel and its customers. This is because customers would be given an opportunity to express themselves freely.
The second advantage is that a user-generated content site would lead to effective marketing because customers would be able to write reviews about their experience with the hotel and improvements that they would like to see.
The Link between Marketing Theory and Online Marketing
Basic marketing theory postulates that a business organisation should be able to position itself in the market and maximise sales. This occurs through convincing customers that they need goods and services that are provided by the organisation. In addition, it focuses on price and channel marketing.
A business organisation should fix higher prices than its rivals in the market because this enables customers to consider the products as superior. There is a close link between marketing theory and online marketing because different online marketing methods aim at increasing sales and winning loyalty and confidence of customers.
Reference List
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