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Importance of SEO and SEM Software for Small Businesses

Search engine optimization (SEO). Search engine marketing (SEM). Is there a difference? And do real people really market to search engines?

If you’ve been in the SEO/SEM industry for any amount of time, you may have already rolled your eyes at the “market to search engines” question. Then again, it’s a valid question, particularly if coming from somebody who is new to the space.

Just so we’re on the same page here, let’s address the question, shall we?

First off, it’s not the search engines per se that marketers cater to. SEO and SEM are, in fact, a form of customer service, in as much as more and more people use the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others) to search for information, including reviews and expert opinion, about businesses, products and services prior to making a purchase or commitment.

All told, this type of marketing is bringing to people what they’re looking for through the search engines.

SEO and SEM – is there a difference?

Chelsea Adams, the Senior content writer of Bruce & Clay Inc has written an article about the eternal question: “Does SEM include SEO?”

She goes on to explain that when SEM was originally coined by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land in 2001, it was a term that included all forms of search engine marketing, paid or otherwise. Recently, however, SEM has come to mean paid search advertising, such as PPC (pay per click), CPC (cost per click), and geo-targeting, while SEO became more focused on the organic (or unpaid) side of search marketing.

So, yes, there’s a difference, but they don’t have to be mutually exclusive, as most online marketers would suggest, If you’re about to squeeze the maximum benefit from your search engine marketing campaigns, you need to be aware of every Tips to drive traffic.

SEO and SEM software – the advantages

Because search marketing is undoubtedly a vital component of online marketing, it’s no surprise that the market is teeming with various tools to simplify the process and make it more efficient.

Here are some of the known benefits of SEO/SEM software:

1. Better search marketing insight through analytics

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” Whether or not you subscribe to this premise, the fact remains that analytics is an indispensable feature of SEO/SEM software. In the case of web traffic analytics software, like Google Analytics and SimilarWeb, you’re afforded a clear view into how your website is performing in terms of traffic: which pages get the most views, where your site visitors are coming from, which channels (e.g., social media, search, and display ads) are sending you the most traffic, even the keywords searchers use.

All these are information to help you understand if your SEO strategies are on point, which keywords to target in your next PPC/CPC bid, among others.

2. Brand awareness/visibility

Brand visibility isn’t something that freely falls from the skies. It’s a result of careful planning and strategizing, and a combination of a whole spectrum of marketing activities, including SEO and SEM. As Neil Patel from QuickSprout describes in his article ” How to Build Brand Awareness for Your Business ”, there is no hard-and-fast rule to building brand awareness, as “it varies from business to business.”

But as the number of Internet users continually rises, not taking advantage of various online marketing platforms to boost your brand’s visibility can be a costly mistake.

3. Increase in targeted traffic

Visibility into the results of your search engine marketing activities allows you to take the necessary mitigating actions when your website traffic objectives aren’t being met. While backlinks are no longer the only factors to achieve optimum search engine ranking, backlink analyzers, such as Ahrefs and Open Site Explorer, help spruce up a site’s link profile by evaluating the quality of a link, anchor text variance and usage, total links versus linking domains, among others.

These, plus the information provided by your traffic tool, afford you the knowledge to better optimize your site for search engine users, a task that can ultimately bring more traffic to your website.

4. Better conversion rates

There are two types of traffic: traffic and targeted traffic. People may come to your site through the keyword “women’s clothing.” However, if your site specifically caters to “clothing for pregnant women,” expect some of them to exit the site as soon as they find there’s nothing for them there.

With targeted traffic, your conversion rates have a better fighting chance, and software can help identify the keywords to match your SEO/SEM objectives.

5. Lower costs

Although there usually is some form of financial investment involved when using an SEO/SEM software, the ROI benefits are far greater than when you’re blindly strategizing your search marketing initiatives, not knowing whether any of your previous and current efforts work or not.

SEO and SEM software – some examples

We have created our Cloudswave Awards 2014 for the 10 Best SEO and SEM Software but here a few of them to check out right now :

1. Ahrefs is a website analysis toolset with features that include Site Explorer, Backlink Checker, Batch Analysis, Domain Comparison, and Crawl Reports.

2. Moz Analytics. A marketing analytics software that provides robust API for social influence and link data, Moz Analytics is an all-in-one tool offering marketing insights, custom reporting, and actionable recommendations for better performance.

3. SEO Toolkit. Microsoft’s SEO Toolkit helps hosting providers, web developers, and site administrators via recommendations to improve their websites’ relevance and search engine performance.

4. Screaming Frog SEO Spider. The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop tool that fetches key onsite page elements (links, images, CSS, apps, and scripts) for SEO analysis. The data is presented in tabular form and can be exported into Excel.

5. Link Prospector. Link Prospector helps marketers find quality link opportunities via niche directories, link pages, sponsorships, guest blogging, and more.

6. Monitor Backlinks. As its name suggests, Monitor Backlinks notifies SEO practitioners and marketers when their backlinks are removed, changed, or about to expire.

7. SEOprofiler offers a suite of SEO tools for keyword research, link building and management, competitive intelligence, and website audit.

http://www.business2community.com/seo/importance-seo-sem-software-small-businesses-growth-01125204

6 min read 7 Steps to Defining Your Niche Market

Image credit: George Redgrave | Flickr

In their book, Start Your Own Business, the staff of Entrepreneur Media, Inc. guides you through the critical steps to starting a business, then supports you in surviving the first three years as a business owner. In this edited excerpt, the authors explain how you can find the right niche for your entrepreneurial needs.

You’ve come up with a great idea for a business, but you’re not ready to roll yet. Before you go any further, the next step is figuring out just who your market is.

There are two basic markets you can sell to: consumer and business. These divisions are fairly obvious. For example, if you're selling women’s clothing from a retail store, your target market is consumers; if you're selling office supplies, your target market is businesses (this is referred to as “B2B” sales). In some cases—for example, if you run a printing business—you may be marketing to both businesses and individuals.

No business—particularly a small one—can be all things to all people. The more narrowly you can define your target market, the better. This process is known as creating a niche and is key to success for even the biggest companies. Walmart and Tiffany are both retailers, but they have very different niches: Walmart caters to bargain-minded shoppers, while Tiffany appeals to upscale jewelry consumers.

“Many people talk about ‘finding’ a niche as if it were something under a rock or at the end of the rainbow, ready-made. That's nonsense,” says Lynda Falkenstein, author of Nichecraft: Using Your Specialness to Focus Your Business, Corner Your Market and Make Customers Seek You Out. Good niches don't just fall into your lap; they must be carefully crafted.

Rather than creating a niche, many entrepreneurs make the mistake of falling into the “all over the map” trap, claiming they can do many things and be good at all of them. These people quickly learn a tough lesson, Falkenstein warns: “Smaller is bigger in business, and smaller is not all over the map; it’s highly focused.”

Creating a good niche, Falkenstein advises, involves following a seven-step process:

1. Make a wish list.

With whom do you want to do business? Be as specific as you can. Identify the geographic range and the types of businesses or customers you want your business to target. If you don’t know whom you want to do business with, you can’t make contact. “You must recognize that you can’t do business with everybody,” Falkenstein cautions. Otherwise, you risk exhausting yourself and confusing your customers.

These days, the trend is toward smaller niches. Targeting teenagers isn’t specific enough; targeting male, African American teenagers with family incomes of $40,000 and up is. Aiming at companies that sell software is too broad; aiming at Northern California-based companies that provide internet software sales and training and have sales of $15 million or more is a better goal.

2. Focus.

Clarify what you want to sell, remembering that a) you can’t be all things to all people and b) smaller is bigger. Your niche isn't the same as the field in which you work. For example, a retail clothing business is not a niche but a field. A more specific niche may be “maternity clothes for executive women.”

To begin this focusing process, Falkenstein suggests using these techniques to help you:

• Make a list of things you do best and the skills implicit in each of them.
• List your achievements.
• Identify the most important lessons you've learned in life.
• Look for patterns that reveal your style or approach to resolving problems.

Your niche should arise naturally from your interests and experience. For example, if you spent 10 years working in a consulting firm but also spent 10 years working for a small, family-owned business, you may decide to start a consulting business that specializes in small, family-owned companies.

3. Describe the customer’s worldview.

A successful business uses what Falkenstein calls the Platinum Rule: “Do unto others as they would do unto themselves.” When you look at the world from your prospective customers’ perspective, you can identify their needs or wants. The best way to do this is to talk to prospective customers and identify their main concerns.

4. Synthesize.

At this stage, your niche should begin to take shape as your ideas and the client’s needs and wants coalesce to create something new. A good niche has five qualities:

• It takes you where you want to go—in other words, it conforms to your long-term vision.
• Somebody else wants it—namely, customers.
• It’s carefully planned.
• It’s one-of-a-kind, the “only game in town.”
• It evolves, allowing you to develop different profit centers and still retain the core business, thus ensuring long-term success.

5. Evaluate.

Now it’s time to evaluate your proposed product or service against the five criteria in Step 4. Perhaps you’ll find that the niche you had in mind requires more business travel than you’re ready for. That means it doesn’t fulfill one of the above criteria—it won’t take you where you want to go. So scrap it, and move on to the next idea.

6. Test.

Once you have a match between niche and product, test-market it. “Give people an opportunity to buy your product or service—not just theoretically but actually putting it out there,” Falkenstein suggests. This can be done by offering samples, such as a free mini-seminar or a sample copy of your newsletter. The test shouldn’t cost you a lot of money: “If you spend huge amounts of money on the initial market test, you're probably doing it wrong,” she says.

7. Go for it!

It’s time to implement your idea. For many entrepreneurs, this is the most difficult stage. But fear not: If you did your homework, entering the market will be a calculated risk, not just a gamble.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/240163