Simon Turner

The beginners guide to Online Marketing – Part One

Launching into the online world can be confusing for newbie internet marketers, experienced traditional marketers or small business owners looking to give themselves an online boost.

I only started in internet marketing two years ago, so I can still remember with perfect clarity how over facing it is when you come up against the mountain of acronyms, the plethora of tools, and the myriad of bloggers trying to shove advice down your throats. So I thought I’d add some of mine into the mix!

I’m going to publish a series of quick guides on the Internet Marketing basics to try to help those starting out get to grips with the fundamentals.

This first lesson is just giving a grounding in the search lexicon to set up the more in depth posts over the next few days:

Lesson 1: Get to grips with the acronyms.

The industry is full of them, and until you know these your head will be spinning reading even the most basic online marketing tips. Here are some of the most frequently used to start you off:

SEO: Search Engine Optimisation – The is the process of making your website rank highly in the search engines

PPC: Pay Per Click – referrs to the online advertising model where you are charged everytime somebody clicks on your ad. Most frequently associated with Paid Search through the likes of Google Adwords

CPC: Cost Per Click – In pay per click advertising this is the amount you are paying per click.

CPA: Cost Per Acquisition (or Action) – This is how much it costs you per sale/sign up/lead. Again associated with PPC, or commonly Affiliate marketing

ROI: Return on investment – The most important phrase to learn. Online is great because you can measure everything. This means you have to prove a good return on your spend be it through paid search, email marketing or how much you pay your SEO agency. Also remember to demand any agency can prove an ROI or get rid.

CTR: Click Through Rate – another PPC term, this is the % of users that click on your advert out of it’s total impressions.

Conversion Rate: Ok so this one’s not an acronym, but a vital term. It’s the % of visitors who take a desired action on your website.

SERPs: Search Engine Results Page – Exactly what is says on the tin.

And too many more to mention. Come across an acronym you don’t understand? Drop me a comment and i’ll see if I can help.Check back for:

The beginners guide to SEO
The beginners guide to Paid Search
The beginners guide to Link Building
The beginners guide to Social Media