Online Marketing Glossary: Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing (SEM):
- Tactics that seek to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results. SEM methods include SEO, paid placement and paid inclusion. It includes the practice of buying paid search listings with the goal of obtaining netter free search listings.
Traffic to your website is the name of the game. SEM is primarily used to drive traffic; from there it’s the marketing and web designer’s job to convert that traffic. While there are many firms that focus on just SEM, many website companies also employ in-house teams to work on SEM. Often times, an in-house employee will be the best at SEM because not only do they know the useful tactics, but they know the product or service background enough to delicately utilize the right tactics effectively.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Shopping Cart
Shopping Cart:
- The term for software that is used to make a site’s product catalog available for online ordering, whereby visitors may select, view, add, delete and purchase merchandise.
We’re all pretty savvy people reading this, so I’m certain that you know (at least in vague terms) what a shopping cart is. Many larger online retailers build their own software for this process, while smaller affiliates and other retail operations often rely on third-party applications to power their stores. Without the shopping cart, e-commerce would be a major hassle and would never have risen to the prevalence it has now.
As an example one of my most frequented online stores, Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, still uses Yahoo! Shopping to power their cart. As retail is just a small arm of the View Askew operation, they have relied on this solution to get them through the bare bones online shopping experience.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Listing
Listing:
- The information that appears on a search engine’s results page in response to a search.
This is basically just the ad unit if it’s a sponsored link or the relevant portion of the website for organic links. Much weight is put on the position of the listing since most users click on the organic listings Non sponsored) first. As well, most needs are met within the first 3-5 links, making any listing position lower than that significantly less effective. Highlighted in the image below is an example of a listing.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Parasite
Parasite:
- Software that works on a person’s computer, typically without their knowledge or consent and without a visible interface. It can include software that’s installed along with another application.
Parasites are pretty universally looked down upon amongst white-hat, legit affiliate marketers. Recently there was a class-action lawsuit against Commission Junction for allowing affiliates using parasitic software to continue earning commissions, so this is serious business. More specific types of software that tend to fall under this category are malware, spyware, and adware.
Whenever you’re installing a program you’ve downloaded from the internet, always pay attention and look into the Custom Installation options to see what unnecessary features or secondary programs might be automatically installed onto your computer. I also periodically take a look at my list of installed programs through my Control Panel to make sure nothing that I don’t recognize got past me. For Mac users check the /Applications/ folder.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Dynamic Content
Dynamic Content:
- Information of webpages which changes, or is changed automatically.
The most relevant dynamic content to online marketing is ad servers. Services like OpenX, Google Ad Manager, and the recent WordPress plugin release MaxBannerAds make it easy to rotate your ads effortlessly to deliver fresh content to your visitors. Widgets also provide great dynamic content.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Affiliate Link
Affiliate Link:
- A piece of code residing in a graphic image or piece of text that is placed on an affiliate’s webpage, notifying the merchant that an affiliate should be credited for the customer or visitor sent to their website.
Traditionally these links have been within banner images or text links, but more and more people are turning to dynamic widgets. Amazon has been the one of the best advertisers to come out with new and dynamic widgets, like their mp3 widgets and carousel widgets.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
