Search Engine Optimisation
Search Engine Optimisation is an important process that make it easier for a search engine to analyse a website, and, hence, attract more traffic to the website in an organic way. Increase in page visits triggers an increase in performance of online businesses. Hence, in order to increase the productivity of business, it is important to attract people to a website, and search engine optimisation is the cheap way to do it (Yang, Shi, and Wang, 2015). SEO primarily consists of going through the website, and adjusting it in the way that would be more understandable to search engines. The process focuses on structure optimisation, content optimisation, optimisation of key words and so on (Patil and Rajeshkannan, 2013).
There is a large number of guides available in free access that elaborate step by step process of optimising a website.
Social Media Marketing
Social media has become one of the most popular marketing tools in the 21st century. With the development of Web 2.0, there is a significant increase in interaction of people with brands. The development of the trend pressures companies to move from old-fashioned marketing strategies to new ones, that would allow users to feel that they are a part of a brand. Social Media also allows marketers to reach their target audience significantly faster (Balakrishnan and Dahnil, 2014). Nowadays consumers expect to talk to brands and be heard. A study by Simon Hudson, Li Huang, Martin S. Roth, and Thomas J. Madden concluded that the use of social media increases the quality of connection between users and brands, and users tend to give brands that advertise on social media more human characteristics, compared to brands that primarily use traditional marketing techniques (Hudson, Huang, Roth, and Madden, 2016). Another benefit of social media is attractive price and precise targeting. The most of social media platforms allow to set a marketing campaign in the way, that it would reach a very narrow group of people. In fact, by using Facebook, it is possible to make a target audience consist of just of one person, if a marketer has an email or Facebook ID of that person.
Selecting a right platform is a crucial step. The biggest social networks today are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Snapchat. All of them are good for marketing, however each of them have their own specifics. For example, according to Pew Research Center, there are more people in the age group of 18-29 years old on Tumblr compared to other ages present on that platform (“Demographics of Tumblr”). While at the same time LinkedIn’s largest age group is users aged 30-49 years old (“LinkedIn Demographics”). When establishing online presence, companies look at what their target group is, and which social network they primarily use.
Yang, Z., Shi, Y., & Wang, B. (2015). Search Engine Marketing, Financing Ability and Firm Performance in E-commerce. Procedia Computer Science, 55(3rd International Conference on Information Technology and Quantitative Management, ITQM 2015), 1106-1112. doi:10.1016/j.procs.2015.07.078
Patil, S. s., & Rajeshkannan R.1, r. (2013). Search Engine Optimization of E-Commerce Website using Apache SOLR. International Journal Of Advanced Research In Computer Science, 4(3), 215-219.
Balakrishnan, B. K., Dahnil, M. I., & Yi, W. J. (2014). The Impact of Social Media Marketing Medium toward Purchase Intention and Brand Loyalty among Generation Y. Procedia – Social And Behavioral Sciences, 148(2nd International Conference on Strategic Innovative Marketing), 177-185. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.07.032
Hudson, S., Huang, L., Roth, M. S., & Madden, T. J. (2016). The influence of social media interactions on consumer–brand relationships: A three-country study of brand perceptions and marketing behaviors. International Journal Of Research In Marketing, 3327-41. doi:10.1016/j.ijresmar.2015.06.004
“Demographics of Tumblr.” Pew Research Center Internet Science Tech RSS. N.p., 17 Aug. 2015. Web. 5 Apr. 2016. <http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/19/mobile-messaging-and-social-media-2015/2015-08-19_social-media-update_05/>.
“LinkedIn Demographics.” Pew Research Center Internet Science Tech RSS. N.p., 17 Aug. 2015. Web. 5 Apr. 2016. <http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/19/mobile-messaging-and-social-media-2015/2015-08-19_social-media-update_10/>.