Web site Promotion Experts

Glossary of Terms

In Internet marketing alot of strange sounding terms like "viral marketing" get thrown around. Here are our definitions of a few of the words we use to help you understand what we are talking about:

Affiliate Programs - Affiliate programs enable affiliates to leverage their traffic and customer base in order to profit from e-commerce while merchants benefit from increased exposure and sales.

Algorithm - In the context of search engines, it is the mathematical programming system used to determine which web pages are displayed in search results.

Co-branding – This is a system that provides your website's content with the look of your partner’s website creating a seamless transition for the visitor.

Directory - A directory is a web site that focuses on listing web sites by individual topics; it is a quasi table of contents. A search engine lists pages, where a Directory (such as Looksmart or The Open Directory Project) lists websites.

E-mail Campaign - These campaigns contain appealing content concerning your product, and are targeted at a specific market.

Hits - A request for a file on a webserver. Most often these can be graphic files and documents.

Keyword - A singular word or phrase that is typed into a search engine search query. Keyword mainly refers to popular words which relate to any one website. For example, a web site about real estate could focus on keywords such as House, or phrases such as Home for Sale.

Link Exchange - When two websites swap links to point at each other.

Link Popularity - A count of the number of links pointing (inbound links) at a website. Many search engines now count linkage in their algorithms.

META Tags - Author generated source code that is placed in the header section of an HTML document. Current popular meta tags that can affect search engine rankings are keywords and description. The meta KEYWORDS tag is used to group a series of words that relate to a website. These tags can be used by search engines to classify pages for searches. The meta DESCRIPTION is used to describe the document. The meta description is then displayed in search engine results.

Off-line Promotion – This refers to the marketing and promotion of your site in such traditional manners as networking, print advertising, media, event sponsorship, and merchandising.

Paid Placement - A paid placement search engine charges websites on a per visitor basis.

Qualified Traffic – Visitors who are specifically seeking websites with content such as yours.

Referral Program – Referring a customer to your website in a manner outside the realm of the Internet.

Return on Investment - In relation to search engine advertising, it often refers to sales per lead.

Robot - A program that automatically does "some action" without user intervention. In the context of search engines, it usually refers to a program that mimics a browser to download web pages automatically. A spider is a type of robot. See also: Spiders.

Search Engine - A program designed to search a database. In the context of the Internet this refers to a web site that contains a database of information from other websites.

Search Engine Submission - A service that will automatically submit your pages or website to many search engines at once.

Site Optimization – This is the act of creating a page that is specifically intended to rank well on search engines. Basic optimization includes making sure that your META tags are narrowly defined for your site, your robots.txt file is in order, your keywords are optimized for your site, and the structure of your pages meets the various requirements of search engines and spiders.

Spiders - The main program used by search engines to retrieve web pages to include in their database. See also: Robot.

Traffic - A reference to the number of visitors a web site receives.

Unique Visitor - A single individual website visitor. Visitors (or users) can visit multiple pages within a site. Unique users are important because it is an indication of success of a website. If you have high visitor counts, but relatively low page per user counts, that indicates that people are not finding your site attractive enough to sit and read through it. On the other hand, if you have low visitor counts and very high page per user counts, that is an indication your site is providing good information to people and you should do a better job of promotion. High page per user counts indicate good site potential, while low page per user counts indicate you need to rework the site with more content or better displays.

Viral Marketing - Viral marketing is the extremely powerful and unique ability of the Internet to build self-propagating visitor streams, bringing about exponential growth to a company's Web site. This can consist of such things as affiliate programs, co-branding, link exchanges, e-mail campaigns, and off-line promotion.

Q: What is site optimization?
A: Site optimization is the change of a web site's coding and content to match the requirements of a search engine algorithm. This is necessary for the website to be prominently positioned within the results ranking for a given keyword or search phrase.

Q: What is an algorithm?
A: An algorithm is a list of requirements used by search engines to determine the relevancy of a website for a given search phrase or keyword.

Q: Why can’t I use an off-the-shelf program to do my optimization?
A: Search engines are dynamic. They constantly change their algorithm structures and requirements throughout the year, sometimes monthly. It is unlikely that an algorithm written even six months ago is going to have the most current criteria necessary to get your website listed. Also, depending on the algorithm used, some submittal / optimization programs violate the acceptable use policies of the search engines and can actually get your website banned or permanently dropped from the results index.

Q: How do you analyze and handle changes in search engine ranking algorithms?
A: Our software maintains an ongoing log of changes within the search engines as it relates to their algorithm requirements. These changes are then compared against our database of current optimized pages for your site. If necessary, the content of your pages is re-optimized based upon new algorithm requirements, and your pages are re-submitted to these search engines.

Q: How closely do you work with the search engines?
A: SiteNexus has several partnerships / affiliate agreements in place with the major search engines that allow us to provide paid inclusion and direct input of client content within the search engine indexes.

Q: Why should I submit to search engines and directories?
A: Research has shown that 85% of all website traffic comes from search engines. Having your website listed on all of the major search engines is critical to the success of your business.

Q: How long does it take for the search engines to list my site?
A: It is entirely up to each search engine or directory. A few search engines index a site almost immediately, but some engines can take 6-12 weeks or longer.

Q: What is a meta tag?
A: META tags are used by some search engines to determine the ranking of your site in their search results. Therefore, META tags should be optimized in order to obtain a higher search engine ranking.

Q: Do I need meta tags?
A: Yes. The most important "tag" is the title, followed by the description "tag". If these are tags are optimized, there is a much greater chance of customers finding your site on search engines.

Q: Which search engines and directories do you submit to?
A: If you choose our Premium Submission Service, we submit your site to over 30 major search engines and directories. These are the ones that will generate traffic to your site. No junk, just real search engines and directories.

Q: Why isn't my site listed on the search engines?
A: This occurs for a variety of reasons. Many search engine and directory sites require between 6 weeks to 6 months to list a site.

Q: Parts of my site are "under construction". Can I still submit it to the search engines?
A: We recommend that you do not submit sites with "under construction" pages, most search engines and directories will not accept these sites.

Q: What is Paid Placement?
A: Paid placement is a model where the person placing the highest per-click price for a keyword achieves the highest placement or ranking. Users can achieve a high ranking on most major engines within the very same day versus waiting for weeks or months with the regular search engines. You will also receive a guaranteed placement on every keyword you choose without needing to tweak the content of your pages. You'll then keep your ranking until someone outbids you. When this happens, your listing will be pushed down a notch.

Q: What Are the Benefits of Paid Placement?
A: The major benefit of paid placement is that it is highly targeted advertising. You are guaranteed to be near the top of the search results for keywords chosen by you.

Q: What is Viral Marketing?
A: Viral Marketing is the extremely powerful and unique ability of the Internet to build self-propagating visitor streams, bringing about exponential growth to a company's Web site.

Q: What does Viral Marketing consist of?
A: Components of viral marketing can consist of affiliate programs, co-branding, link exchanges, e-mail campaigns, and off-line promotion.

Q: What are the benefits of a Viral Marketing program?
A: The major benefit of a viral marketing program is it's a cost-effective means of reaching new prospective customers or members. This occurs by current customers or members sharing your idea or campaign with other similar people with whom they have a trusting relationship.

Q: I don’t want to keep paying outside companies for web promotion services. Can you train my employees on how to do this?
A: Yes. We can provide customized training to your employees in every area of website promotion. Train at our office, or your place of business.

Q: We have a very unique product that we need to promote to a very specialized customer group. Can you help us to create a marketing plan for our company?
A: Yes. We have helped dozens of companies by creating a unique marketing plan for their individual needs.