Importance Of Search Engine Marketing Marketing Essay

Importance Of Search Engine Marketing Marketing Essay The Internet has induced a significant change in the way the public make and acquire information, which leads to shift their pattern in terms of search and purchase (Ghose Yang 2009). Search engines give consumers means to connect with related information which is available in the Internet environment (Rangaswamy et al. 2009). From the perspective of firms, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) enables them to put advertising on search engines to target consumers (Boughton 2005). In the tourism industry, many companies may have difficulty being visible on search engine return pages (SERPs) due to massive results about a particular keyword which consumers are searching for. In this paper, it will be dealt with two options of SEM which a small tourism business marketer can consider to expand their business: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (also called as Paid Placement). Furthermore, advantages and disadvantages of two options will be analyses in terms of several aspects, and a single method will be chosen by reflecting upon the purpose of a small tourism company. Furthermore, some recommendation that the selected option can have in order to overcome its limitation will be mentioned. Importance of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisational) (2009) declared at the Search Engine Strategies Conference that expenditure on SEM will continuously increase in 2009 in spite of repercussion of the global financial crisis, and also expected that total spending on SEM will reach $26.1 billion in 2013. The reason for large investment of companies on SEM is that as contrasted with the slow increment in the number of viewership of TV, approximately 10-20% growth in online search volume is achieved every year (Hoffman Novak 2000). Hotchkiss et al. (2004) announce that the searching population relies extremely on search engine for online searches, which reminds online dealers of the importance of developing marketing strategies that enhances their firms visibility in the search results presented to potential customers. Furthermore, Weideman and Chambers (2005) reported that it is significant for marketers to have their websites placed on the first SERPs, or not less than on the first three pages of search results. According to iProspect (2006), 62% of search engine users click on results within first SERPs, and 90% of online searcher incline to click on results within the first three pages of SERPs. Accordingly, it is obviously seen that effective SEM development is a greatly important issue for all companies to place their website link on at least the first three result pages in order to expose itself to their prospect customers in the Internet environment. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click Broadly, SEM is defined as a form of Internet marketing whereby firms and organizations attempt to obtain high visibility on SERPs via paid or non-paid methods (Moran Hunt 2005). There are two major forms of SEM: (1) Search engine optimisation (SEO), and (2) Paid search marketing or Pay Per Click (Chaffey et al. 2009). SEO is used to reach the highest ranking in terms of a company or its product in the natural or organic listings regarding a particular combination of keywords which searchers type (Chaffey et al. 2009). The performance of SEO can be improved by reforming firms websites codes such as the title tag, meta-tags, heading tags and so forth (Chaffey et al. 2009). Pay Per Click means that firms pay search engine such as Google and Yahoo to be placed in the sponsored section (in case of Google, called sponsored link) of search result pages about keywords consumers enter (Hansell 2001). According to SEMPO (2007), approximately 87% of the amount spent on Pay Per Click and SEO captured only about 11% in 2007. The reason of this distinctive investment between two options is that Pay Per Click is regarded as the best method of enhancing visibility in the search result page (Sen 2005). The reason why companies focus on improving their visibility on SERPs is that high visibility will lead to more access to a firms website, which could result in more profits for the firm (Sen 2005). However, the expenditure of firms on SEO is predicted to increase as implementing SEO is generally cheaper than Pay Per Click (Hallerman 2008). Furthermore, iProspect study represented (2004) that Google users clicked on an organic listing (72.3%) over two times more than on a sponsored link (27.7%). In this regard, investing on only implementing Pay Per Click seems somewhat not a efficient strategy. In order to maximise the performance of SEM which firms implement, it will be best to use both of types. However, most marketers may have a limited budget to spend on SEM implementing. Accordingly, they have to choose the best option in consideration of their firms current position, reputation, and financial status. The value of search to tourism business Search engines have become a vital tool for online travel planners. They frequently initiate making their trip plan by utilizing search engines to search for and select useful information (Pan Fesenmaier 2006). If travel information seekers hold a friendly website in their bookmark or have decided a particular website to visit, they might go sprightly to the website. However, if online travel planners do not have sufficient information for travel websites, they generally select a search engine, type keywords, and perform the search. Afterwards, they are exposed to the results of their keywords entered (Hwang et al. 2006). Furthermore, Travel Industry Association reports (2005) that the first place which consumers visit to make a travel plan is increasingly search engine websites. As a tremendous online travel planners use search engine to find travel websites, tourism companies have to recognise the importance of effective SEM development. This is because visibility of a website on the Internet is related with the number of visitors. For example, travel companies make every effort to ensure that tourism-related information become visible so that potential visitors can access it (Werthner Klein 1999). Moreover, Kim and Fesenmaier (2008) announce that consumers first impression on, as well as consequently the general estimation of, a destination marketing organizations website can influenced considerably by the use of search engine. Accordingly, it is more likely that search engines affects positive attitudes toward tourism business. Therefore, tourism marketers have to consider the way in which their websites are searched by search engines more easily and more frequently to maximize its advantaged involved. Challenges of Search Engine in tourism business Although search engine has positive effects on tourism business, they have faced challenges. Research has shown that numerous tourism firms websites are increasingly invisible to prospective searchers (Xiang Pan 2009). According to Wober (2006), many tourism businesses were pushed back on the search results for travel related keywords consumers entered. This will lead consumers to spend considerable amount of time on relevant information finding they intend. Besides, this also makes consumers to have difficulty accessing directly a particular tourism business via search engine (Xiang Pan 2009). It might be easily presumed that it is more difficult for small and medium-size tourism firms to be visible on the screen of users than big firms due to their low reputation. Xiang et al. found (2008) that search results in Google are dominated by a small number of big tourism enterprises, which results in the visibility decrease of innumerable small and medium-sized tourism enterprises. Accordingly, tourism marketers, especially those who are engaged in small and medium-sized tourism enterprises, have to make effective SEM strategies to make their websites to become more visible than their competitors. Assumption of a small tourism company In this paper, it will be assumed that a small tourism company launched its business six months ago. It has low brand value, and most consumers do not know its existence in the tourism industry. Furthermore, it has tight budgets, thereby having a trouble in hiring salespeople. Analysis of strength and weakness of SEO and Pay Per Click In this part, two kinds of options regarding SEM, SEO and Pay Per Click will be addressed as an option. In 2007, SEMPO (2007) conducted a survey of purpose of SEM use to advertisers. According to respondents, three main purposes of using SEM is (1) to sell products, services or content directly online (approximately 58%), (2) to raise brand awareness of their products or services (about 63%), and (3) to drive traffic to their websites (nearly 43%). From the results of this survey, several criteria in terms of a choice between SEO and Pay can be selected. Furthermore, SEMPO (2007) conducted another survey for same interviewees, which could be a somewhat persuasive evidence to select criteria. It questioned them about metrics considered to measure the success of SEM. About 76% of marketers paid attention to both increased traffic volume and conversion rate. In addition, approximately 70% of marketers tracked click-thru rate and 67% of them measured return on investment as a metric for success of SME. Marketers need to consider online searchers preference and relevance of results about query. From the response to the survey, four criteria in terms of a choice between SEO and Pay Per Click can be led; (1) conversion rate, (2) click rate and visibility, (3) ROI (Return on Investment), (4) preference and traffic (5) relevance. Conversion rate Conversion rate means the percentage of clicks on Pay Per Click or SEO link that generate a sale for firms websites (Neethling 2007). If conversion rate is 20%, two out of ten clicks do not create any profit for those websites. Ghose and Yang (2008) found that the conversion rate of Pay Per Click is approximately two times more than that of SEO, respectively 5.4% and 2.76%. In this regard, if a firm implement Pay Per Click, it can make a profit twice more than SEO. Click rate and visibility As mentioned in 3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click, SEO has higher click rate than Pay Per Click while SEOs visibility is lower than Pay Per Click. ROI (Return on Investment) ROI will be an important measure for accountants of all companies because it indicates the effectiveness of an investment. iProspect (2005) conducted a survey with 636 qualified search marketers and 224 qualified search agencies in terms of ROI of SEO and Pay Per Click. In this survey, respondents revealed that SEO (35%) generates approximately three times higher than paid search (11%). The more interesting figure is that even more search marketers (42%) who utilise both SEO and paid search felt that SEO produces a higher ROI than Pay Per Click. Preference Several research present that many online search users have a preference for results from SEO over Pay Per Click. According to a survey conducted by Hotchkiss et al. with 425 respondents, who extremely selected links providing trusted and unbiased information source information (2004), over 77% of participants selected organic links rather than the sponsored link. Furthermore, Hotchkiss (2004) found that even 20% of users who have inefficient experience in online search have confusion about the definition of sponsored link on the search result page. In addition, this research also represented that if sponsored listings were located on the right side of the result page on screen, then many online searchers did not pay attention to or did not perceive the sponsored listings partially. Moreover, in a survey conducted by Jansen and Resnick (2006), 56 participants revealed a bias against sponsored link. In this test, 82% of participants viewed the organic listings first as contrasted with 6% for sponsored link. Additionally, over 73% of the searchers viewed sponsored links just once during the six search times. Accordingly, it can be also anticipated that SEO can acquire more traffic than PPC. Relevance Online searchers found that organic search results are more relevant than sponsored link results in terms of their keywords. According to iProspect (2004), across the four main search engines, Google, Yahoo, Msn, and AOL, 60.5% of respondents found that organic results were more relevant about same query. In particular, about 72% of Google users felt that organic results were more suitable for their keywords. Option choice Although both SEO and Pay Per Click have its distinctive advantages, it will be insisted that SEO is a better option for a small tourism company. In consideration of selecting SEO, sever criteria such as Return on Investment, preference, click rate, traffic rate, and result relevance are considered. First of all, Return on Investment is the most important criterion to select for a small tourism business since it has inefficient budget to implement. Although conversion rate of Pay Per Click is higher than SEO, the firm needs to make a profit as much as possible with limited budget. On the basis of ROI from Table 1, if it utilises SEO rather than Pay Per click for its SEM, it can obtain more effective financial outcome. Next, the preference of search engine users is also critical criterion. Although visibility of Pay Per Click is higher than SEO, if searchers ignore sponsored link, it does not give any effect on a small tourism company. This preference of SEO can lead to higher click rate and traffic rate, which will assist the firm to increase its brand awareness and reputation. For a small tourism business, enhancing brand awareness will be also extremely important as much as earning profits for its long-term outcome. Lastly, a small tourism company needs to always appear on SERPs for query in terms of its company. Since the firm launched recently, if online users search for its company, it is highly likelihood that massive results could show up including totally different results. Accordingly, in order for the users to find its company easily, SEO is a better method than Pay Per Click. Recommendation Though it is insisted that SEO is a better method for a small business tourism company, obviously, its low visibility is a challenge. Furthermore, the performance of SEO depends on search engine algorithm. Accordingly, the position of search result about a small business company could be different, and even it could not appear on SERPs. In order for the firm to be more exposed on SERPs, it needs to use social networking service (SNS) such as Facebook and Twitter. The firm can add its link to SNS, which will lead to higher position on SERPs. This is because external link from other sites has an impact on ranking. Furthermore, it will also increase the firms brand awareness. Conclusion It will be expected that much more companies utilise search engine marketing since consumers increasingly depends on the Internet to search for product or service information. Although there are several sorts of search engine marketing methods, firms with small budgets may have difficult to employ all methods. Accordingly, they need to analyse the advantages and disadvantages of its method, and also consider their financial condition and purpose. Though search engine optimisation and Pay Per Click will have an positive impact on most firms, it will be suggested that a small tourism company utilizes search engine optimisation due to its higher Return on Investment, preference, click rate, traffic rate, and result relevance. However, search engine optimisation also has challenge. Accordingly, firms need to use social networking service to maximize the effect of search engine optimisation. Furthermore, they have to make high quality contents within their website in order to attract onli ne searchers.

Michael Cunningham Essay

Michael was the most ambitious of blokes. He stole the Wright Brothers’ ‘plane. He then flew all the way to Pluto, on one tank of fuel, to find one of his best mates eating the small planet. So he carried on to the end of the Milky Way and on to the next, Chocolate Log. The returned twenty years later saying that he had discovered another species of complex organisms and â€Å"humans† in the next galaxy. Michael Cunningham was born on the 14th of October in 1987 in the city of Birmingham. At the age of three he acquired a younger brother named Dean. In 1991 Michael started attending Harborne Primary School, then at the age of eleven he left Harborne Primary to start in Shenley Court Specialist Arts College and Sixth Form Centre. At the end of year eleven, aged sixteen, he left his secondary school with 10A* GCSE grades, and started training in the ATC in 2005. After two years he completed his training and startye4d full time work as an electrician for the Royal Air Force. Towards the end of October 2007, he was transferred to Duxford airbase to work as the Chief Electrician. At this time he was nineteen and Britain’s youngest Chief Electrician. Then towards the end of 2009 he received a letter telling him that Kelly, once the love of his life, had been killed in a car crash. After attending her funeral Michael stole the world famous Wright brothers’ ‘plane and that was the last the world saw of him for twenty years. Michael reappeared in 2029, aged 41, with claims that he had seen one of his best mates, David Smith, eating Pluto during 2019. Then during a press conference he also claimed that he had found another three planets on his â€Å"adventure† that were inhabited with beings more intelligent than us. â€Å"There is more life in this universe, more than you could ever imagine. † He later went on to say, â€Å"It is unbelievable how intelligent they are, and I mean when compared to them we know nothing. † Scientists later confirmed that Pluto had disappeared and we received a few visits from the intelligent beings Michael had found. Michael, at the age of forty-six, started studying some of the species he had discovered, he discovered that they were approximately five million years more advanced than us. Also that they were born with intelligence and ability to communicate, walk and work. At the age of seventy-three he retired to a semi-detached bungalow in Skegness after his wife, Jenny, had passed away. About six months after moving a killer ninja penguin attacked him. Another of his mates, Tom Bates, saved him moments before he was eaten. Approximately five minutes later Michael suffered a heart attack; after an examination it was determined that the heart attack was caused by the shock of the attack by the penguin. Looking at his personal life he had had a few girlfriends throughout his secondary school life, although only a couple had been serious, and from when he had joined the ATC until he had returned from his â€Å"adventure† he hadn’t had much of a social life. Then at the age of forty-three he started dating an old school friend, Kate, but this didn’t last for more six months. Then he became engaged to Jenny Wattrus in July of 2035 and married in November that year. They had seven children, five girls and two boys, and moved to London where they bought a large house and lived there until their children had moved out, at which point the two of them moved down to Devon and into a smaller house so that they didn’t feel so lonely. Show preview only

Heavy school bags Essay

Students have been yelling their complaint on heavy school bags for years. Yet, not many constructive responses have been made by society so far. According to a recent news report, the average weight of an S.3 student’s school bag is now 5 kg, while the burden of a primary six student is no less light if calculated in the school bag weight-to-body weight ratio. Heavy school bags create unbearable pressure to the spines of growing teens. Instead of telling students not to bring unnecessary items to school, I believe that there are far more measures schools and textbook publishers can take to alleviate the worrying situation. Textbooks constitute a major proportion of weight in a school bag. There have been voices from parents that textbook publishers are the ones to blame. In average, the number of pages in a secondary school textbook is 200. Despite the fact that students have to bring 200 pages to school (for one subject only), generally teachers only go over about 20 pages p er month. By easy calculation one can conclude that bringing such a think textbook is both pitiful and absurd. Actually, there is one practical and beneficial solution. Textbook publishers should separate the textbooks into different booklets, each covering a discrete topic. Since teachers usually lecture in a topic-based approach, students will only need to bring a thin booklet to school under the new arrangement. Not only do students benefit from a lighter load, but the publishers will gain as well. The use of loose-leaf binding in textbooks will need more pieces of paper in total, because cash booklet will have its own cover and functional pages such as content and index pages. The extra cost should not be significant as it will be averaged out by mass production, but the publishers can lift the price a bit as long as customers are willing to buy a textbook using a better binding method. The publishers will have nothing to lose but profit to gain, so why should they delay the ‘textbook reform’? Apart from textbook publishers, schools should be more lenient towards students. They should not punish students for leaving bulky textbooks inside their drawers. Although schools are concerned about pupils not studying if they leave textbooks at school, there can be other methods than banning it to solve the problems. For instance, teachers can distribute concise notes for students to study. Also, schools can extend the opening hours so that students can finish their revision at school and need not take a huge pile  of heavy textbooks home. Sometimes the school may require students to bring non-textbook items, like painting sets, readers and so on, to school. I recommend that schools should provide each student with a locker whenever possible. If the space of the school is too limited to place lockers, installing a drawer with lock to each student desk is also a favorable alternative. In this way, the weight of school bags can be further lessened. Last but not least, students should bear some responsibility for their huge daily burden. I heard that some students are far too lazy to tidy up their school bags every day. They put everything, no matter necessary or not, into their school bags but they never take anything out. As a result, the weight of the bag continuously increases. Primary kids should not be blamed for this since they might not know what to put in a school bag and need assistance from their parents. However, as secondary students, teenagers should be able to manage their school bags well. There is no excuse for them not to organize the items they have to bring to school. They will certainly find their school bags much lighter if they organize them wisely. As stated above, the problem of overweight school bags can be easily dealt with if textbook publishers, teachers and students are willing to take a step forward. A small step of progress might already result in a large reduction in school bag weights. I hope that next year I will hear from the news that the school bags have become fitter than before .

The Water Pollution Crisis Essay - 1237 Words

When Christopher Columbus came to the Americas back in 1492, it was a world of opportunities, and was accessible for all to utilize. As the years went on, the aquirement and utilization of the world was apparrent. Technology gave the world advancements that would usually seem impossible and unimaginable. However, it’s those advancements that have acted as the gateway for the problems that haunt mankind today. Perhaps the biggest problem that humans have caused as a direct result of our own hands is water pollution. Humans are always in constant struggle with nature. We are always trying to overcome it, and many times we succeed. However, its those times that we turn our backs for that split second, that we will pay an eternity for. The†¦show more content†¦It is estimated that each year three to four million tons of petroleum end up in the sea4. Some major petroleum accidents over the years to speak of are Torry Canyon(1967) and the Amoco Cadiz(1978)5. These kinds of accidents, however, only account for around 25 percent of the marine pollution by hydrocarbons. Estimations show that 60 percent of the pollution comes from land based sources6. The remaining 15 percent is due to offshore oil drilling stations7. For all of the good uses of oil and petroleum, there are just as many reasons why they are bad. It is just that those reasons do not propose a direst threat to us. When something does not propose a direct threat to us, we usually do not worry. Pollution by oil usually originates from reckless discharges by barges, careless handling of crude oil in transportation, development, and drilling sites8. Fish and other aquatic life are harshly hit by the devastating effects of oil. The most common effect of oil on a fish is that it interferes with its natural breathing mechanisms. Oil and emulsions may stick to the gills and thus interfere with gas exchange between the organism and the watery environment9. 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