It has been said that anything already invented when you are born is just stuff. And that anything invented before you turn 30 is amazing, life affirming and wonderful. And further that anything invented after your thirties is treated with suspicion and fear. This explains why the previous generation still own VCR’s that don’t show the correct time. And it may also explain why so many brand owners can’t seem to appreciate the incredible power of Web 2.0. It is time to demystify some of the concepts and three letter acronyms of on-line engagement that are frightening most brand owners over 30.
So, in the next several installments we’ll look at such topics as Social Networking (those funny words like facebook, Blogspotter and Twitter), SEO, SEM, SMS mobile and Text and so on. And we promise to not use any big words or any more very small words (like more acronyms) to explain an already confusing concept. Every episode will be irreverent, insensitive to sacred cows and shamelessly self promoting.
So let’s reach into the black hat of mystery and start with search engine optimization and marketing. Currently Google, Yahoo and AOL are the worlds largest search engines and most consumer on-line traffic begins with one of these behemoths. Google alone made over 9 Billion dollars last year in search engine advertising.

While seeking information about how to get grease out of their clothes, or where they can find a new environmentally friendly car, most consumers ‘Google it’ and are blissfully unaware of the interworking of search results. What Marketers need to be aware of is that Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are two of the most powerful tools available to marketers.

SEO is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a brands web site via search engine(s). Under normal circumstances the earlier a site appears in the search results, the more visitors it will receive. Ergo first up is first seen. And first seen is often first bought. Remember when you would find AAAA-1Tow trucking in the yellow pages just ahead of AAA-1 tow trucking!

For Brand owners the SEO opportunity begins with understanding how search engines work and what consumers are searching for. ‘Optimization’ involves editing your site content and its HTML coding to increase its relevance to specific words. It can be a little more complicated than adding an extra ‘A’ to your name so most Marketers will hire professionals. Check out SwiftKICX  Solutions. Their proprietary WebNet software can help build a web site that is truly search engine friendly. More importantly SwiftKICX helps its Clients build web-sites that are engaging easy to navigate and effortless to maintain. There is no sense driving anyone to your site if the view isn’t going to keep them -  or keep them coming back.

Part two is called Search Engine Marketing or Advertising (SEM). Part of the results of any search is actually advertising. Only a few marketing savvy consumers realize that the words ‘sponsored links’ in small letters refers to a section of search results that are part of a pay per click model. In order to drive business to a particular site the brand owner pays the search engine to have its web-site show up in the results page. The key to the pay per click model is that the advertiser only pays what they want and only pays when a consumer clicks on the link to the advertised site.

As an example Google ad words is a pay per click advertising media. Currently the average pay per click (PPC) for the words ‘Automotive Sales’ is about $7.50 and ‘Gardening’ is $1.65 while ‘amateur football’ is only about 28 cents. This means that if you were trying to promote your web-site that featured the latest all-natural organic pesticides you could offer Google ad words a rate of say $2.00 per click and almost be guaranteed that your site would be featured first in any search of those words.

What makes SEM even more efficient and effective is that advertisers can control all the variables in the mix thereby having complete control of the budget. An advertisers can tell Yahoo that they only want to spend X amount in total $ or cut off their campaign at a certain number of click-throughs. They can limit what they would like to spend per click, per word or with a little negotiation per conversion. The increase in ad-revenue of SEM since 2003 is estimated at more than 700%. This is mostly because the business model is transparent, effective and provides tremendous advertiser value.
In the world of Web 2.0 building brand awareness has been replaced with more efficient and effective efforts of increasing consumer engagement and improving brand activation. The technology available also provides for better post activity evaluation. The new consumer is a prosumer. They produce content and even affect production. The ‘tell and sell’ of advertising has been replaced by conversation and dialogue. SwiftKICX understands this and we have the tools to help you establish a dialogue of success with your customers. With our exclusive WebNet software we can build a dynamic platform that can be customized to fit your needs.

As Tom Peters said “The good news is you can start today. The bad news is there is a lot of work to do . . . and you will never be finished.” Take a deep breath, because before you know it we will be discussing web 3.0.