Print Article for : Interactive Marketing Los Angeles

Your Online Guide » Guide to Technology » Web Site Development

[I369]Interactive Marketing Los Angeles

by Ron Wicker, Ron

You can't get away from the Internet these days. Everyone is online, and, if you want your marketing campaigns to hit your target audience, odds are you're going to have to go online as well. This is where interactive marketing agencies come in. "Interactive marketing agencies" are simply agencies that have the capability and the knowledge to make the most of your online marketing campaigns.

People turn to the Internet to find the answers to everything. Picking the right interactive marketing agency for whatever campaign you're launching-whether it be political marketing, sports marketing, or identity formation-involves looking for an agency that
understands search engine optimization. What is search engine optimization, and how do interactive marketing agencies use search engine optimization (SEO) to shape your marketing campaign and get you noticed?

Let's look at sports marketing companies. If someone has a question about tickets for a sporting event or sporting events coming up in an area they're visiting, where are they going to turn? The Internet. They open a browser window and go straight to a search engine, typing in a keyword, hoping that keyword will find them the information they're looking for. An interactive sports marketing company will know how to shape your marketing campaign so that your sporting event comes up in the search engine top 10, a coveted place to be. When you're at the top of the search engine results pages, your marketing agency has just garnered you an extra wave of traffic-and attention.

People also take their political questions to Internet search engines, and political marketing is going to require serious search engine optimization. An interactive marketing agency will want to put your political marketing campaign where everyone will see it -and keep negative campaigning out of site on the search engine results pages. Interactive marketing agencies know how to knock negative political marketing out of the results pages by putting positive spin at the top.

Interactive marketing has taken the place of the traditional advertising agency. Everything about your web presence is a marketing strategy, from your web page design to the placement of banner ads. Articles that appear on your website may be free and informative for your visitors, but they're also there to paint a certain picture of your company, political campaign, or sports franchise. You want to find an interactive marketing agency that has the tools to optimize your content so that it markets to your target customer and increases that web presence. It's not just about billboards anymore-it's about billboards on the side
of the information superhighway.

How do you choose a hosting company? One of the most important factors when choosing a host is determining which tools and services they support and don't support. What statistics or Web analytics packages does your host offer? You don't want to pay a third party a premium for your Web analytics package because your host only provides “free-ware” statistics. Many hosts have strategic relationships with some of the best Web analytics vendors in an effort to provide their customers with powerful site measurement tools bundled into the cost of their hosting packages.

Are you choosing your host because it includes a site building tool? If so, this can be a real advantage to businesses without Web development resources, but buyers should beware that this will most likely impact your Search Marketing initiatives. Most WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) site building applications make optimizing your site for the search engines very difficult at best, with most actually hurting your chances of achieving necessary search engine rankings. These tools in many cases actually prevent Search Engine Optimization (SEO) best practices from being incorporated into your website.

Does your host provide or offer eCommerce packages? If so, is that the software you will be using to sell your products online? If not, make sure the host will support your eCommerce solution of choice. Many eCommerce solutions require specialized installations which your host may or may not support, even in a dedicated hosting environment.

While website tools and services are important, consistent and reliable email delivery is even more critical to many. How well does your host fight spammers? Do they have controls in place to block spammers from using their servers as launch pads for their spam campaigns? If they don't do this well, your host may be blacklisted by one or more backbone providers or ISPs.

There are countless instances where email generated from IP ranges or even entire hosting companies has gotten blocked, penalizing non-spamming firms. To emphasize the importance of this let me explain further. Emails from innocent, non-spamming companies can be blocked unknowingly if the company's Web host is on a blacklist due to a lack of protection of its email servers. The main recommendation here is to do your homework by going to sites like http://www.spamhaus.org or http://www.dnsstuff.com to see if your host is currently blacklisted.

Another obvious issue is server uptime. While being down for a few minutes here and there is unpleasant and causes missed revenue opportunities, the real impact is felt if there is significant downtime. Significant downtime - being down for days, not hours - can cause significant revenue loss, tarnish your organization's brand and cause temporary losses to your Search Engine rankings. While most hosts boast 99.9% uptime, many have a history of data center, router and/or backbone issues that have impacted their customers for lengthy periods of time. This is not something they will likely disclose freely, but some good Search Engine research will uncover most hosts' past given the abundance of blogs, consumer sites and hosting review directories.

In addition to server uptime, there is server performance to consider. As we all know Web visitors aren't going to wait for pages to download. Many hosts pack their shared servers with too many websites. This not only causes downtime, but can cause poor server performance. Imagine a scenario where you're paying significant money for a well-performing Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaign. If your pages are prone to load slowly given your host's server performance, you are likely to pay for clicks that don't even view your landing page. This not only impacts your eMarketing campaigns, but will have negative effects on all your Web visitors and ultimately impact your brand's value in the marketplace.

In summary, choosing a hosting company is more complicated than just comparing the traditional features such as disk space, bandwidth and price. This decision can have a significant impact on your eMarketing initiatives. Do your homework and make sure your host supplements your online marketing initiatives versus creating barriers that work against them.

Article Source : Center For Personal Development

About Author

Both Ron Wicker & Brian Easter are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Ron Wicker has sinced written about articles on various topics from Information Technology, The Beach Resort and Gadgets. Jivaldi is an award winning interactive marketing agency serving the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento area. They offer search engine optimization, print media, web media, political marketing and sports marketing needs.. Ron Wicker's top article generates over 14800 views. to your Favourites.

Brian Easter has sinced written about articles on various topics from Web Development, Marketing and SEO Search Engine Optimization. Brian Easter is the CEO of . As CEO, Easter has led NeboWeb to explosive growth, attracting Fortune 500 clients and driving strategic partnerships w. Brian Easter's top article generates over 9900 views. to your Favourites.