The Internet has the ability to level the playing field between small and big business with regard to capturing market share. Search marketing, SEO, PPC and viral marketing is the most effective and least expensive method of driving traffic to a web site. Any type of business with a web site can participate.

Trends in Search Engine Marketing

North American advertisers spent US $9.4 billion on search engine marketing in 2006. This represented a 62% increase over the prior year and an 750% increase from 2002. The reason for this growth has to do with the explosive growth of the Internet worldwide - a trend that has impacted every industry in every developed country, producing billions of dollars in revenue for companies with a strong Internet presence.

Search Engine Marketing for Increasing Web Site Traffic

Search engine marketing (SEM) refers to listings and links to web sites that are produced on the pages of a search engine directory (like Google, Yahoo or MSN) when a keyword search term or phrase is entered. There are two types of results that are produced. Listings at the top and/or right column are sponsored results from advertisers who pay each time someone clicks on their ad and visits their web site. This is called pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. The largest SEM vendors for sponsored searching are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter.

The second type of search results are the free organic listings that are produced because of content and code on the web site that match criteria determined by the search engines- essentially the search engines look for keywords, relevant content, meta tags, alt tags, back links and traffic flow. The process of getting web pages to match these criteria is called search engine optimization or SEO. The closer the site matches the search engine's criteria, the better the ranking order for that web site. If a web site is not found on the first or second page of search results, it is unlikely to be found and result in traffic. Any number of pages on a web site may be optimized and found through the search engines. There are hundreds to thousands of search engines. The majority of searches however come through Google, Yahoo and MSN. Each search engine uses different rules or algorithms for determining ranking order. These rules can and often do change over time. That is why it is an ongoing process to achieve and maintain a good page rank with SEO. When SEO includes a presence in forums, blogs, social networks, and multimedia directories, the result is viral marketing - this is where traffic and results get very exciting!

Best Results Through SEO and Viral Marketing

A good SEO program will not just produce a high page rank for keywords, it will also drive traffic from a particular target market to web site pages from many different sources. These may include links from relevant web sites valued by the search engines, forums, blogs, social networks, multimedia directories and online press releases. The sum total of all of this marketing produces a viral effect resulting in high search engine rankings and explosive web site traffic.

17 critical components for SEO with viral marketing results:

1. Keyword research and analysis to determine keywords that are searched in significant numbers and relevant to the web site's target market.
2. Incorporating an XML site map so that search engines can crawl the web site easily.
3. Incorporation of informative content-rich web pages to the existing web site based on targeted keywords.
4. Defining keyword-rich Titles and Meta tags for each and every page of the web site in order to make every page search engine friendly.
5. Hand submitting the web site to niche directories to get valuable one way links.
6. Writing and developing keyword-rich articles focused on targeted keywords.
7. Creating a blog for the web site and submitting it to blog directories and blog search engines.
8. Submitting articles to leading E-zines and other informative sites to get one way links along with relevant traffic towards the web site.
9. Exchanging links with other relevant web sites to increase back links for the web site.
10. Participating in niche Blogs & Forums to get quality back links and traffic.
11. Creating a presence in Social Book marking sites.
12. Creating a presence in Social Networking sites.
13. Participating in Video Sharing using video that showcases the web site's mission, purpose, brand and unique selling position.
14. RSS feed creation and submission to various RSS directories.
15. Press release creation and submission.
16. Including powerful and effective marketing copy in all content developed for the SEO and viral marketing program.
17. Tracking of results and making modifications based on traffic patterns, lead generation results and sales conversion data.

A plain vanilla SEO program that optimizes web pages will produce limited results. I have personally seen companies charge big bucks and stuff keywords into pages that no human being would read. They may get attention from the search engines but people will be off that site in a heartbeat. The bottom line is effective marketing copy in everything that is produced for the project.

Most SEO companies do not include many of these viral marketing concepts in their program. Using this list of criteria when shopping around for a company to do your SEO will help you to get the most value for the money you spend. Done well and responsibly managed, SEO and viral marketing can be your most productive marketing investment.