The Data Bahn

Internet marketing is becoming more and more sophisticated. New developments are coming on stream all the time. Take the advent of the widget. These little, (or sometimes not so little), pieces of code lurk within an HTML document of some sort and interact with the user of the document. This interaction is aimed at creating interest and in persuading the user to find out more about whatever the HTML document is trying to tell you. Companies will go to great lengths to get you to their site and one of the more insidious methods is via unsolicited e-mail. This is where these little widgets are being used more and more. The internet marketing companies seem to have a million ways of finding your e-mail address. I don’t know all the tricks they employ but often they get their information from other sites you visit and sign into. Unscrupulous internet sites will often sell on their lists of e-mail addresses and before you know it there is an e-mail from a company you don’t know but that knows your e-mail address. Often you will open the mail to see what it is about, particularly if the ‘about’ line intrigues you or appeals to you. This is when you will meet up with the little widget.

The internet is becoming more and more a tool for businesses to sell products and services to others. As these businesses increase in number then internet marketing becomes more important, just like marketing on the high street is important in enticing visitors into the shop, and in making your business stand out more from your competition. Internet marketing is becoming more sophisticated as the shopping audience increases and is spawning its own industry within the industry of the internet. Internet companies will use very sophisticated internet marketing techniques in an attempt to gain an edge over the competition and in order to attract visitors to the site. Once the visitor is at the site then sales techniques are used to turn the visit into a sale, and, hopefully, repeat business. The latest technique in internet marketing is the use of devices called widgets within the HTML language of a page. These widgets are pieces of code that are there to interact with the person using the page and to create interest and a desire to find something out. This type of internet marketing technique is particularly important in e-mail marketing. The e-mail suddenly becomes ‘alive’ and more interesting, making you want to know more.

Where would we all be without internet marketing, eh? If there were no internet marketing who would tell us about all these must have items that we don’t have but the next person does? You know what I mean – you log onto your favourite site to catch up with the latest info/gossip/music/pictures and there before your very eyes is an internet marketing company trying to sell you something you don’t need and probably doesn’t work anyway. If it did work and I did need it I would already have it and would have no need of the internet marketing company telling me about it! These internet marketing companies seem to work on two levels. Firstly they approach popular, well-visited web sites and ask to put an advertisement on that site. In return for putting an advertisement on the site they offer the web site owner a commission for every visitor referred to the marketing company site from the well-visited site. Secondly, internet marketing companies will look at all the popular search engines and ask them how they provide information to visitors who visit the search engine to ask a question. Once the company have this information they will tailor the keywords on their site to match the words that search engines use when finding answers to questions.

There has been a huge increase in companies using the internet to sell goods and services. The overheads are usually a lot lower than using bricks and mortar on the high street. These companies face the same problem, though, as their high street competitors do. How to get customers to the site and once there, how to make a sale. This is where internet marketing comes in. Loosely defined, the term internet marketing covers the areas of how to get visitors to your web site and once there how to turn that visitor into a customer. It is also useful if you can make the site appealing enough so that the customer wants to return to the site time and time again. There are specialised companies whose sole aim in life is to provide internet businesses with the internet marketing tools they will need to attract customers. These specialists will look at areas like the web site design, looking at the web site from the search engine point of view and search engine optimisation of the keywords within the site. Then they will advise on the content of the site, and the look, usability and feel of the site shopping area.

What does Internet Marketing mean? To those who want to sell you something over the internet it means “how do I get my customers?” To those on the other end, like you and me, it can mean a right royal pain. The internet goods and services selling companies are employing more and more sophisticated techniques aimed at getting us to their sites, and once there getting us to buy something. I am sure you have all been bombarded by advertising via e-mail and via websites we want to visit. Most web sites these days carry lots of advertising for other companies and products, receiving small payments if you actually visit the advertising sites. The point is, if the product or service is so good in the first place, why do I need bombarding with advertisements? These advertisements are often unrelated to the sites I want to visit. The other point is, what happens on my computer if I do visit these sites? What horrors await me from invasive software put onto my computer? Or am I just being paranoid? What do you all think out there? Let’s hear from the companies using this advertising as well as those of us that have suffered from it.