In the business of online marketing, it is important for webmaster to go through and tweak the different components of the Web and the business to give a good boost to the company. But as online businesses are complex, no one can really say that you can create the perfect structure for an online business.

Nevertheless, both the online businesses and search engines make efforts to improve on the the quality of websites and boost sales. Search engine companies have also invented many useful tools for webmasters to use with their SEO strategies. One of these tools is Web Analytics.

What is Web Analytics? It is one of the essential tools that webmasters can use to improve the performance of their websites. It helps the webmasters understand their target market demographics, and also contributes a lot in increasing the Return of Investment for the online business. With Web Analytics, you can track down useful information like the number of visitors that go through your website, the most and least popular of your web pages, your visitors’ locations, and many more. It generally gives you a summation of how your website is doing everyday.

Web Analytics can give the details needed for SEO campaigns and strategies. Important factors like keywords and web pages can be considered and improved as Web Analytics can provide which keywords are most used and which are not. Pages of your website is also evaluated. You will also be able to find out who has linked to your website or web pages, and referrers who have sent traffic to you.

Of course, in studying your target market, the length of time and amount of visits from the users is also considered. You’ll be able to gauge who are really interested in your site and your company. You can also find out which pages they were most interested in and improve upon your website using these data. You can also use this to either change or delete any existing bad pages on your website. You can say that Web Analytics gives you information on both the strengths and weaknesses of your site.

Bad or negative press doesn’t only happen in the newspapers or on TV. In this digital age, companies and businesses also experience bad publicity online. And as most bad press go, they undermine whatever positive authority the company or business has and can even make it on top of the SERPs!

When faced with this problem, what does an internet marketer have to do to retain a good image of the company or business?

There are two ways:

1. Focus on keywords that bring positive images to your website and company.

We all know the power of keywords. When bad press is associated with a keyword or keyword phrase you’ve been using, you’ll want to stop optimizing on those keywords. But people will most likely type in your brand name or company name as a keyword or keyword phrase to search with. It would be a good idea to optimize on this keyword or keyword phrase and drive in brand-friendly hits. In focusing on your brand name or company name as your keyword or keyword phrase, you’ll be optimizing on the product or service that you are meant to optimize, and as you build on the good image of your website or company with this you are pushing the negative press down the search results.

Create more good press and positive reviews using keyword or keyword phrase you have opted to use. Press release come in handy in these times too.

2. Link building

The bad or negative press is usually pushed to the top because of link building. The online community can spread rumors and links throughout the Web and this would boost the link’s ranking in the search engines. As a counterattack, why not do the same with your positive press? It would be an SEO battle between the bad press and the good press.

Using SEO against SEO, this could only mean that you employ better SEO techniques than what the bad press is based on. In optimizing your positive press through link building, make sure that your content is constantly updated and fresh.

You can also go to the sources of the bad press and make a request that they include rebuttal links. This will result to an additional link from their website to yours, which helps with link building and more exposure to the users who come upon that website.

We can see that SEO can be very influential in terms of the publicity given to companies and websites. A company’s reputation and image can either be pulled up or put down by SEO.

Here’s a video from Fathom SEO yet again, this time explaining the 12 Search Engine Marketing Campaign Mistakes To Avoid. It’s very informative and Mike from Fathom SEO elaborates on each mistake and why we need to avoid them.

Global brands are now redefining their advertising strategies by focusing more on their business objective of making sales and profits. Creativity isn’t going to help if it won’t garner sales. As a result, focusing on generating return on investment is embedded on the the different branding campaigns, online branding campaigns not excluded.

Online branding campaigns, though, are hard to measure to determine conversion rates and performance. But it is not entirely impossible. E-consultancy gives some channels online wherein the online branding campaigns can be accounted as effective or not:

1. Rich Media Interactions

User interactions with flash and videos can be determined by mouse-over, banners, videos played, dwell time and response.

2. Clicks and Landings

Big global companies could create a microsite that would attract participation from the users. It may be about gossip or tips (related to the global brand). Every click made to the site will be trackable and user response can be measured.

3. Coupon Redemption

Printable coupons that are redeemed in the stores of the global brand companies shows how effective the branding campaign is. It is an effective measure of success at point of purchase.

4. Social Networking

Social networking sites have proven their effectiveness in generating traffic and attracting visitors. With social networking sites, you can ask for reviews, make polls and surveys, and develop word-of-mouth advertising through the online community.

5. Post-purchase Follow-up

Follow up on the users who cater to the products by asking them to drop by your website for free goodies or more sales. This will develop brand advocacy and cross sell opportunity. You’ll be able to narrow down your target market for future advertising campaigns.