Choose an Online Marketing Company That's Best For You

Online marketing services are relevant to businesses of all sizes because of the shift from traditional advertising to the internet. In eMarketer’s report, "Search Marketing Trends: Back to Basics," they project SEO will continue to climb from 17.7% to 20.3% of marketing spending. The total search marketing spend will reach nearly $23.4 billion by 2013, according to eMarketer. This represents a doubling from $12.2 billion in 2008.

Add to that the Forrester Research projection that interactive marketing will almost hit $55 billion, representing 21% of all marketing dollars in 2014. Marketers will shift money increasingly toward search marketing, display advertising, email marketing, social media and mobile marketing, says the report, U.S. Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2009 To 2014.

Those are the industry-wide numbers. As for why your company should use online marketing, there is really only one reason—to increase revenue. This will be realized by converting website leads to sales, generating buzz about your company or products, being perceived as superior to competitors, and optimizing your website so you’ll be found at the top of the list in Google, Yahoo and Bing.

The online marketing services umbrella covers a lot of territory, including search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC) management, reputation management, social media optimization, link building, press release optimization, paid inclusion, affiliate marketing, blogging and syndication, video SEO, ecommerce optimization, contextual search advertising, social network advertising, mobile marketing, web design optimization, search copywriting and local search.

While some of these niche services like mobile marketing and video SEO may be overkill for many businesses, others like SEO and search copywriting should be leveraged by many organizations.

For more on online marketing services visit TopTenREVIEWS’ Search Engine Submission Services site.

At TopTenREVIEWS We Do the Research So You Don’t Have To.™

What to Look For in Online Marketing Services

The world of online marketing is a moving target. It’s always changing and evolving. And when you factor in the breadth of what online marketing includes, it’s more than a little confusing to non-experts. Many marketers claim to have expertise in internet marketing and guarantees about number one Google rankings and exponentially increased web traffic abound. Too many businesses are disappointed and disillusioned in the results they achieve based on the dollars they spend.

It’s essential to choose an internet marketing firm that has a track record in creating the kind of results you seek. These are the criteria TopTenREVIEWS used to evaluate internet marketing services:

Comprehensiveness of Services
We evaluated a comprehensive list of online marketing services including the staples SEO and PPC, as well as common offerings like link building and social media optimization, and even more specialized offerings like video SEO, mobile marketing and local search. Companies looking to influence buyers on a variety of fronts will be most interested in online marketing companies that offer the most services. Companies simply looking for SEO or link building, won’t be interested in these additional offerings.

Help & Support
We carefully evaluated the help and support these companies make available on their websites. Sites that ranked the highest in this category have a number of ways you can contact them in case you need help. Be sure to look for a company whose support meets your needs.

Performance Analytics
These numbers provide a comparison for website popularity and the number of sites linking in to each of the internet marketing firms reviewed. This category illustrates how well each company optimizes and drives traffic to their own website.

Reputation
Reputation matters in any industry and online marketing is no exception. We evaluated the number of years in business, whether they are Google Adwords Qualified or SEOToolSet Certified, and if they are Better Business Bureau Accredited.

Prospect & Customer Education
Because of the misinformation and misdirection surrounding SEO, PPC and other online marketing services, the value these companies place on educating their audience is important. We evaluated companies based on whether they provide a free analysis to prospects and the resources they make available for free, such as educational videos, white papers/tutorials/books, articles/educational blogs and free SEO tools.

To learn more about the best online marketing services we reviewed, read the Increase Visibility review. Be sure and also check out articles related to online marketing.