Many Las Vegas business owners are just finding out about Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and how it can benefit their Las Vegas website and while it is a relatively new way of marketing, the principles have been around for a long time.

What is search engine marketing (SEM)?

Search Engine Optimization is the biggest buzzword right now especially when you talk of promoting yourc company’s website. But did you know that Search Engine Marketing is another important spoke in the business marketing wheel? The first thing you should know is that Search Engine Marketing, SEM is quite different from Search Engine Optimization or SEO. With this being said, you will find a lot of business people treating SEM the same as SEO.

The first thing that differs between SEO and SEM is the perception of Search Engine Marketing. Search Engine Optimization works on the key words and key phrases and content of your website’s pages and how the pages need to be designed keeping Search Engines in mind and how they will rank on a search. Search Engine Marketing on the other hand deals exclusively with how you promote your website with search engines. It could be said that a Search Engine Optimization effort could be a subset of a Search Engine Marketing campaign.

Search Engine Marketing Techniques

Basically, any technique by which the visibility of a website improves with search engines is covered under the umbrella of Search Engine Marketing. Thus, from an aggregate perspective, you could look at techniques like Blogging, Search Engine Submissions, Social Networking, Viral Marketing and other techniques. You could also look at methods like Contextual Advertising and Paid Inclusion being subsets of Search Engine Marketing.

Contextual Advertising

Not many are aware of the complete workings of contextual advertising. Here’s an example to illustrate the concept. Assume you have visited a website A, which is in the Sports niche. When you visit the website, you could see some ads popping up from the site that deals with sports accessories or memorabilia dealers. Basically, you see an ad which is relevant to the context and the content of that particular website. This is how contextual advertising works.

Now, how does the business owner benefit from these ads appearing on their website? Simple, the ad appearing on the webpage would have a revenue basis tied onto it depending on certain actions being performed by the users. For example, a webmaster could get paid if 100 users click on the ad, and so on.

Paid Inclusion and Pay-Per-Click Placement

There are some search engines on the internet that are very popular (google, aol, msn, yahoo), so popular that business owners and webmasters are inclined to invest some money to get into the directory of these resources just so that they have the opportunity to get ranked on the first page as a “sponsored listing” so they can get the traffic and recognition of coming up on the first page of a google search, let’s say. This is where Paid Inclusion or Pay-Per-Click placement comes into play.

A web master or web developer can set up a paid inclusion or pay-per-click campaign to help promote your website (or if you are so technically inclined, you could do it yourself as well). You choose the key words you’d like to rank for, set a budget and run your campaign. The main objective of this is to have some traffic through search engines.

With the above knowledge, you should be in a position to understand that Search Engine Marketing is separate from Search Engine Optimization. One of the best examples of SEM at work would be to see the working of Google AdWords, which best symbolizes Contextual Advertising.

At the end of the day, both the techniques increase the visibility and page rankings of your company’s website within the search engines.

A trade show is an event organized for the purpose of demonstrating and highlighting the latest products, services, trends, opportunities, and information relating to a particular industry or sector. Trade shows may be open to the general public or exclusively for trade members and select media people. These events are usually held once a year, from one to three days, and may include capacity-building activities like workshops, meetings and discussion sessions on industry related topics.

Trade show participation requires budgeting for expenses such as sign-up fees, booth or table rental space, design construction costs, and signage. Aside from direct expenses associated with the displays, the participant also needs to budget for travel and accommodations, food and networking expenses, collaterals and other promotional items, and contingency expenses.

Maximize Participation

Maximize you participation in the trade show by preparing ahead of time. Budget is key, so make sure that you can afford the costs associated with the event. Weeks before the trade show, generate interest by disseminating information through traditional marketing channels and social media. While selecting your display location in the exhibit area, always choose the most visible spot. Design your signage and displays using quality materials, highlight your brand name, and use catchy phrases to sell your product.

Benefits

Trade shows are a perfect venue for introducing or enhancing the visibility of your product and to gather information about new trends and potential competitors in the market. For start-ups and smaller companies, a trade show is a cost-effective way of marketing their products to prospective consumers, distributors, suppliers, and investors.

A trade show is a good way to create new partnerships and firm up existing ones. Frequent participation in these events help establish credibility and presence in the marketplace. These trade shows are also a good source of industry leads and lets you stay on top of the game.

Resources

If your company is interested to participate in a trade show, the first step is to find a list of trade associations and other organizations that cater to your market niche. Networking with these organizations ensure access to up to date information on shows, events, and other activities. Most of the trade associations have their own website and contact information and even a calendar of events in their site, so potential marketers and attendees can easily book their participation to any event.

Social media marketing is one of the hottest topics in the online advertising world right now. You hear people in Las Vegas throwing out all these buzzwords in reference to the marketing medium. You’ve heard of people raving about it and attributing it to their businesses’ successes. So how exactly does it work? Why are people praising this form of advertising? How can a business use it to take their sales revenues to another level?

You can find the answers to these questions and more through the following three benefits of social media marketing:

Awareness

From a consumer’s perspective, you want your information and updates right away. You want to hear what’s going on as they’re happening. While newspapers and television broadcasts have been the norm, these same companies in Las Vegas have been utilizing social media to get the information to the masses in a much quicker fashion. These news companies resort to tools such as Facebook and Twitter to keep audiences updated right then and there in the moment.

For more sales-oriented businesses, these social media outlets can be used to announce seasonal sales, arrival of new items or services, and also coupon codes to entice consumers to check out their site and make a purchase.

Social media marketing is quite powerful, and when companies are constantly informing their consumers with valuable information and services through these outlets, then the consumers create a bigger buzz amongst themselves.

Networking

The groups of people gathering together in these online hubs are the fuel for social media marketing. If people of similar interests and intentions were not involved, this online revolution would not exist.

As a result of recent events or news for particular niches, people will want to discuss about this amongst fans of these niches. Word spreads through forums, wall posts, and blog comments. Really successful social media marketing campaigns experience this viral effect, and the best part of it all is the price tag of this type of marketing – it’s free.

Business Leads

The buzz created through the people interested in that particular niche can turn into leads or traffic towards a business’ site. The potential for sales increases the more a product or service is talked about.

As long as discussions amongst peers in a niche continue, then there should be a steady flow of traffic to these business sites. It is up to the businesses to maintain the content on their social media outlets in order to keep the traffic flowing. More consistent traffic equals more consistent sales.

Google offers numerous free marketing, networking and tracking tools to help your business or company in Las Vegas:

• Overview of Google Tools – (Wikipedia.com)
• Google Services Overview – (Webopedia.com)
• Google Services – (google.com)

Out of all of google’s tools, I feel the most valuable are google Analytics, which is a robust website tracking and reporting application.  It’s free!  Sign up and install the code on your website pages and google will track keywords, search engine referals, countries, length of visit and even right down to the purchase and ROI.

Google also offers AdWords, which is a pay-per-click program.  You set your own budget, choose your keywords and your website can come up at the top of googles search engine results.

Business networking can really help you expose your company’s products and services to the Las Vegas community, help you meet people, create relationships that can last a lifetime, and get you out of your office to have some fun once in a while.

In general, attending a meeting once and expecting something to come of it is not a good strategy. Find a group or two you click with, attend meetings and socials, and go up and shake people’s hands and say hello and ask them what they do and tell them what you do.

Here are some links to websites dedicated to Las Vegas business networking you will find useful:

• www.networkinginvegas.com
• www.thelinklv.com
• www.netparty.com
• www.largestmixer.com
• www.insidervlv.com
• www.vegasyp.com