In most cases a landing page is not a home page (although there are exceptions – including for certain websites that only sell one product or service).

In certain limited examples, a landing page is not even part of a website’s navigation menu, which means that users would not end up on such a page as a result of browsing a particular website. They would arrive, or land there, by being purposefully directed to that page via an email, or an advertisement.  (By the way, the advertisement could be an ad on one’s own site, in addition to other sites).

Landing Page Expectations

Typically, a visitor “lands” on a landing page via an advertisement (such as PPC or other ads), e-mail, or search listing. That initial message establishes the viewer’s expectation for what the user expects to see when they click on a link that leads them to your landing page.

An obvious point that contributes to the sales success of any landing page is how well the landing page delivers on the promise of the ad or email that drove the visitor to the landing page.

If a person clicks on a link from an ad, or email, or search result, with a promise of a solution to a problem, or more information, or certain details, only to land on a generalized page about a company (such as a home page), then the visitor is forced to search again for the information that brought him to the site. Most visitors will leave such a site and look for another website that makes it easier for the searcher to find what they’re after.

For example, if a searcher clicks on an ad that describes a sale for a particular brand of motorcycle tire, only to land on the home page of a motorcycle dealer’s website that features all kinds of motorcycles, helmets, jackets, accessories, parts, mechanical services – as well as motorcycle tires – the visitor would be forced to do further searching on the dealer’s website to find the tire sale.  Many visitors will leave such a website disappointed, and continue their search for a site that will show them the exact motorcycle tire they’re after.

A better example would be a searcher who clicks on an ad for a particular brand of motorcycle tire, and arrives on a web page that has a picture of that exact tire, with the regular price, the sale price, the tire’s specifications, shipping details, a phone number to call for any questions, and a very easy-to-see “BUY” button (or “Add to Shopping Cart”) so that such a consumer can get the info they’re after (if they want), but more importantly, so they make their purchase and move on with their day.

Landing Page Call-to-Action

The “call-to-action” is what you want the visitor to do, such as make a purchase, download some information, make a phone call, etc. In the above example, the call-to-action is represented by a very prominent “BUY” button.

Whatever it is you want the visitor to do, be sure to clearly state it on the landing page. Any visitor should be able to quickly identify what their expected action is.

Market Testing Landing Pages

There is more than one can know about landing pages, including not distracting visitors from the main intent of the web page. Hence, landing pages can be made more effective by “not” including other advertisements.

More importantly, landing pages can be made more effective by testing, testing and more testing. Market testing landing page variables such as the wording in the headlines, the main copywriting information, the placement of “more details,” and product images are among some of the fundamental items that should be statistically compared and then refined.

For more information about testing to improve efficiency, click on “Testing” Your Way To Internet Marketing Success.

♦ Driving LEADS into your business

♦ Converting LEADS into SALES

♦ Turning SALES into PROFIT

And it all needs to be continuously refined for greater efficiency and affluence.

But what is the actual definition of “marketing”?

This is the definition of Marketing from the American Marketing Association (AMA):

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large”

The above definition was “approved” by the Board of Directors of the AMA (click link above) in 2007.

It’s interesting that tucked into this definition, which primarily reflects a connotation of action and results, is the additional concept of a “set of institutions.”

Here are pertinent definitions of institution from the American Heritage Dictionary:

a. An established organization or foundation, especially one dedicated to education, public service, or culture.

b. The building or buildings housing such an organization.

Institutions (which would include the AMA) are associated with marketing, but they should NOT be part of the definition.

The AMA Board of Directors either do not truly understand marketing, or more likely, are attempting to formalize a sense of professional self-importance in an era whereby the relevance of marketing “institutions” are in decline with the advent of 21st century marketing technologies.

On the other hand, regardless of the useful products and services that marketing institutions do provide, and have provided, the notion of including “institutions” within the definition of marketing would have been inapplicable at any time in the past. It’s just more erroneous nowadays with the advances of technology and the decentralization of institutions within the marketing industry.

Including “institutions” within the definition of marketing would be like including “soap box” within the definition of “speaking.”

Standing on a soap box may be helpful for a speaker to make his voice heard over a crowd of listeners, but it is certainly not relevant to the fundamental action and results of “speaking.”

A more accurate and workable definition of marketing would be presented by removing the concept of institutional self-importance and leaving only the essence of what marketing is all about:

Marketing is the activity and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large

In other words, marketing is all about action and results!

More Than a Website

Online marketing is much more than building a website.  In fact, as any business can verify after establishing a web presence, that’s merely the beginning of an ongoing marketing and communication evolution that includes publicity, advertising, and sales, and which is continuously refined to engage prospects for the purpose of selling products and services.

Depending upon the sophistication of one’s products or services and therefore how long it may take to move through a typical sales cycle, the process can be as simple as publishing a product description with good photos and copywriting and then advertising it; to something more complex, such as creating and maintaining an online information media channel designed to engage as many types of buyers along as many points of the sales process as possible. For complex and/or expensive products/services, the sooner you can engage a prospect along their research-to-purchase decision path, the more opportunity you create to establish and build a relationship and demonstrate that you are the solution to what they need.

Subsegments of Online Marketing

Although each of the following areas of online marketing comprises its own body of knowledge and expertise, recognize that if you’re going to effectively take advantage of online marketing opportunities, these points need to be contemplated:

♦ Lead Generation
♦ B2B and/or B2C Sales
♦ Email Marketing and Relationship Building
♦ Search Engine Optimization
♦ Search Marketing (PPC and online advertising)
♦ Strategic use of Blogging, Video and Social Media
♦ Affiliate marketing
♦ Web design and usability

The more these points can be practically and strategically implemented, the better your online marketing results will be.

This works out good for you, since you only pay me if a sale occurs.

This works out good for me because I don’t need to develop the product, store the product, ship the product, handle customer care, nor do all the other things that are associated with selling products.

If I do a good job for you, you may receive a considerable amount of sales from me. If you have a number of affiliates like myself, then you could have a very good business established.

However, if someone else sells another product than yours, and if that company provides a higher commission, then many of your affiliates may direct their promotional efforts towards the other company to benefit from the higher commission.

Or, if another company pays the same commission as you, but does a better job of servicing their customers, resulting in lower dissatisfaction among customer (and fewer returns), affiliates will move their promotional efforts to that other company. (Affiliates may lose commissions when a customer requests a refund).

Since this is all done online, another way to think of this is by considering the idea of sales websites pushing customers to other product websites.

It’s big business online.

Affiliate Networks

In addition to you (the merchant or publisher) and myself (the affiliate), there is also an affiliate network that facilitates a connection between each of us, as well as the customers.

Affiliate networks provide value to merchants and brands (you) by helping to develop affiliate programs, advertisements and payout pricing.

After an affiliate network has worked out a suitable arrangement with you (the merchant or publisher), they turn around and provide affiliates like myself, with your offers we can promote. Affiliate networks also provide us with support, and tracking tools.  Additionally, they handle the payments between you and I.

Affiliates, such as myself, and others who would be driving customers to your business (and other businesses) are usually able to join affiliate networks for free. However, more often than not, you as a merchant, will typically pay a fee. Affiliate networks will also charge you a percentage of the commissions paid to your affiliates.

A Few Affiliate Networks:

• Azoogle.com
• Affiliate.com
• CommissionJunction.com (CJ.com)
• Neverblue.com
• RocketProfit.com

Affiliate Networks That Specialize in Electronic Products:

• ClickBank.com
• ShareASale.com

Think of these last two networks as providers of ebooks (electronic products) on any subject you can imagine.

By the way, not all affiliate programs require an actual purchase to pay out a commission. Other common affiliate payouts can be based upon:

• Pay Per Impression (an ad, or page view)
• Pay Per Click
• Pay Per Lead/Call
• As well as the Pay Per Sale model featured in this article

In each of these cases the merchant (yourself) is determining what is in their best interests.

Paying for a sale would be the most common affiliate relationship.

However, some products/services may be too complex to expect an affiliate to generate a completed sale, so some type of lead generation opportunity may be in your best interests.  Or, simply paying to display advertisements on other websites (Pay Per Impression) may best serve your marketing needs.

“Local search” is a term that represents the use of Internet search engines in combination with geographically constrained search parameters. Typical local search queries include not only information about “what” the site visitor is searching for (such as keywords, a business category, or the name of a consumer product) but also “where” information, such as a street address, city name and/or zip code.

Local Search: Implicit and Explicit

A search that includes a geographic parameter, such as “London,” “Upstate NY”, or “State Street in Santa Barbara, CA,” is an explicit local search. A search that references a product or service that is typically consumed locally, such as “pizza” or “haircut” or “catering,” is an implicit local search.

In terms of implicit local search, the search engines themselves do their best to match the location of the searcher’s computer to the location of the business the searcher is looking for.

Regardless of whether local search queries are implicit or explicit, it behooves a local business owner/marketer to ensure their business is visible for such searchers by making it as easy as possible for the search engines to identify their business to local consumers.

Local Search Engine Optimization and Geo Targeting

Search engine optimization professionals who provide such services to businesses, make it a point to ensure their clients are prominent in local search results.

A few ways to make business listing information available to the various online entities that can promote it, is to publish the info to electronic Yellow Pages aggregators, as well as vertical search engines and specialized regional search directories, and within local business or community directories, etc.

Some search engines will pick up on web pages that contain regular street addresses displayed in machine-readable text (rather than a picture of text, which is more difficult to interpret). Web pages can also use geo-tagging techniques (adding geographical identification to content such as photographs, video, as well as the web pages themselves) to further elevate their local profile.

A more sophisticated local search strategy is to geo target local information to searchers depending upon where they are located. For example, if someone from Germany searches for “Los Angeles Hotels,” a geo-targeting strategy would be to supply information about your LA hotel using the German language.

Local PPC

Promoting your business by pay-per-click advertising on the search engines themselves, is a very direct way to get your name in front of potential local customers and clients.

You may choose to show your PPC ads only to people within an area you specify (example: show ads only to searchers whose computers are located in Chicago) and/or you may bid on terms to target areas within your zone (example: show ads to searchers who are looking for hotels in Atlanta, regardless of where in the world the searchers computer is located). In either case, the ads will appear in front of searchers looking for your goods or services within the area from which you have a reasonable expectation of drawing customers.

The key to local advertising is to find out where the people within range of your business are searching for what you sell. Then, advertise to them!

Well, if you have, there’s good news and bad news about it:

1) The good news is that there is an answer. (Whew!)

2) The bad news is that it’s not as simple as one might hope.

The short answer is that it comes from multiple sources, either on the web page itself, or in certain circumstances, even from other pages (such as the Open Directory Project, also known as dmoz.org).

If you want to know more about this snippet, as well as everything you see in a search result, including page title, page description, and sitelinks, including additional elements that may appear, such as stock quotes, cached pages links, and more, then you’ll want to check out this 8 min video from Google entitled, The Anatomy of a Search Result.

Here is more info from Google’s Search Engine Optimization
Starter Guide:

Description meta tags are important because Google might use them as snippets for your pages. Note that we say “might” because Google may choose to use a relevant section of your page’s visible text if it does a good job of matching up with a user’s query. Alternatively, Google might use your site’s description in the Open Directory Project if your site is listed there (learn how to prevent search engines from displaying ODP data). Adding description meta tags to each of your pages is always a good practice in case Google cannot find a good selection of text to use in the snippet.

♦ A “direct response” from a buyer to an advertiser

♦ The response itself is measurable (Who? What? When? Where?  How much? etc.)

Infomercials are a high-profile example of direct response marketing.

Infomercials are different from regular TV ads, in that they are specifically asking the viewer to “Buy Now,” often by calling a toll-free phone number. In this way, the response to an infomercial, or any direct response media, is highly quantifiable and readily subject to ongoing testing and refinement to establish the best way to inspire the recipient to purchase a product or service.

In comparison, regular TV ads may simply have a purpose of raising awareness about a particular brand, or encouraging viewers to go to a store to purchase the product. In such a case, the advertiser may be aware that sales went up (or not), after such an advertising campaign, but cannot know for certain exactly how much the ad influenced the purchases.

However, a direct response media campaign will yield an exact number of responses (inquiries, purchases) to the message, for each and every time it is delivered.

Other media, such as direct mail, radio, magazines, newspapers, and e-mail can be used to elicit a direct response, as well.

The primary components of a direct response advertisement include:

1. A specific offer
2. A presentation about the product that encourages a purchase decision
3. An explicit (and often repetitive) call-to-action (“Buy Now”)
4. A way to respond, which can include a toll free number, web page, mail order form and/or email

To emphasize the core aspect of direct response marketing, the marketing media delivers an offer to a recipient, and the response is from the recipient back to the advertiser.

In a nutshell, social media is stuff you and I create and publish. Whether that might be articles, photos, videos, music, audio broadcasts, or anything else we care to publish on the web.

The term “social media” is used to draw a distinction between “traditional media”, which might also be characterized as “broadcast” or “mass” media.

Social media is you and I, and anyone else, creating information and publishing it for others to check out.

Traditional media is from organizations that have been the primary source of information since the first printing press. Of course the power of owning a printing press blossomed into the gigantic book, newspaper, magazine, radio, and TV outlets that have traditionally been the source of what populations have had access to for information.

Underlying the application of social media is the ongoing development of technology, which has transformed people from content consumers to content producers, or publishers.

Some examples of social media applications include blogs, Internet forums, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, FriendFeed, Yahoo! Groups, Wikipedia, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Google Reader, Digg, Mixx, Reddit, Yelp, Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube, Vimeo, Revver, Skype Blip.fm, Last.fm, epinions.com, Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers and way too many more to list, as well as more being developed every day.

And for the sake of being specific, let’s look also consider what “copy” is: Copy refers to written material on a website or email or in any other form of publishing, such as magazines, advertising, books, etc. In this usage, copy is simply what is used to differentiate the words from photographs, or other elements of layout and design.

The very purpose of copywriting is to persuade the reader to act, to persuade the listener to buy a product or service, to persuade the viewer to call for more information, to persuade individuals to subscribe to a newsletter or to download a document, or to persuade others to adopt a certain viewpoint, or even to oppose a particular viewpoint.

Copywriting  is a core component of all Advertising, Promotion, Publicity, Public Relations and Marketing.

Click here for Effective Copywriting Guidelines.

Using PageRank, Google assigns a score from 0-10 for each webpage on the Internet.

The PageRank of a particular page is roughly based upon the QUANTITY of inbound links as well as the PageRank of the pages providing the links, which could also be stated as the QUALITY of incoming links (if we consider that incoming links with greater PageRank reflect a higher quality).

There are other factors that determine PageRank, but Google does not divulge its secret sauce for bringing this about.

Here is how Google describes PageRank:

“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves ‘important’ weigh more heavily and help to make other pages ‘important.’”

From an SEO perspective, that means it’s good to get links from websites that have higher PageRank.

In the video about Driving Traffic with the SEO Triangle, that’s what is meant when it is stated that not all incoming links have the same value.

The downside is that since “anyone” can edit the articles, and since the pages can be edited “anonymously,” the entries can be (and have been) vandalized. However, bad entries do get corrected and usually pretty quickly.

If you need some rapid info, it’s a great place to start and most of the information is very current. In fact, its very name comes from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning “quick”)

• If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying, “Circus is coming to Fairgrounds Sunday,” that’s Advertising.
• If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk him through town, that’s a Promotion.
• If the elephant walks through the Mayor’s flower bed, that’s Publicity.
• If you can get the Mayor to laugh about it, that’s Public Relations.
• And, if you planned the whole thing, that’s Marketing!

A loose analogy would be that it’s sort of like an email inbox. Except you control what’s coming into it. (No spam!) You can subscribe and unsubscribe from RSS feeds at your leisure and no one gets mad if you don’t answer, because there’s nothing to answer!

The major search engines provide free RSS readers, and web browsers (like Firefox and Internet Explorer), have RSS reader applications built in. There are also lots of other free software readers, too. (Do you get the notion that a lot of folks have considered that this is a cool idea?)

Well, if we look at the words, “Really Simple,” that part is really simple to understand.

Some folks might benefit from a little clarification about “Syndication.” The word syndication comes from “syndicate,” which has a number of meanings. We’re not so concerned about the definition used as “A loose affiliation of gangsters.” Two other concepts that would be more beneficial for our use are as follows (from the American Heritage Dictionary):

• An agency that sells articles, features, or photographs for publication in a number of newspapers or periodicals simultaneously.
• A chain of newspapers, or an agency that distributes features to multiple newspapers.

If you recall back in the old days when people read newspapers, you might have enjoyed a favorite comic strip. Well, that comic strip was created by an artist and distributed, or “syndicated,” to all the newspapers that wanted to publish that strip.

So, RSS is a modern electronic equivalent of making words, pictures, videos, music, audio broadcasts, etc. (content), available electronically to interested recipients around the world. RSS is most notably associated with blogs.

And the “really simple” part is that when you publish content on a blog, you don’t have to do anything except publish your stuff and it’s instantly distributed (syndicated) for free and available to others who use RSS readers. (Which are also free).

The cool thing for the people reading your stuff is they don’t even need to visit your website. So, they can read all the latest news from all their favorite blogs without even visiting your site. Sort of like how you could read your favorite comic in your local newspaper without having to visit the artist’s studio who created it.

Advertisers pay to have advertisements clicked, and search engines, blogs and other website that host the ads, receive payments from the advertisers.

The search engines act as a middleman, and pass on payments from advertisers to blog publishers (for example) and keep a percentage of the advertising revenue themselves.

Of course for the advertisements that are seen directly on the search engines themselves, those payments are retained in full by the search engine companies. (It’s how Google and other search engine businesses makes money).

Advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market and as a result of the bidding, and other factors, the amount that advertisers pay can vary.

Search engines and publishers of websites and blogs that display PPC ads as a source of income, will show “sponsored links” or “sponsored ads,” that appear as a result of keyword matches between what the searches are looking for and where the ad is displayed.

For example, advertisements for “digital cameras” would be seen when people are searching for “digital cameras.” Furthermore, websites and blogs that have pages of information about “digital cameras,” could also present the same PPC ads.

Although many PPC providers exist, Google AdWords is by far the largest. Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter are number two and three.

A downside to the PPC advertising model is that it is open to abuse through click fraud, which can include advertisers attempting to drive their competition away by using automated robots to click on their competitor’s ads, thereby driving the costs of that competitor’s advertising campaign much higher. However, Google and other search engines have implemented automated systems to guard against abusive clicks by competitors or corrupt web developers.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an Internet marketing process and strategy that focuses on making a website more friendly to search engines for the purpose of improving search rankings. Better search rankings can result in not only a higher quantity of traffic, but with good SEO, a better quality of traffic.

SEO facilitates the interaction of how search engines work with what people are actually searching for.

Optimizing a website involves editing the actual content as well as some of the HTML coding to make it as easy as possible for search engines to understand what a web page is about.

KEYWORDS are central to three important points that comprise SEO:

• Quality Content
• On-Page SEO
• Off-Page SEO

“Content” refers to the words, photos, videos, audio, or any other material on your website.

“On-Page” SEO includes the points that are refined on every page of a website.

“Off-Page” SEO incorporates interaction with other pertinent websites, since links on other sites that point to pages on one’s own site, confirm the relevance on one’s site.

Professional consultants who offer SEO as a service may do so as part of a broader marketing campaign, or as a specialized service by itself.

Search engine optimization is somewhat of an art and science, since the search engines maintain secrecy about the exact calculations that are used to rank pages.  And to make things more interesting, the calculations and rules the search engines use are subject to change.

Regardless, there are established industry best practices as well as ongoing research and testing by SEO consultants for the purpose of delivering the best results possible for their clients.

Black Hat SEO

There are also, so called “Black Hat” methods that degrade both the relevance of search results as well as the experience of search engine users.

Black hat SEO attempts to improve a website’s rankings by using tricks or attempting to deceive search engines, or by otherwise using tactics that are disapproved of by the search engines.

Search engines have been known to penalize black hat methods when they are discovered. The penalties can include reducing a site’s rankings or even removing the site from the search engine altogether. Savvy black hat practitioners would anticipate that their sites could become temporarily or permanently penalized and their clients may or may not be aware of the ramifications.

A good rule of thumb is that if an SEO consultant guarantees you top rankings, you would be wise to interview other SEO consultants.

White Hat SEO

White hat SEO techniques conform to the search engines’ guidelines, which are established to present search users a helpful experience, and do not include attempting to deceive search engines about the content of a site.

White hat SEO could be boiled down to the idea of creating valuable information for visitors (not specifically for search engines), and presenting that information in ways that are easily understood and recognized by the search engines.

Google Webmaster Guidelines

Here are Google’s guidelines for webmasters, with a focus on:

• Design and content guidelines
• Technical guidelines
• Quality guidelines

Click for search engine optimization tools.

By installing small pieces of Google Analytics’ programming code on your own website(s), the service will maintain an ongoing database and stream of information about what visitors are doing when they arrive, travel around, and leave your website.

Google Analytics reports are designed for marketers as opposed to webmasters. In other words, the service is easy to use and the information is more pertinent to the fundamentals of marketing than the factors involved with creating and maintaining a website.

Using Google Analytics with Google’s Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising program (AdWords), is vital to improving the performance of these online advertising campaigns. By using Google Analytics to track landing page performance, marketing goals, as well as the marketing objectives of generating more leads, sales, file downloads, or simply visitors to certain pages, a marketer can continuously refine campaigns based upon statistics.

As a more specific example, Google Analytics can help a marketer determine which ads are performing better, which are not, and provide important insight into ongoing refinements that are necessary to gain more visitors, sales, etc., for less money.

I’ve been using this service since the 90′s, when it was established by Urchin Software Corporation (original developer), which was then purchased by Google in April 2005. Later that year the name was changed to Google Analytics.

It’s a very useful service! Click here to visit Google Analytics and to take a video tour.

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

• Twitter is a free messaging service.
• The message length is short: 140 characters of text.
• The messages are displayed on the user’s online profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as “followers”).
• Senders can restrict delivery to those they wish (such as friends or family), or allow anybody to access their messages (which are called “tweets”).
• The short messages are well-suited for sending and receiving text via mobile devices.
• Twitter messages can be automatically updated on websites, so the instant communication facility of the “tweets” can further serve as a recorded chronology of activity.
• In addition to Tweets updating through websites and as text messages for mobile devices, they can be integrated with instant messaging services.

Twitter was established in March 2006 and has experienced remarkable growth.

The word “blog” is a contraction of “weblog.”

Of course “Web” refers to the “World Wide Web” (WWW), which is a very large set of interlinked documents accessed via the Internet. (Click here for the difference between the Web and the Internet).

A “log” is a regularly updated record of activities or events, such as ship’s log.

So, a blog is a website with regularly updated articles, photos, videos, audio recordings, etc.

The word “blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. (Example: I blogged about the word “blog” today.)

QUESTION: Since you can also routinely update a regular website with articles, photos, videos, etc., what makes a blog so special?

ANSWER: Three things.

1. A blog is very easy to update with new articles or “posts.” Easier than a regular website. By its very nature, a blog is intended to facilitate a flow of updated material, while a regular website could remain static indefinitely, or perhaps might be updated only now and then.
2. A blog has a built-in system that allows visitors to easily add their own “comments,” agreements, disagreements, or thoughts right after your posts.  (Although you can control and limit this functionality).  In this way, blogs are an important media for facilitating two-way communication and even community between individuals with a mutual interest.
3. Blogs also have a built-in system (RSS) that automatically notifies search engines and other computers when new material is added. In this way, Internet users around the world have the potential to instantly be aware of, and view, your new material – without even visiting your blog (your words automatically show up on their computer). This third part, in particular, is a powerful way to leverage your views, knowledge and expertise via technology.

Blogs are be used by businesses, large and small, to facilitate frequent communication with customers and potential customers. Blogs are used by artists and writers who wish to develop new material online, and/or are desiring visitor feedback or participation. Blogs are used by anyone desiring to promote their services, their products or themselves. In each of these examples, blogs can generate MORE visitors than regular websites, especially when used effectively as part of an search engine optimization strategy. Furthermore, in each of these examples blogs are more effective at establishing increased INTERACTION with visitors, compared to regular websites. The reason why is outlined in the three points stated above.

However, the terms are not identical.

The Internet is a global data communications system. It is a hardware and software infrastructure that provides connectivity between computers.

In contrast, the Web is one of the services communicated via the Internet. It is a collection of interconnected documents, photos, videos and other resources, that can be accessed with a click of your mouse.

One could loosely liken the Internet to the global system of physical roadways, and liken the Web to all the cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles that comprise them (individual websites). If you could also imagine that all the vehicles are not only connected by pavement, but also by cell phones, and that you had potential access to every phone number of every vehicle in the world, the analogy would become more accurate.