Samenvatting

The ever changing world of Internet has transformed traditional marketing and companies since the start of the World Wide Web. Every day billions of people around the world use the Internet for entertainment, shopping, search, social purposes, and much more. This behaviour is changing the way companies market their products. Online marketing comes in many forms, and there are many different options for marketers to choose from. In this dissertation Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing (SMM), and Mobile Optimization will be discussed. These forms of online marketing are the most used and applied forms of Online Marketing.
When starting with social media marketing, it may become part of the (existing) marketing communication strategy. It can function as an extra channel to communicate with the target group.
According to Forrester Research, a global research firm that researched the consumer data and business transformations by social technologies, the most effective strategy for online marketing is
the P.O.S.T. Method. P.O.S.T stands for: People, Objectives, Strategy, and Technology.
SEO is the act of optimizing and improving a website in order to rank higher in a specific search engine. Higher rankings create more visibility and generate more traffic to the website.
Search Engines like Google collect information about every page on the web. Search Engines use a 'recipe' called algorithm to turn all collected info into relevant search results. So the key to rank
higher for a specific keyword is to make sure a website contains all the 'ingredients' to the search engines algorithm. Most of the big ingredients are known: Words, Titles, Links, Anchor Text, Reputation and Content. There are multiple requirements the search engine's algorithm is looking for. These requirements can be divided into 2 groups: On-Page and Off-Page.
Because there are two different groups, there are also two different forms of SEO for it. On Page SEO and Off Page SEO. On-Page SEO can also be described as the internal optimization. All the changes and updates are done on the website itself. When the website itself is optimized, the offpage SEO can take place. Off Page SEO is also referred to as linkbuilding. Linkbuilding can be compared to a popularity contest. When receiving many links/votes from other websites, search engines will think it is a popular website. Search engines only trust natural, organic and trustworthy links. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that backlinks to a website should:
Come from high quality websites, contain different anchor texts, and come from relevant niche blogs/websites.
Mobile optimized websites are websites that can be viewed on mobile phones. To optimize a website for mobile users there are multiple options. The first option is creating a totally different website that is specially designed for mobile phones. This website is called a
Dedicated Mobile Site (DMS). When DMS is used the website detects the mobile user, and will automatically redirect the user to the mobile site. The most commonly used redirecting subdomains are m.websiteexample.com and mobile.websiteexample.com.
Another option is using RWD, which stands for Responsive Web Design. When using RWD, computer, tablet and smartphone users all go to the same website, but the layout is different. The website detects the device that is used to browse the website, and will adjust the layout and size of the website based on that information.
To conclude, companies that have not made online marketing part of the marketing strategy, have not only been missing out, they still are missing out and will continue to do so in the future. The
ever evolving and changing nature of the internet will make it more difficult for companies to adapt to online marketing in the future. To succeed in the years to come, organisations and companies will need online marketing strategies in order to be able to compete with competitors.
Competitors might already have implemented online marketing strategies, which makes it even harder for a company to still compete with them on the same level.