If you’re in the business of making money online, or your business is trying to tap into new streams of online revenue by utilizing a search engine optimization agency, you’re not alone. In fact, online revenue is one of the biggest growth industries and there’s no sign of that trend letting up anytime in the near future. But whether you earn a passive income from affiliate marketing or you run an e-commerce business, you have to understand the three critical online spheres of influence and how they overlap. E-commerce, social media, and search engine optimization are where the money is right now. No matter if you’re a blogger, an executive, or a marketer, learning where the lines of these three domains blur are critical to securing long-term revenue online:
E-commerce
From Do-It-Yourself arts and crafts vendors on Etsy.com to bold new online payment retailers like Dwolla to musicians selling their tracks on iTunes, the world of e-commerce is exploding right now. Once relegated to the status of younger, weaker brother to traditional retail, online commerce is now considered a viable share of the market with a growth potential far in excess of the dusty shops, stores, and cash registers of the 20th century. Its interconnection with affiliate marketing and social media is also crucial. If you sell any type of product or service, it is beyond critical that you have an effective interface that allows people who are interacting on social media sites to click through to your products. This practice, by proxy involves savvy social media exposure. This is one of the most important trends in e-commerce.
Social Media
Social media is the new town center of the modern world. More trend talk, gossip, and reputation currency is established through social networking sites than any other contemporary medium. Not only does it in many ways facilitate and promote e-commerce, social media allows marketers and advertisers to study their demographics, connect with them, and interact with them in extremely lucrative ways. Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Flickr, Pinterest—these aren’t just social media sites, they are organic communities in which people live the narratives of their lives. Tap into that and you’ve got yourself a business model.
Search Engine Optimization
The holy grail of online marketing, both in terms of mystery and power, SEO dictates many of the marketing strategies you see online. Ranging in complexity from pingbacks and keyword ratios on a blog to anticipating Google’s vaunted algorithms and link building campaigns, the ability to make your website appear faster and more often in search results than other websites is a highly monetized skill. SEO consulting services overlap with e-commerce and social media, making it crucial for professionals in those fields to learn its tricks.
There is no set formula to how social media, e-commerce and SEO overlap. Anyone who says so is probably selling something. However, getting deeply involved in the three industries above will greatly increase your chances of improving your business revenue, expanding your marketing reach, and being more heavily valued online.