By Nick Suino - SEO Ann Arbor

As featured in the Oxford Property Management Newsletter

Business owners need to know the key concepts of marketing online. They are critical to making good decisions about how to spend your marketing dollars.

Google — if you understand nothing else about the internet, understand Google! Google is the largest search engine, and 80% of the world uses it to search for information, shopping, or leisure activities. When you search using Google, using a single word or a complete sentence, the results are often divided into three parts: organic search, Google Local, and sponsored search.

Organic search results appear on the left side of your browser window, occupying about four-fifths of the visual real estate. These are websites and documents that closely match your search. If you typed "commercial real estate ann arbor" you’d see a list of real estate and management companies. Websites closer to the top have more content related to your search.

Google Local results appear in the same results list. They usually contain the address of the business and a small balloon that corresponds to a location on a map. If you include geographic information in your search, Google provides results for that area.

Sponsored search results appear on the right side of and sometimes above the organic search results. These are ads businesses pay for in Google’s Adwords program. They show up based on the match between your search terms and the advertiser’s keywords. When you click on an ad, the business is charged a fee from one cent to a few dollars. Next month, we’ll explain a bit about how you can improve your website’s position in the organic search results!