Introduction to Digital Marketing

You must have noticed the way, the Internet has changed the world we live in. Never before in the history of mankind it has it been so easy to access information, communicate with people all over the globe and share articles, videos, photos and all manner of media.

The Internet has led to an increasingly efficiently connected environment, and the growth of Internet usage has resulted in declining distribution of traditional media such as television,radio, newspapers, direct mail and magazines. Marketing in this connected environment and using that connectivity to market is Digital Marketing.

Digital Marketing embraces a wide range of strategies. A successful Digital Marketing campaign has to be user-centric and there needs to be a cohesive approach to these strategies.

It’s all about being connected all the time
In its simplest form, the Internet is a collection of connected documents or objects. Hyperlinks are what connects these documents. A hyperlink is a virtual link from one document on the World Wide Web to another. It includes the URL of the linked-to document which describes where on the Internet a document is. It is what you enter in the address bar of the browser, because it is the address of that document on the Internet.

A URL provides information to both browsers and people. URLs include domain names which translate to IP addresses. Every web site corresponds to an IP address, which is a structured series of dots and numbers indicating where it is physically located. When you enter a URL into the address bar of a browser, the Domain Name System record indicates where the document is that you are linking to. Many domains can translate to the same IP address.

A domain name looks something like this: www.domainname.com

But a lot more information can be included in this. Domain names can carry the following information: subdomain.domain.ext/directory

• Domain - the registered domain name of the web site
• Subdomain - a domain that is part of a larger domain
• ext– the domain extension, uppermost in the hierarchy of domain names
• Directory – a folder to organise content

The ext can indicate the country in which a domain is registered, and can also give information about the nature of the domain. Listed below are few domains extensions which you should know:

•  .com – is the most common extension
•  .co.in, .co.uk, .com.au – these extensions give country information - .in for India, .uk for United Kingdom
•  .org – used by non-profit organisations.gov – used by governments
•  .ac – used by academic institutions

Domain names must be registered and there is a fee for doing so.