SEO vs Online Marketing:
Author: Brandon Griggs
Level: Basics
SEO. If you have anything to do with a website, you've probably heard of it. If you haven't, it stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO means trying to improve the rank of where your site comes up in search engine results pages.
We want to explain our philosophy about SEO and why we like to differentiate it with "Online Marketing".
Hopefully this will help you ask the right questions as you consider adding SEO or online marketing services to your website.
Why do you even have a website, anyway?
We've mentioned SEO, so let's start by explaining what Online Marketing is. Online Marketing first means answering two questions:
1. Who do you want to come to your site?
2. What do you want them to do what once they get there?
These questions are important. After all, you have a website for a reason, right? Answering these questions should enable you to clearly express the online goals for your website.
Now that you have actual goals for your site, everything you do to promote the site should be based around them. We are continually surprised by how many website decisions have little relation to the actual goals of the site.
One major distinction then is that Online Marketing is all about achieving these online goals using the best methods available. It is about getting the right people to your site, and then having them do what you want them to do.
Making SEO work with Online Marketing
Online marketing almost always will include SEO. Search engines are still the leader in driving new traffic to your website, and SEO is a critical component of virtually every online marketing project we do.
The main problem we've seen is that SEO can easily lose track of the overall goals. It's too easy to concentrate on getting to a certain rank on a certain page with certain keywords without continually checking those metrics against your actual goals. You need to constantly be asking: "Is this even the right traffic for my site?"
One perfect example is that sometimes having too much traffic can be a BAD thing. Traffic is about quality- it needs to be highly-targeted. Highly-targeted means the type of traffic that is likely to do what you want them to. If you have a Golf site then getting a bunch of teenage girls probably isn't going to help you. You want more targeted traffic- like men with some disposable income.
So the first way to make SEO work with your goals is to make sure are getting the right traffic.
Another big aspect is to ensure that your traffic is converting. A conversion is when this traffic does what you want them to do- like buying a product, reading your blog, or filling out a form. If it's something that can be measured, then it's not too difficult to set up a system to gauge the percentage of this traffic that is converting.
Landing pages are a great way to help the conversion process. This means instead of sending all your traffic to your homepage, you set up pages to specifically give target traffic a precise message tailored just for them. For example it may be setting up an Adwords campaign to sell new golf equipment for 15% off. You should set up a page immediately offering those products your advertising, and minimize any other options. You know exactly why the are on that page, so giving them exactly what they want is the best way to ensure a conversion.
This may sound simple on paper, but so often competing goals and agendas will get in the way and start to affect conversions. We haven't seen it done effectively often.
Online Marketing - not just SEO
Again, SEO is great, but SEO is rarely the ONLY way to drive traffic to your site, and it might not even be the BEST way.
- Social Media: Social Media is exploding and has become an incrediblly effective method for driving highly-targeted traffic to your site. One of the main benefits of Social Media is it allows users to get through the corporate mumbo-jumbo and engage with your authentic voice. If done well, this can be very powerful.
- Banner Ads: Some times the perfect target audience for your site might already be going to other websites, like portals, forums, or industry sites. It can be more effective to run banner ads on these types of sites knowing your getting the exact type of traffic you need. We've found this to be particularly effective in campaigns limited to local areas where search engines might generate very low traffic.
- Link Building: Having links to your site that come from other credible websites is what makes the online marketing world go round. Not only does this help drive traffic directly to your site, but also is a huge boost to your Search Engine rankings. This can be tedious to execute, but the dividends are worth it.
What did we learn:
Wait, we were supposed to learn something? Ok, then let's summarize:
- SEO should be one component of a larger effort to reach your goals.
- All SEO and marketing efforts should always be based on meeting actual goals and conversions.
- A robust Online Marketing campain should certainly consider SEO, but needs to look at all available tools for meeting its objectives.
Feel free to get in touch with us here at SiteStrux if you'd like to dicuss this further or need help with an online marketing campaign.