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Successful Internet Marketing Without Search Engines
by Bill Platt
More SEO Articles
Published on this site: January 10th, 2008 - See
more articles from this month
Believe me or not, a business can survive and thrive on the
Internet without good search engine placement. That does not mean
that a Webmaster should not strive to get good rankings in the
search engines, but it does mean that a Webmaster should not
throw his or her entire advertising budget towards search engine
optimization (SEO).
The SEO guys are rolling in their Ferrari's as you read this. I
would have said that the SEO guys are rolling their graves, but
they are not dead, yet.
There Can Be Only Ten
How many web pages will be listed on page one of the search
results at Google? How about on Yahoo or MSN? That is right;
there can be only ten web pages listed on page one of the search
results.
According to the Internet Archive http://www.archive.org , there
are currently 85 billion web pages on the Internet. But, if you
have ever used the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, then
you know as I know that they have not archived everything that is
out there, so that 85-billion number is actually smaller than the
real number of existing web pages.
With only ten listings on page one of the search results, there
are going to be a lot of disappointed people in the world. They
cannot all be on page one of the search results.
First Things First
Search engine optimization is an expensive undertaking, so it
should never be taken lightly. I talk to people everyday who are
building their first website for the very first time. These
folks, bless their hearts, know just enough about Internet
marketing to blow their savings on a website that may or may not
deliver a profit to them.
There are steps that people should take when they start their
website, and SEO is not one of those first steps.
Here is a checklist of steps that the new Webmaster should use in
the development of his or her website:
- Select the products or services that the website will
sell.
- Determine if there is a market for what will be sold.
- Analyze the competition and determine the
competition's weaknesses. Competition is about building a better
mousetrap or reaching customers that another might be under
serving.
- Build the website to sell the chosen products or
services. Sales conversion is the most important element in any
successful business model.
- Run test advertising to figure out what will generate
traffic to your website, and more importantly, to figure out what
one needs to do in order to sell goods and services.
Testing And Tracking Advertising Results Is Essential
I sold advertising in my newsletter to a guy one time. He paid a
nice fee to have his advertisement run in my newsletter, but he
did not invest any money in writing or testing his ad first. The
advertisement itself was written very badly.
I asked him if he would like to tweak his advertisement before I
ran it in my newsletter. He said he did not care what the ad
looked like. He just needed me to run his ad.
I offered to rewrite his ad for him to enhance his chances of
getting traffic from my newsletter. He agreed and I did.
As the newsletters I subscribed to began rolling in the following
week, I noticed his bad advertisement ran in dozens of those
newsletters.
I asked him later his results, and he said he had spent $10,000
running that advertisement and closed four sales at $25 each. He
spent $10,000 to make $100. Needless to say, his website closed
down just a couple months later.
The problem was clearly his ad, but his website may have
contributed to his lack of sales conversion.
Starting Small Serves A Very Real Purpose
As we saw with the guy who spent ten grand to make $100, starting
small would have been beneficial. It is all a matter of figuring
out how to get traffic to one's website and more importantly,
how to convert traffic to sales.
One should start small with his or her advertising to find the ad
formula that will actually deliver traffic to the website. Once
the traffic is coming to the website, the webmaster needs to
tweak his or her sales copy to make sure that the copy will close
enough sales to justify the expense of a large advertising run.
SEO should be treated in the same way. By using Pay-Per-Click
advertising (PPC), a webmaster can get an idea as to which
keyword phrases will actually generate traffic to a website, and
with the right analytical software, the Webmaster can determine
which keyword phrases generate clicks that will lead to a sale.
Google Analytics http://www.google.com/analytics/ is a good
program to help webmasters figure this out and it is free, but it
has its shortcomings.
Popular paid programs include:
Another two-dozen web analytics applications are reviewed here:
http://www.cumbrowski.com/Carsten/internetmarketing webanalytics
.asp
SEO campaigns should never be undertaken until one knows exactly
which keywords will actually generate sales for a website. To do
otherwise, one runs the risk of optimizing a website for keywords
that will not help the website convert traffic to sales.
Advertising Lessons Learned
While testing your advertising and your PPC advertising, a few
very important lessons were learned.
First, you learned how to tap into the Law Of Attraction to bring
people to your website.
You have learned what keywords you should target, if you decide
to optimize your website.
You have learned how to track your successes and your failures
with your website analytical software.
And finally, you have learned to tweak your website for the
purpose of increasing your sales conversion.
All are very important lessons, because each will contribute to
how much money can be earned from a website.
Building Links Is Not About PageRank
If you remember, the title of this article is, "Internet
Marketing Without Search Engines." That should imply that this
article is not about getting good rankings in Google. By
extension, the title should also imply that what I am telling you
has "nothing" to do with PageRank.
The fact is that every person using the Internet is clicking on
links to take them from one website to another. Some links are in
emails; others are in paid adverts on websites, or in
informational web pages. Even social bookmarking websites have
links to other web pages.
Building links to your website is about getting your sales
message, with its accompanying link, in front of the people most
likely to buy what you are selling, in a way that encourages your
potential customer to click your link and visit your website.
Once you understand who your customers are and where you might be
able to reach them, then you will know what steps you need to
take to get your link within reach of their mouse.
You may need to buy advertising at that location. You might be
able to write an article to give to them, in exchange for a link
to your website. You might be able to participate in the
website's forums and leave a breadcrumb trail of links for your
potential clients to find. You can even create social bookmarks
that will point to your website or to a page that points to your
website.
The goal of linking is to give your potential customers more ways
for them to find your website.
An Ironic Twist To This Tale
Although this article is about thriving on the Internet without
relying on search engines, any person who undertakes linking for
the sake of attracting customers will find their websites
climbing in the search engine results, due to all of those links
on targeted and relevant websites pointing to their own website.
Imagine that --- a link that will attract and deliver potential
customers to a website AND influence how well a website might
rank in the search engines.
Bill Platt: Has been writing reprint articles for the promotion
of his websites since 1999, and now he has written an ebook to
share what he has learned. His book is called, "Article Marketing
For Traffic, Sales and Profit" and it can be found here:
http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-traffic.html
Included in the book are many examples and the Five Essential
Elements Of Creating A Successful Article. To learn more about
Bill's business, visit: http://thephantomwriters.com
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