Marketing Your Website Without Search Engines
I’m not old enough to remember what the internet was like without search engines. Apparently, there were lists of web-servers: they were manually updated and publicized in news updates like this. And then the search engines came crawling, indexing and sorting out pages. As the web expanded with more users and businesses putting up websites, search engines became an essential way to immediately find information.
There’s a common saying: build your site for visitors, not for search engines. A famous Google webmaster guideline asks the question: “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?” It’s actually quite a challenge: Pretend search engines don’t exist. How can you grow your website, get visitors and make lots of money?
I recently built a couple of sites without any focus on search engine rankings and getting organic search traffic. I didn’t block the search bots from indexing the site but I optimized nothing. Didn’t focus on site link architecture, title tags, meta-descriptions, meta-keywords, link building, competitor analysis. Forget about search engine algorithms.
I also wasn’t interested in methods of search-based marketing like finding long tail phrases and placing them on article directories or social media properties in order for these pages to rank and send traffic to my site. That would have involved researching search keywords and competition, so I did nothing of that sort too.
Ultimately, you’re dealing with a situation where the convenience offered by search engines is non-existent. No quick answers to quick questions for everyone. So how are people going to find what they need? How are they going to find my site?
Image Credit: assbach
Without search engines, people will do what they’ve been doing for thousands of years. They rely on each other. They rely on the community, on the collection of publications known within their geographic location or industry. They rely on word of mouth. And they also rely on getting information from common resources like a public square, library, forum or marketplace.
Go where people gather. There you will be heard. It sounds like rudimentary marketing but quite honestly, until I’ve tried ignoring search engines and focusing exclusively on gathering points, I didn’t realize how much actual marketing I was NOT doing.
There were far more forums, social networking sites, blogs than I ever imagined even for small niches. And then there are mega-sites like Youtube and Facebook. If I were to put a number to it, I would say I’m missing out on at least a few thousand visitors every day by NOT being active in these online communities. And that doesn’t include offline marketing.
This is a good amount of visitors who are likely to become supporters of your content, clients or buyers. And the truth is I’ve always made money much faster by going to them instead of waiting for them to come to me. It sure beats the usual plan of waiting for my site to get indexed, rank for longtail phrases and THEN hopefully convert into an ad click or sale.
Traffic from these sites can be as targeted as search engine visitors: many are looking for recommendations from peers or actively engaged in a specific activity that is relevant to my site. But unlike search visitors, they aren’t coming in blind into your website from a query.
They know more than your page name, url and meta-description. They know your avatar, they know your history of contributions. They have a rough idea of who you are. Your words are in their face before they even click over. You’ve already presold them by making yourself familiar.
Image Credit: assbach
The most common problem we face is the lack of time. Can we outsource something like forum, blog or social site marketing? Yes, of course. But use people who know what they’re doing or else you’ll be wasting your time. If you’re a one-person operation, it might not be good for your brand to have someone that’s not you out there, even if you have an excellent ghost.
But small businesses, big businesses and multi-author content sites? No problem.
In any case, the whole experience of marketing without search engines is educational. It forced me to go out and represent my brand. This is me, I own this website. Hello, here’s what I do. Take a look. Here’s why this will be interesting.. and so on.
Once again, nothing revolutionary but when you’re not depending on search engines, its a make-or-break situation. How can I not just get clicks but the most value out of each click? What web page should I link to, who should I target, what content angle to use etc.
It forced me to work and persuade on a social level you don’t really think about because you’re always focused on existing traffic/users or things that will improve a machine’s reading of your site’s worth. Then you realize the value in having a strong brand and reputation.
I would recommend that you try pretending that search engines don’t exist, even just for a week or so. Especially if you’ve got a new website. Search engine traffic is invaluable but there’s a lot of visitors out there just waiting for you to show them your site.
If you’ve already reached a plateau in organic search traffic and its not making you as much money as you like, why not focus on promoting your site outside of search engines?
So, how would you market your website if search engines didn’t exist?
To get easy updates on new articles, subscribe to dosh dosh today.
I see where you are coming from, and it is good advice. The thing is, organic search is somewhat ‘easy’, which is why people rely on it so much. Humans are naturally lazy, so when it comes to either doing something which is easy vs something which takes countless hours, we will go for the easy every time.
Word of mouth is not an easy thing to accomplish unless you are already established. For many people, it can take years before it sets in. It also has a lot to do with luck and size of the niche. Sure, you can expand the niche as much as you like, but that doesn’t mean more people will necessarily want it.
I really liked this article as it gets back to basics and I agree that word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising out there. However, it’s not something that is easily achievable and I think it’s about getting a balance between SEO and social media optimisation. I don’t think any companies can afford to ignore either.
Twitter changed the game of marketing without search engines. You don’t have to seek out niche communities anymore… you just type in your target word in Twitter Search and Twitter serves you your community on a silver platter.
I know I’m being part sensationalist and part parrot, but you really can find any community about anything from ONE website. This is why Twitter is the game changer.
And, it gets better… The more people that sign up for Twitter, the better Twitter becomes at serving EVERY niche community you could ever think of. So, to all business owners and entrepreneurs, now is the time to start working on your communication and charisma skills. Because in 2009, that’s what you’re going to need to succeed.
Fresh article. I like it.
Salam ACTION!
Great, great article!
I try not to rely on search engines too much, but this article helped me to realize that there are still a lot of avenues I need to enter to help me promote my site.
Remember: The more people know you (your Internet persona, your company), the easier it is for them to spread your word. Get out there and be seen!
This may be the best article on marketing a website, or better, an idea, I have read a long time. Rather than waiting for people to come to you, you go to them. They are already waiting for you, have already formed communities and are likely open and welcoming. You can build relationships.
And I am so glad that you didn’t mention twitter, which is already spinning out of control. I liked the article by Jonathan Fields today. Life is what is happening while you are twittering. Go out there and be part of life before it passes you by.
Thank you Maki.
@impNERD, @Paula Dauncey
Word of mouth isn’t as hard as you think. There are several types of word of mouth. One is based on trust/reputation and feature general recommendations of one’s brand when it comes to a topic. For example, like users recommending Nikon cameras when asked for suggestions on what camera to buy.
And then there is word of mouth based on non trust-based factors. Shock, surprise, anger or fear… anything that triggers that can and will lead to word of mouth.
Combined with a well-rounded marketing campaign targeting the right influencers, its not hard to get people talking. This sort of single-purpose content is akin to propaganda, it doesn’t need to be established.. it just needs to be repeated enough times or seen by enough people.
@Niels
You’re welcome! I didn’t want to mention Twitter cuz we all already know how awesome it is… besides, the main point is that you have to go to these people. People are literally sitting in front of their computers chatting with each other in forums, communities, asking questions about products and needing answers to problems.
It’s all about getting yourself in front of them and not just sitting back and waiting for Google/Yahoo/Live to dripfeed you visitors every day.
@Stretsh
There are definitely a ton of places to promote your site. I was actually amazed to find so many websites/forums/social channels I’ve never even heard it when I was doing some basic google searches. Some of them were full of great users. If you’re offering a free digital product, this is an terrific to build a list of potential future buyers/customers.
@Derek
While I’m a huge advocate for Twitter’s marketing potential, I’m afraid I will have to disagree.
You definitely still need to seek out niche communities. They are far from obsolete and IMO far more useful than using Twitter for niche marketing.
Finding random chatter on Twitter through a keyword search does not define a demographic as clearly as a strong and heavily populated forum on a niche topic. How do you know someone is strongly interested in this or that topic? Just based on a tweet? Or a word in the bio?
It’s like doing a keyword search for ‘Led Zeppelin’ and comparing that to hanging out and networking on Led Zep band/song + album page on Lastfm. Or doing a search for a brand of power-belt instead of hanging out and researching the massive forum on bodybuilding.com. You’re forgoing users that opt-in to clearly defined niche sites and choosing instead to pick them out from a timeline of tweets devoid of full context. Really?
There is no comparison. The niche communities on Twitter are fragmented, split up and full of people who use Twitter sporadically, who don’t even read all the tweets in the timeline. Even the directories themselves are sorely incomplete and are only full of people who are aware of them.
But seriously dude, I do see your point and share your enthusiasm.
Twitter is powerful, twitter is ‘viral’. I can easily set up accounts that use tools to get tens of thousands of followers in 15 days, follow the niche targets by keyword, create awesome content and get it retweeted to the heavens… it’s terrific for some instant word-of-mouth and marketing, heck you’ll definitely get some sales as well. I know cuz I tried it.
But niche marketing without search engines does not just involve playing a transient game of buzz with social channels like Twitter, no matter how popular it is. To assume that it dominates the game of marketing without search engines is to either overstate its degree of mainstream penetration or underestimate the value of other niche channels for targeted selling/traffic.
blogs/facebook/twitter/wikipedia can get you MORE visits and linkbacks than any search engine
when you create an authority within any of those 4 web services, the search engines will not have any other option than give you a good rank (a rank you already earn without shoeshining google evil machina)
@Maki Those completely targeted niche communities you talk about will find their way on to twitter if Twitter receives mass adoption like Facebook. Ideally, each community will have their own hashtag and whatever else Twitter has planned for us. Hell, they might even do a better job at aggregating and creating those niche communities for us…
Now, don’t get me wrong… I’m not downplaying the importance of other niche communities. That’s how I launched a few web businesses myself and made a decent amount of money. I just believe those communities will change as technology changes — just like everything else. And, Twitter may be the technology that catalyzes that change… but time will tell.
Great article indeed. But one question still persist: how can you get traffic when no one knows your website? Or, other one: How is possible to the users to get access to your website if they can’t find it, if there is no search engine? I’m not talking only about Google, of course.
Great post,
I especially loved this sentence:
“until I’ve tried ignoring search engines and focusing exclusively on gathering points, I didn’t realize how much actual marketing I was NOT doing. ”
Without focus it’s hard to realize those things.
Am afraid to see u’r title, bcoz my skill is fully SEO ;p
but after i read all.
THAT’s GREAT !!
Nice Posting ;p
Great post Maki glad you are doing mire than few of them.
Seems like the more I focus on writing based on idea’s and things I like the easier the traffic comes.
Most of my companies sites only get roughly 20% traffic at the most from SEO. The real focus was on a balanced marketing mix and great content.
PS Rodrigo how did you learn about those sites? (smile) what lead you to them? (smile) hmmm anybody search engine? My point is that is why Google is number one
Very cool post. To answer the last question, you’re right, I would really focus on relevant forums, would use social media as much as I could, but most importantly I would brand my blog and try to create as much buzz around it as possible. Host give-aways, contests, and brand my blog in a way that would make people want to tell other people about it. Hmm, come to think about it, I should really get involved in all of that. Thanks.
Excellent post. This is something I really need to work on.
That’s a pretty good run on the whole traffic generation topic. Search engines are a great source of traffic, they convert best, how do you use traffic from other sources where you are not sure on how to use it. This reminds me of an article I wrote a while ago where I compared viral marketing to word of mouth. I pretty much came to the conclousion that the best way to build a big site is to rely on word of mouth tactics that lead people to the site. Viral marketing, just as search engine marketing, has it’s limits and is something that has more influences from outside and is further out of your control range.
Without search engines???? Hmm that is really tough. But during the initial launch of my business blog I got little or no traffic from search engines. No complaints though. Still I get some 5-10 visitors a day only. No complaints again as my blog is just 1.5 months old. What i really faced as a challenge is the exact thing you mentioned “Pretend that there are no search engines”.
Getting small traffic from search engines are more or less like the search engines rarely exists. So I think that everyone who starts a blog or a website goes through the “Nonresistance of search engine” phase for quite some time unless it is Barack Obama or some one like that.
What I feel is the best marketing methos which I applied to my SEO blog is word of mouth and blog commenting. I never used much of advertising. I have never used google adwords or any other forms of marketing for my seo blog. I did some for my eBusinessCorporate which included stumbpleupon ads, ptc ads and so on.
The end result I am truly waiting for is search engine traffic.
This is some really good advice and like you I can not remember what the internet was like without search engines. But how will you get traffic to your website if nobody knows it is there, you made the point about the value in having a strong brand and reputation but what if you are just starting out, how will you build up a reputation if nobody knows you exist.
This is an amaxing article. I had a very nice exerience yesterday where my blog was mentioned by someone in a forum I participate in as a good resource. The key to forum marketing is to not keep pitching your stuff. If you can help other people out, they’ll repay you by clicking that link back to your site in the signature box. They’ll be naturally curious and appreciative of you advice, if it helps them.
Social media marketing is something that I still need to crack. I’m starting to form more relationships on Facebook, and I have group going, but nothing major. I’ll look to see if you have any articles on facebook, but if you don’t that would be something I’d like to learn. Twitter I’m learning steadily as well. Seems simple enought. Start talking to people who are interested in your niche, follow them and hope they’ll follow you back. Then wen you post up a link, maybe they’ll clikc back on it.
Very nice Information, now maybe we like survival without Search engine
This is, by far, the best post I’ve read in the past month! And I follow lots of blogs!
You’re right when you say the we rely too much on Search Engines to get exposure fo our sites / services. Thing is, as you said, that most of us own a small site and time is a precious resource which we often don’t have.
However, after reading your post I realize I should at least give it a try (to go outside and market my brand to others) and expect only positive results as I’m not losing anything but a bit of my time.
Once again, great post!
One aspect of offline marketing that I find clients missing is viral marketing. For example, a property manager has about 50 owners that he manages single family homes for. When he brings in new business, he takes 25% for the first month, then 10% every month after.
Business was hurting for this property manager so I recommended that he waive his 25% for the first month bonus, and instead use that money to pay the person/owner that referred the new client.
A letter was sent to each owner with the month end operating report that said if they referred a friend, they would get 2 months of management fees waived (depending on the home that’s about $250).
Immediately, this property manager just turned 50 owners into his proxy sales force without any out of pocket, upfront cost.
Secondly, word of mouth referrals are the best kind of advertising there is. I only go see a movie if a friend, someone I know and trust, tells me a movie is worth seeing. The conversion rate on word of mouth referrals is about 50% where all other forms of marketing convert anywhere from 1 – 3%.
Really a good article. I think there are a very few people who will actually think like you because in this era of money making craze etc people will spend their time making more and more sites and opting the easy way out i.e. the “search engine optimization” instead of spending time in marketing their site through social networks etc.
So true. I think I would use forums for most traffic.
Keywords are so incredibly competitive these days it is obviously very difficult to get page 1 results on most keywords. And even if you land on page 1, at what level are you entering into the visitors awareness.
You are making an introduction as a stranger as opposed to a community marketing approach where you are introduced into a community who may already be talking about your industry or quite possibly talking about your business.
But as with any relationship, how you communicate can directly affect consideration.
Don’t be afraid to be creative in sharing your story. Use video, audio, photos and blogs to help communities relate to your offerings. Find the communities and introduce yourself whether online or offline.
And don’t forget to provide a quality product or service with great customer service. Garbage in – Garbage out…..
Excellent post and good points all around. The challenge for many is the time required to do this type of marketing properly. If you are busy running the business, finding time to market ove the web is difficult. Meaningful blog posts, articles on the relevant forums etc are excellent ways of getting noticed. Twitter is brilliant – but it is easy to get lost in it – take the time to understand what you are trying to achieve and then get your point over.
SEO is still important though – good profile in a search engine is still worth its weight in gold.
I’d have to say that forums are probably the best place to market your web site. If you provide the right tools and do it the right way. I once read a blog post where the author had written an e-book and was selling it for $5 or so. He initially just mentioned the e-book in a forum community that he was an active member of and he sold over 200 copies in the first couple of days.
Forums are where it’s at, you just have to invest the time and effort to become a known, trusted member of the forum, which is hard for some who are stressed for time.
Good post with some excellent points.
I’d be well up for recommending this approach to most of my clients but I doubt any of them would have the time to carry out the necessary work to make it worthwhile. In truth, with the current recession, who does these days?
Many of my clients don’t even have the time to keep their own sites updated, let alone market their sites elsewhere.
Great post – love the ‘back to basics’ sentiment. I recently wrote a post titled How search could evolve which reiterates much of what you state – always insightful and thought provoking. Thx
Social media would be the best bet then. Word of mouth is important too but I think Social media is pretty powerful.
BTW I will launch my own search engine if there was no search engine and call it Foogle
Great post, especially for those that are dealing with content within a site already designed without SEO in mind
Hi Maki,
This post has got me thinking about a rule i use in marketing. When looking at a competitive marketplace for a product/service, I usually estimate that you can split your prospect base into three camps ; (i) those actively looking for a product/deal ,(ii) those willing to consider a deal /product if offered one (iii) those not able / willing or simply comfortable in their current product offering.
From historical feedback, i estimate these groups to be about 1/3 ( one third) and fairly equally split ( bar a few exceptions or economic conditions) . Therefore, in the online world, the reliance and pursuit on the holy grail ( Google 1st page), is only targeting approximately 33% of the base at any given time.
Your article helps to divert attention of website owners to another 33% at least of prospects that exist waiting to be won over. Plus, to grow their awareness with the ‘ unwilling/comfortable’ prospect base that are not currently a convertible base.
It’s also reassuring to know it is not only facebook and twitter that can be utilised. Thanks again.
@Rodrigo Penalba
True.. which reinforces the need to promote yourself to other people/sites even more because search engines DO exist now..
@Derek
If Twitter does become as dominant and as mainstream as Youtube or Wikipedia , sure.. communities will gradually adopt it as a mode of communication much like how Facebook groups are formed for just about any topic.
But its not quite there yet… perhaps in the near future, things will change dramatically.
@ Ken the tech
That’s why you have to go to the users and not sit back and expect them to find you. You pretty much need to hang out in the right places. Just putting a link to your site in a forum signature already gets you some visitors easily and that’s just the most basic form of marketing..
@ Darren
Writing content that appeals to people is the first step towards search engine domination, because you don’t get links for writing articles for search engine spiders, you get them when people like your stuff enough to link to it.
@ Robby G
You’re welcome. Looks like you already have a plan to get started, awesome!
@ smashill
Viral marketing trends up and down, its a short-term strategy to get long-term word-of-mouth.
@ Parth
Social media is pretty similar to forum marketing, you need to offer something to get traffic in return. Be it an awesome article first or whatever, you need to give someone a reason or incentive to click over.
@ Hector
Thanks. Yeah the problem is time but I guess if you really have a money maker on your hands, its just logical to work harder at all by doing some marketing away from search engines. You’ll see greater returns and from then on perhaps you can find a more efficient system or way to make it a regular thing.
@ J. Paul
You’re right. Community marketing is fantastic for conversions if you get personal or are open to meeting more people and sharing the good stuff. It’s worth it to give it some killer advice in return to build some reputation you can leverage in the future.
@ Barney Austen
Definitely, it’s hard to argue about the value of a good ranking website. I love search traffic but it seems that I’m leaving a lot of money off the table by not thinking on working the communities and places where people gather.
@ Jeremiah
Forums are great places to learn and network as well so there’s really no downside to it. If the issue is time, I guess you have to focus your efforts on a forum that gives you the most returns (knowledge, bigger network of people, more traffic/prospects etc)
@Ukisan
If you want to make money, you have to work at it. If your clients can’t or don’t want to work at marketing, do it for them? Or recommend a marketer and take a commission. That’s what outsourcing is for ..
@ Achiea
That is a great way of thinking about prospects. Most people are willing to consider a deal or product if the price is right or if its appealing enough due to packaging (copy +design + features) or social proof factors (other people use and love it).
In fact, I think this group of people flows into the group that isn’t willing to look for a new product. I think everyone is basically open to the idea of getting something better, more efficient, more powerful, more profitable, more useful etc.
So essentially there are a lot of prospects out there just waiting to be nudged. You have to take it to them and make them know you exist… especially since they’re not actively researching for something new.
Good stuff.
@ Everyone else
Thanks for your comments!
I have to add my consensus on this article. I have always hated SEO. I would much rather post on forums, social network sites, commenting on other people’s blogs, answering yahoo questions and any other places where real people participate.
I have articles in the directories, some I spent time doing keyword research and added the appropriate keywords into the article. I found they get just as much attention as my other ones where I just picked a topic and wrote for the reader.
Bottom line is, if you are actively spreading the word about your site and your skills, people will soon get to know your name(and face if you have a photo).
Keep on plugging away.
Every time I think SEO, I start yawning, so I think this is what I’ve been doing all along. As a small business owner with a very specific niche, I think marketing this way is much more powerful than SEO.
Hi Maki,
This is a really refreshing article. Seriously Refreshing. It strange isn’t it – the more things change the more they stay the same.
It is also so easy to get lost in the complexity of SEO and the latest Social Media tool but we need to keep an eye of the fundamentals principles of branding. And they are simple.
Thanks again
This is absolutely worth trying, because it could be a dangerous thing relying only on search engines, so the concept market without search engines could be a long term traffic source, maybe that will be better than search engine traffic.
Thanks for this great post!
You have given a very good fact that pretend the search engines does not exist.And how can you get traffic.All are doing seo works for those who want to get the organic listings.And by doing forums,blogs and articles we can get a lot of trafffic without search engines.But search engines is also a important factor in marketing.
Yes that’s a great resource info. Refreshing article. SEO is getting more competitive each day. And I still think that if you wanted to be on the edge you really must compete more on your niche market. I just do what I think is working to gain more traffic each day. Article submission, I found out, really plays major part in traffic building.
First congratulations for this article.
If you allow me to share, I wrote in my blog(www.contentoutline.com) something in the same direction. I understand that nowadays people are too worry about SEO and forget that are human that will visit the websites. People that relay 100% on search engines let a big peace of the cake out. Imagine if you combine SEO with real marketing effort into your networking, I am sure will bring great results.
Best,
Daniel Zilli
Hi Maki, I think you are right to consider life without SEO but I’m not sure forums are helpful to every niche. I’ve been active in several forums over the years but I’ve started to find that many in my niches no longer allow links in sigs. You might get a link in your profile if you are lucky but even that doesn’t always apply. Also it is easy to be seen as a spammer even when you are just trying to be helpful. I’ve had more luck with blog comments and they do bring in significant amounts of traffic.
I agree with this article, Im not really as interested in where the traffic comes from as long as it is the right kind of traffic, preferably online shoppers willing to shop online not just browse. I think a lot of people are not aware that they can get better deals through shopping online instead of going to the retail establishment, especially when it comes to prepaid phone cards. Right now I am focusing on marketing through forums and Twitter along with working offline with family and friends (warm market).
I’ve been doing SEO since Infoseek did their real-time indexing back in 1998 and building sites since Netscape Navigator 1.0. Truth to tell, I much prefer now the fact you have to develop a reputation instead of pure SEO site hacking – it’s much easier to maintain that long run than to tweak for every change via the Google Dance.
I think Google will not index this article!
Jokes apart, thank you very much for this useful article. This should be an eye opener for those who think Google is God!
@Maki –
Hi Maki:
What a great article, I guess I have been subconsciously doing that, but you kinda put it in words wow!
I designed my website not putting SEO in consideration though I tried my best to have good content
I have been active on linkedin, and FB still crawling on Twitter trying to get the hang of it
I am launching my website within the next 2 weeks using SM, I am in the consulting business (marketing) and your article just reinforced what I believe in, Thank you
Sahar Andrade
Oh, here’s another one I should show someone…
Thanks a lot, man: you’ve got some serious proficiency there°°°/!
People should also try out the traditional ways of getting traffic by appealing to the press, or making newsworthy material that can be spread and reproduced nationwide..
If we pretend search engines do not exist, the traditional ways will be commenting on blogs, blog directories submission, article submission, bookmark networks, link exchange, posting in forums, and so on. These were the ways I tried before, but it took lots of time to be done.
Regards,
Lee
Nice post Maki! I think that without search engines, we can rely on directory submissions, social networking sites, email marketing thru yahoo groups and thru signatures of forums.
I think though that we must provide quality comments and articles to attract visitors.
I was lead here from Copyblogger. Glad I found this post. I have always heard that it’s better to achieve natural links from those that link to your content and not worry about search engines. I have been trying this and now will try even harder due to this article. Gathering points are a heck of a deal in getting people to your site. I recently discovered this as well and this article just reinforces this. Thanks
Great post, this is something my partner and I debate on a regular basis! As you say, “the most common problem we face is the lack of time” but like most things it’s a matter of priority and making the time.
Excellent article Maki & quite possibly the best website/blog for online marketing that I’ve found. It does sound/feel like a difficult concept until you actually do it but go where your audience is, where the crowds you want to address will be and it will help to spread your message etc. The other option is to collaborate with like minded people and mix it up.
Think Percee P.
Great article, and food for thought. What comes first the chicken or the website? PPC or word of mouth. New to SEO and web marketing we are aiming for a on-line and off-line approach.
As someone said to me ‘you can be the best [insert your niche] in the world, but without people knowing about you then your business will fail, you must be the best at Marketing in your niche!’
You are absolutely right in saying, there are alot more ways to market than by focusing solely on search engines, but I also find that it might be harder.
I agree with one of the other commentators, in that, word of mouth can be pretty difficult if you’re not already established.
Take for example, my ordinary pink blog. I just randomly started it one day having no search engine experience what so ever, and no “online money making” experience either.
It was like a blog for the people by the people. I’m just a regular person. But after starting my blog I found it so much easier to get traffic to it by focusing on SEO rather than by word of mouth. It’s sad to say, but on social network sites, and alot of other sites, alot of people are mostly all about themselves. They don’t really care much what others have to say.
But I still agree with you that there are a bunch of other ways you can market.. just I would suggest do it TOGETHER with SEO for the best results!
Great post!
I am very glad to have read this article. I have never written for search engines but I have “worried” about it! This article has inspired me to not worry so much about that and to continue writing for my readers. Of course I’d like to increase my readership, but in the end I really just wish to help others and connect with like-minded people.
Thank you for writing this.
Well I use good SEO and non-SEO tactics to build traffic to my Website. I watched a traffic course from this guy named John Reese @ income.com.
I can remember the time when search engines didn’t exist. The WWW was such a mysterious place back then; all you had to do was type whatever-crazy-concept-comes-to-mind.com or i-wonder-if-this-kind-of-site-exist.net, and you were there. It was a guessing-game of discovering what could be out there.
Now with the intrigue and nostalgia of the Web gone within two blinks of an eye, we stopped falling in love with the concept of a Website and began falling in love with its information (at least if it’s good and useful), and search engines became our ultimate gateways to finding the most detailed information.
The early days of Internet marketing mostly involved calculated measures, strategic planning, resource integration, diligent teamwork, and the spending of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to create the greatest two-word marketing message of all time on the World Wide Web… “click here.” Now, search engines have become necessities, and Google, the master of search-engine puppets, pulling the strings of almost everyone running for every SEO tricks, ticks, and tacks — especially yours truly. Let’s not forget the soaring number of marketing firms solely performing SEO, from zero to 60 in only half a sneeze.
It reminds me of a comment I made on the blog of Graham Jones, Internet Psychologist, reflecting the very views of this article: “In my opinion, I believe one of the main causes of the craze toward SEO for many Internet businesses is the near-effortless marketing potential that search engines could provide. Having your website displayed at the top of the list on major search engines, generating thousands of daily [quality] visits, would be a sit-back-and-kick-your-heels-up-as-you-grab-a-cold-one dream come true (granted if the keywords used to display your website are at a high trend).”
Since 2004, when the puppet master’s string caught me, I studied the concept of Search Engine Optimization, researched keyword popularity and trends, and applied those techniques to my music site, which went from 1,500 to 37,000 monthly unique visits within a few months. I continued to use the most applicable optimizations until I could go no further.
I quickly began to realize that SEO can only go but so far, and then you’ll have to use other means of generating an audience. Keywords represent the target market of your Website, and your Website can only pertain but to so many related topics and issues. Currently my music site receives over 90% of its traffic from search engines on just a few keywords related to what it covers.
On one hand, it’s great, almost the “sit-back-and-kick-your-heels-up-as-you-grab-a-cold-one” kind of traffic. On the other hand, this could also be like building a home dead-center on a fault line, and you’ll never know when the next earthquake will hit.
This has encouraged me to very soon go back to how I first started to promoted my site–direct e-mail to target prospects. I admit that I missed that direct connection. The feeling you get corresponding with only one person just to visit your site, a rather tedious task that once accomplished, makes you feel like you scale mountains. It also encourage me to look at search engines as only “one of many avenues.”
This overall makes be realize the ultimate truth: build your business through marketing. This helped me went from the almost “sit-back-and-kick-your-heels-up-as-you-grab-a-cold-one” SEOer to going back to the marketing basics of research, analysis, market segmentation and targeting, product differentiation, communication, valuation, and the cream-of-the-cream–developing the exchange relationship. I feel going beyond the use of search engines to generating exposure will be the next great Internet marketing challenge. Guess how I found this site? (Hint: No query strings required.)
I can only hope to create another great marketing message beyond “click here.”
As usual you’re doing small businesses and bloggers everywhere a service by pointing out that their sites are truly for users – not search engines – and there ARE ways to drive traffic that don’t involve SEO or search. I’ll be adding more links to this post and others you’ve written recently.
If we as a community start sharing more we all benefit. My own posts recently have been related to this post. One covers the very real potential that search engine traffic could drop severely. Another shares a strategy that increased my own blog traffic 54.87%. That strategy involves actively commenting on and sharing quality content wherever we travel online.
Yours is one blog I regularly share. Any of your readers who would like to have me share their blog posts can come by, comment, or talk to me at Twitter. I spend more time sharing than I do writing because we can all use more visibility and quality information.
Mark Twain said; ” The only bad publicity that you can get is your obituary.”
What an excellent blog, I’ve added your feed to my RSS reader.
What you are in effect saying is that you can go out and target visitors and you are forced to present your brand. I feel this approach of directly promoting the site is a viable one.
It has another advantage, you may be able to reach out to communities which would be ignorant about your website. In other words you may be able to create demand whereas in the SEO approach you are sitting in a shop waiting for customers to come your way whereas in your approach you have a shop but are at the same time hiring traveling salespersons, participating in fairs and so on.
Quality of traffic matters not just quantity.
This article made me think a lot.
I suppose good SEO practitioners must be already working along your lines also.
Great post as always. Good information and i am going to try something like this for my blog.
Nice post. I do think that search engines are indispensable to market your blog and bring traffic. John chow when he started his blog, he ABUSED of search engines. Once he got in the top spot and people were aware of him and google discovered all the link spam he had done, they literary took him away from their listings, but that was too late since he had already created a buzz about his blog.
So yea I think search engines really make your life easier
A Webmaster World poster did this … and his actively SEOed site ranked better on SEs and made money faster than one that ignored SEs. Barry Schwartz had the link on SERoundtable.
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/019816.html
Of course, the point of the test was to see which would rank better – not which would make more money from non search sources. But the one not focused on search still underperformed the SEOed one.
You know what would be a nice follow up post to this? A case study (minus niches, names, etc) highlighting time you spent building up a profile in these gathering points, which gathering points were more valuable, some stumbling blocks/obstacles encountered along the way etc.
I’m not sure about this at all. Yes, it’s true that you can get a lot of traffic from social bookmarking etc, but none of it is targetted traffic and most of the traffic from bookmarking sites don’t purchase anything.
Going back to “how things were done before search engines” is like going from a world dominated by cars to the horse-and-buggy world. Nothing is as effective.
For instance, pre-search engines, businesses were forced to advertise “where people were” and hoped that a few of them might be interested in your product. Now they target ads using the search engine – that’s why Google advertising is creaming the mainstream press advertising. It’s because the Return on Advertising on targetted ads is so much better than the old method of ” go where people are and hope some random person is interested in my product”. Advertisers have noticed and they are voting with their wallets. So by deliberately going back to the old method, you will take a cut in pay.
Have you actually had any success in converting your social visitors into sales? I’d be interested in looking at a proper study where a blog with social traffic was measured up against a blog with search engine traffic and the difference in Profit measured. I think you’ll find that the search traffic wins hands down.
In business there is a saying: Turnover is Vanity, Profit is Sanity. In internet speak this translates into Social Traffic is Vanity and Search Engine Traffic is Sanity.
I also believe that by being active in large forums can really bring traffic to your blog because you’re targeting people who share a same interest. However, it is also interesting too that I’m familiar with your avartars. Some of them are characters that I like
@ Gab
That test you linked to doesn’t really prove anything except the fact that he did a poor job on content marketing. As we all know, you can’t publish something and rely on RSS/Twitter to get the word out so people will link to it. It’s missing a lot of the marketing strategies associated with natural (non-paid) link growth. Press releases ain’t gonna cut it.
And he even hired full-time link builders for the first site so there’s really no argument here.. since links determine rankings, of course the first site would rank better than a site that was left alone and neglected. Content doesn’t sell itself, only after you’re established with a good listening audience.
Anyway, the point here is not ignore search engines. That would be stupid. It’s about understanding that there are prospects out there. You don’t have to wait for search engines to drip them into your site, you can go to them and make them know you exist.
@ Make money in a recession
I’m not suggesting that non-search engine traffic is better than search traffic. Also not suggesting that one ignore search traffic in favor of chasing referral traffic from other sites. That’s not really the point of my article.
Non-search traffic can be actually very targeted. But social bookmarking sites are mostly junk (except for delicious.com) so my marketing outside of search engines doesn’t involve bookmarking sites. Non-search traffic is EXTREMELY relevant if you use the right places. Forums are targeted. So are other blogs or sites in your niche.
To say that they don’t purchase anything is far from the truth. They do. But of course, it depends on how you’re selling it.
I don’t think that you’ll lose money because you choose to market without paid search or Google Ads. That doesn’t make sense. A PPC click can give me a conversion rate that’s similar to a visitor coming from Yahoo Answers. Both are searching for more information on a topic or a specific product. Both are ready to buy. Both have an equal chance of converting on your sales page or opt-in form.
I have made money from forum marketing/community marketing/answer site/social media site marketing. They do buy, if you know how to sell. If you’re just spamming a link you’ll be banned or ignored by the more savvy users anyway. So evidently it is a skill of some sorts to be acquired after much practice.
In terms of speed, these social sites make me more money faster than search engines since my site doesn’t even have to be indexed for me to raking in the dollars. The only thing that compares is paid search.
Does it beat search traffic? That’s not really the right question to ask sometimes. It depends on your site, its purpose and your goals. There are some sites that are really thin and not content rich. A salespage is not going to rank well for many longtails, referral traffic is the thing that will make you money. So there is a purpose for non-search marketing after all, its not just a throwback to an age before the dominance of search engines.
@ Everyone else
Thanks for your comments!
I tried to see if anyone had mentioned Yahoo Answers as a traffic generator, but do not think it has been referred to. If you legitimately answer questions, without spamming, you can get a lot of traffic. You keep getting that traffic because questions and answers stay in the archive for a long time…maybe forever?
You hit it right on the head. Many people are only focusing on the search engine traffic and they are losing out on a lot of other free traffic.
I think the reason most people want to take the search engine route is because it is easier but don’t realize how social media traffic is also.
Brilliant post and website. Definitely bookmarking for further reference and reading material. A+ Job!
First thought that comes to mind is to hang out where there are people interested in what you’re talking about. Of course that’s forums and groups which should be part of your strategy anyway.
Great post.
If search engines did not exist (BTW I was there when it didn’t), we wouldn’t have to worry about leaking linkjuice, getting penalized for linking to bad sites, comment spams, etc.. It indeed would be a very different world where most of the traffic would come from referrals from other websites. In many ways, it’s a much better world where links are not an object of conflict, envy, greed, fear, panic, obsession, etc.. Our expressions of what’s good and bad would be more natural and real, not something dictated by Google’s rules and algorithms. The things like “webring” were actually useful where we discover surprising websites connected by personal values, not by narrowly defined topics. Google brought many good things to the Internet but at the same time ruined at lot of things too.
heyy i know this is off topic but see this commenting box that iam commenting in how did u get this in your website? iam using dreamweaver (html)…and i wanna make it so people can comment when i write something but how can i to that …what do i gotta do add a script or somethimg?…..Also in my opinion seo sucks but u need organic traffic so u gotta get good at it i guess
We have been doing this for clients for sometime with quite effective results. Demand generation through more traditional tactics works well for the right brands.
This is a great post Maki. However, in my view, this back to basics approach is probably best suited to those who have already established solid content on their site and fulfilled the criteria for good search-engine based marketing. That is, create great content, implement appropriate seo techniques and then push into social marketing.
Besides, the real challenge for most authors is the extensive time required to undertake this type of marketing properly. If you are busy working on the business, finding extra time to market in this way is difficult—especially if you also intend to have a life offline!
Excellent food for thought AND for growing your business. At the end of the day it’s all about marketing and there’s more to marketing than just the search engines.
I think this is brilliant advice. People seem to take the simple strategies for granted!
It seems that with ‘relatively’ confusing methods (anything in life really) people assume that it will do a better job.
This just goes to show that going back to basics and putting in some man hours can have a positive effect upon your website. It is also a great way to reach a much wider range of people and focus upon those niches (particularly in forums etc) that you really want to target.
In my opinion both methods of SEO marketing have their merits and i suppose if you want to carry out a really successful campaign for your website using a bit of both old school and new school SEO could be the answer. As long as you are willing in to put in the time of course!
Good article. If nothing else, spend time doing both.
beautiful. this article is both enligthening and makes one thing real hard. you have several excellent points that open a marketer’s eyes. thanks for writing this stuff
I agree with you,
the single biggest problem is the LACK of time.
and While time=money, than lack of money emerges
as well for some people
Igor
Sometimes we are so focused in receive traffic from search engines that we forgot the rest of roads that the users can take to arrive in our sites. A very elucidative post.
The irony here is: how did you find all those awesome niche forums? Word of mouth? I’m guessing not.
Oh, and besides the brilliant greens your random grass photos added, what was the point of using pictures of grass? Just wondering.
Search engine traffic is easy hands-free traffic. Probably this is the reason people go after it. Not to mention the fact that you can get crazy amounts of free targeted traffic. Imagining what it would be like without search engines is difficult to say the least, but if we can indulge in such an exercise it can really open us up to think of ways we can better user experience. This exercise can help us get out of purely SEO mindset and start focusing more on users for a change.
Full RSS feed
Fatal error: Call to undefined function akst_share_form() in /nfs/c01/h15/mnt/36436/domains/doshdosh.com/html/wp-content/themes/DoshDosh4/footer.php on line 10