Working Towards Consistency in Online Marketing, Part II

In the last post we talked about the fundamental difference between pay per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO).

PPC is a very effective marketing technique that allows for immediate results in that you pay the price for the program and earn instant placement on the search engines. But once payment stops, the placement is lost.

Search engine optimization provides for longer term exposure because the web site will have reached its ranking in the search engines organically. It takes longer to achieve results with SEO but the results hold up as long as someone is focused on the task at hand. The web site optimization firm offers this kind of focus.

Take, for instance, the difference between advertising and public relations. With advertising you pay for product placement – through an ad, a billboard, or whatever the case may be. You hire advertising experts to help you secure that space and to create an advertisement that will get people’s attention in whatever method you choose to advertise. The results are quick – your ad appears in the spot that you intended it to run and the audience that you intended to see it does indeed see it. The ad remains there for the amount of time for which the space was purchased.

In public relations you are counting on professionals to place your company in organic positions so that it is noticed – i.e. getting the attention of editors on a particular story angle so that they want to run an in depth editorial piece on the company, getting news coverage on television, and so forth. Just like advertising, public relations requires focused effort from professionals who understand the game.

In the same vein, it is important to hire professionals who specialize in each component of online marketing to achieve the best results for your web site.

Working Towards Consistency in Online Marketing, Part I

We are a society that is used to getting what we want when we want it; no questions asked, no waiting required. Because we are so accustomed to instant gratification it may seem absolutely ridiculous that we should wait for anything as important as web site traffic to come our way. After all, we built the site and we did it right. Where’s our traffic? But here’s the thing…web site traffic doesn’t come just because you want it to; just because you launched your site. Getting web traffic to come to your site is all about putting the work in and making a consistent effort. Consistent effort results in consistent marketing results and there’s no way around that.

A great number of web site owners feel strongly that pay per click (PPC) is the way to go in terms of marketing their site and they wouldn’t be wrong. PPC is very effective in terms of getting the web site out there and getting noticed by the search engines and by an audience. But it must never be forgotten that once payment stops on a PPC program the placement that the site has enjoyed on the search engines ceases as well.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a longer term approach to marketing. It requires consistent “elbow grease” to get the job done. But really, the job is never done because as quickly as a site can reach the higher elevations of search engine results is as fast as it can fall again in rankings. It requires consistency and focus and that is where a web site optimization firm can come into play. Working in tandem with a web site optimization firm means that someone’s eye is always on the ball and that the business at hand is always being considered. More in the next post…