Beyond SEO - The online marketing mix: Part 1

For many people launching new websites, the first thing they want to do to promote it, is optimise the site to gain high rankings in the search engines. This is necessary if you want your website to be found in an online search, but it is essential that you do not become obsessed with rankings, and even more, neglect other online marketing activities, which are just as important as search engine optimisation (SEO).

There are several reasons why just relying on SEO to promote your website could be dangerous. Firstly, there is an enormous amount of competition. Just look at the number of web pages found in any on search result on Google. They now have tens of billions of pages in their database. SEO is now taking longer and longer to take effect, it is a very slow process for long term results. Search engines often change their algorithms, mostly to weed out sites which use ‘cowboy’ techniques to get high rankings. Your results will always fluctuate. With all this in mind, it is becoming more difficult to gain high rankings, so being proactive about the promotion of your website is all the more important.

What else can you do? Well, SEO should be one part of your online marketing mix, which in turn, should form a part of your overall marketing mix. There are a variety of options open to you, 5 of which we will cover in this issue of Marketing Karma, and 5 in the next issue. Some of these points will also be the subject of more in depth articles in Marketing Karma.

1. Pay per Click Advertising
We have already covered this subject, but it is important to include pay per click (PPC) advertising as part of your online marketing mix. PPC is an excellent way of gaining visitors to your website from the search engines very quickly, and within your set budget. You can choose which PPC search engines to start a campaign with, but there are several worth trialling, and perhaps sticking with the one that gives you the best results. It is worth looking at Google Adwords, Overture and Miva (formerly Espotting), depending on your target audience. For more information about PPC advertising, read our article which appeared in the June 2004 issue of Marketing Karma.

2. Link building
Gaining links into your website should be part of your online marketing strategy from the day you launch your new website. Most search engines now use links as part of their algorithm, and gaining quality links is more important than the quantity of links you have pointing to your website. You want the links to be relevant and to bring your website targeted visitors. Since 59%* of visitors arrive at websites from links, this has to play a significant part of your online marketing campaign. For further information, you can read our previous article about link building from March 2004.
*source: Forrester Research

3. Email marketing
Email marketing is an excellent way of keeping in touch with your database of contacts. You can build your own database by having a sign up on your website and encouraging visitors to do so. Every week, month, or bi-monthly, however often you feel fits in with your products or services, you can contact your list with the latest company or industry news, special offers and promotions. By doing this, you are keeping your business in front of your contacts at a very low cost. It is important you build your list in house as buying lists are not always ‘clean’, and you could get accused of spamming, if a recipient did not opt in to your list themselves.
As it's now 2 years since the Privacy and Electronic Communications regulations came into force, in the next issue of Marketing Karma, Robin Houghton will be looking at how email marketing has progressed and who is using it successfully.

4. Article writing
Articles can help you to become an expert in your field if you write them often enough, and spread them widely. Article writing is a very good way of gaining credibility online, getting your business more widely known, and an additional bonus is that often if you write articles that are published on other websites, you can gain an extra link to your site. It can be time consuming, but worth getting into the habit of doing regularly. Don’t forget that once you have written an article, it can always be recycled and used in many online and offline publications.

5. E-PR
E-PR is effectively PR (public relations) online. To some extent this involves writing articles about your industry and expertise, and getting them published as outlined above. However, you can use the internet for press releases and other PR activities, and get them published and picked up by other websites. It is worth monitoring what is being written about your business online, on other websites and on blogs, particularly if your business is involved with something controversial. Managing your reputation is just as important online as it is offline, so ensure this is also integrated into your usual PR activities. For more information about E-PR, take a look at the E-PR website.

These 5 activities are a good starting point to extend your online marketing beyond the search engines. All are manageable on a budget and all will help your business and website to be known more widely, and also help towards your natural search engine rankings.

We will be covering 5 more aspects of online marketing in the next issue of Marketing Karma.