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Search Engine Optimization vs Internet Marketing

Search engine optimization or Internet marketing; which will generate more Internet traffic?

The Internet obviously changed the way companies capture market share. It’s been said that the Internet has had the biggest impact on business since the Industrial Revolution. In the early 1990’s there was limited competition so the early adopters of Internet marketing had plenty of low hanging fruit. That fruit has become increasingly more difficult to find. There is more business to be conducted on the Internet today than ever before and it grows daily; but with great opportunity often comes amazingly stiff competition, as has certainly been the case with the Internet. Some years ago you could use banners to drive traffic effectively but that method of generating Internet traffic has dropped off significantly. Pop ups have become such a nuisance that a new industry was spawned in pop up blockers. Email drops still work to some degree as long as you adhere to strict regulations and affinity marketing is doing relatively well. Pay per click advertising is undoubtedly garnering a significant share of Internet marketing revenue but how does the public view it? Studies indicate that less than 30% of the public clicks on pay per click advertising and the conversion rate is less than that of organic search result traffic. To test these results, simply ask 5 friends where they click when searching on the Internet, typically 4 out of 5 will say they only click the natural listings. The public has become savvy when it comes to shopping and researching on the Internet and they really don’t tolerate advertising the way they once did. So the question remains; how can we best capture the public’s attention on the Internet?

The answer: Give them what they want. People search for what they want on the Internet…not what you want them to search for. So why not position your site to be found when prospective customers search for your product or service?

Search Engine Optimization is certainly a buzz phrase but what is it, and does it really work? Search Engine Optimization or SEO as it is commonly referred to, is the science of correcting the technical inaccuracies in a website in order to allow it to climb the search engines and thus improve traffic to your website. Sounds simple enough but truly it is far from simple. Google admits to using more than 200 ranking signals and they don’t publish a list. So how does a professional SEO or a business owner learn the important things that contribute to getting a site ranked? One way is to attend a qualified SEO training seminar or training event. One of the most well respected seo seminar series is conducted by industry leader Dave Barry. Another way is to hire a professional SEO. This option can be expensive and sometimes inconsistent. Before hiring an individual seo Google his/her name followed by SEO to see if the world recognizes this individual as a successful SEO. A good example of this is; do a Google search on - Dave Barry SEO - you’ll see tens of thousands of pages touting his experience and expertise. Although the results will include several pages from his website the majority will be from other sites. The more pages you find that have been written by others the more likely you’ve found a strong SEO. Try this with whomever you consider hiring either as an employee or sub contractor.

There is a potential downfall to hiring a “manual” seo, meaning one that manipulates code by hand. It is that the results may be inconsistent and only apply to several pages of your site. Think about it this way. Your site should generate traffic to each page other than perhaps your contact page, terms and conditions, privacy policy etc. Proper SEO enables each page in your site to attract new potential clients. If a person were to perform seo on a page by page basis manually, how long would it take and would you be comfortable paying rather large fees for this tedious operation? Another consideration is that the search engines change the way they would like your site to be presented to them regularly which will result in further fees if you want to stay current and keep your rankings.

Many site owners will say that search engine optimization doesn’t work, when in actuality they have been subjected to poor or incomplete optimization. True search engine optimization addresses every page in your site. The best way to accomplish this seems to be to automate the process. There is an actual SEO content manager, or a site management software program that does the seo automatically, on the market. A content manager is a web based software application that acts as the backbone of a website, and an SEO content manager is a content manager that performs seo automatically on every page of your site. The seo content manager is site search architect and it’s not a brand new product so it has thoroughly proven its abilities. There are numerous content managers on the market but none other than site search architect perform seo automatically. There are a few CMS that claim to be seo friendly which means that if you understand seo, the software will allow you to make the correct changes to your code. Site Search Architect by Web Tools and Technology performs the SEO automatically and can be used by a novice to improve their web traffic.

Search engine optimization works as long as you do it well and consistently. The value of an automated seo content manager is that it removes the human element and the potential mistakes that come from manual coding. It works 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, and 52 weeks per year and doesn’t call in sick or take vacations.

Back to our original question; will Internet marketing or search engine optimization generate more traffic? The best answer I’ve been able to come up with is that a good mix of both is valuable. SEO will put your site in front of the individuals searching for your product right now and there is really no better prospective customer than the one looking on the Internet right now. Studies have shown that more than 70% of Internet searchers click on the organic or natural rankings as opposed to the pay per click. Those same studies have indicated a higher conversion rate with site visitors that clicked the organic listings. This seems to indicate that search engine optimization will generate more Internet traffic and the revenue associated with site visitors. Marketing will place your message in front of those that may have a future need or need a little nudge to get the ball rolling. There are many ways to market on the Internet and many have true value, combine great search engine optimization with a good marketing plan and the results will be outstanding. Back to articles