Online Marketing Vs SEO

[Team Leith Training]

Another interesting topic to come from this course i'm doing is looking at building a mailing list as being more effective than SEO.
Of course with SEO your site appears when people google you're key words, but a mailing list is more effective way at keeping in touch with your customers and ensuring they come back to your site.

Do you think going forward it is work investing more time in marketing a email campaign than on SEO? Or a little of both?

i am working on such a project with my astro soc. So far got 60 subscribers (the mag does not start til Sunday!). Will keep you posted as to how that goes.

 

[webgeek]

I've not seen email outperforming SEO personally, but I'm sure some have.

Generally speaking, we aspire to drive 20% of revenue via email (on established sites), using a combination of lead capture and acquired lists. It takes a significant amount of effort in developing the content, conducting the campaigns, assessing results, rinse/lather/repeat, but the re-sell/up-sell is a nice way to improve lifetime value of a customer.

Then again, a majority of those email sales are from previous customers who made their first purchase after visiting the site via organic search (thank SEO for those sales) 60% to 80% of the time.

Capturing a lead via the website, who has not bought anything, then nurturing them into becoming a paying customer is a large effort outlay vs small revenue reward, unless you are using marketing automation software like Pardot or HubSpot.

Simply blasting sales flyers every 2 weeks is certainly not the way to beat that 20% of revenue goal above...

 

[terryuk]

I think you should look at as email marketing to aid your marketing campaign along with SEO and anything else. If you look at how multiple methods can work together then you are building the bigger picture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_marketing#Types_of_Internet_marketing

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Yep, List building should be part of your SEO/IM work. the problem here is that the terminology is back again. I am not an SEO I am an Internet Marketer, but I have to be called an SEO because that is what people know. Before it became SEO it was SEP (Search Engine Positioning) we managed to move it away from pure positioning, but SEO has stuck now. regardless of what we do, we have to wear the SEO badge

 

[MarcusMiller]

A little of both, don't concentrate on one channel at the expense of others. If you can drive traffic to your site then often, those visitors will exchange an email for more content / information and you have longer to impress just what a hot prospect you are to them.

Email, social, it's all the same and provides a nice outbound component to your inbound marketing - but just don't expect miracles and like everything else it takes time and effort.

 

[terryuk]

Yep, List building should be part of your SEO/IM work. the problem here is that the terminology is back again. I am not an SEO I am an Internet Marketer, but I have to be called an SEO because that is what people know. Before it became SEO it was SEP (Search Engine Positioning) we managed to move it away from pure positioning, but SEO has stuck now. regardless of what we do, we have to wear the SEO badge

Even Cutt's is fed up with SEO

http://www.webpronews.com/matt-cutts-on-whether-or-not-seo-should-be-called-something-else-2012-11

 

[Annoying Donkey]

a mailing list is more effective way at keeping in touch with your customers and ensuring they come back to your site.

Depends how you do it. If all you're sending out are sales messages, you'll lose subscribers very quickly. However offer something of value regularly and it can result in extra sales and referrals.

 

[Team Leith Training]

Depends how you do it. If all you're sending out are sales messages, you'll lose subscribers very quickly. However offer something of value regularly and it can result in extra sales and referrals.

Its an astromag type of thing, so not selling anything. Just how to's, information, what others are doing that sort of thing

 

[Ali-v-8]

@OWG about the badge thing - i am seoticus

clearly seoi vs online marketing isnt really a good title because its like saying xbox 360 vs Microsoft gaming platform.
Seo is a part of online marketing as is social media, PPC, sponsored listings and Email marketing.

 

[trebor8]

@OWG about the badge thing - i am seoticus

.

That should make a great domain name

 

[OldWelshGuy]

That should make a great domain name

indeed it did. long story, but I stitched Ali up when he claimed he was SEOticus

 

[Ali-v-8]

He stole my Identity the cheeky bugger lol

 

[OldWelshGuy]

He stole my Identity the cheeky bugger lol

you snooze, you looze.

 

[Ali-v-8]

Ha ha Ha - its ok - Imitation is the greatest form of flattery lol

 

[Onlineadguru]

Depending on your area of business I'd definitely say take a mixed methods approach so use SEO and email marketing. Possibly try PPC as well, it will definitely help with boosting your business.

 

[EthanBronner]

Online marketing is now parts of seo.There are lots of technique of online marking are same as seo.Both are helpful for get traffic for website.In lonline they get fast traffic for website,where seo is helpful for get long term traffic.

 

[william04]

I think Business listing is essential for local business growth, Assume if I have restaurant business we must get listed on Local Business Listing sites its effective marketing.

 

[eventdomain]

If you pay a freelancer £1000, this is good for about 10 keyworded articles - not very much to be found on. You'll need about 50 keywords SEO'd for the attraction factor to kick in these days compared with say 5 years ago.

We had some SEO done for both websites:

Site A we DIY'd it totally.....

12 keyworded articles optimised - Free
45k of links - Free
200k visitors per year - Free
1700ish sign-ups per year

-------------------------------------

Site B was partially DIY & Paid SEO:

7 keyworded articles (£400 - professionally SEO'd)
22k of links - 100% Free
100k visitors per year - 100% Free
sign-ups about the same @ 1695 a year.

-- so we broke even on the £400 SEO spend - am still judging its long-term effectiveness, but although its slow, its reliable. Not much difference between the 2 sites, except the £400 outlay and the first site did better pulling in double the traffic.

Am thinking if another 3 months goes by without a major difference, we will apply a viral technique and forget paid SEO for a while.

 

[Ali-v-8]

Seriously what are you going on about ?????
Do you make this stuff up as you go along??
You optimise for your product - not fixed numbers that you pluck out of the air.
If one keyword is prominent than thats what you target.

Unl;ess of course you was being satirically funny - in which case ha ha ha.

If you pay a freelancer £1000, this is good for about 10 keyworded articles - not very much to be found on. You'll need about 50 keywords SEO'd for the attraction factor to kick in these days compared with say 5 years ago.

 

[Sammy86]

I would recommend going in for both SEO & Email Marketing. Through your SEO campaign you can target those users to whom you were unable to target through the Email marketing campaign & vice-versa. This will help you to get maximum traffic to your website, therefore increasing your conversions.

 

[webgeek]

While email may help you keep the conversation flowing and keep you front of mind, so that when the customer is ready to buy, you are staying front of wallet....

Email can indeed directly drive substantial traffic and revenue.

The key difference is inbound vs interruptive.

SEO is the "scratch" when someone has an "itch". A searcher is seeking something, and SEO results help them find it.

Email is the "itch", leading someone to visit the site and get a "scratch". The person was getting on with the work of the day when something interrupted them by landing in their inbox. They hadn't even considered visiting the site to buy something before that email landing.

They often reach very different audiences and prospects at differing levels of becoming sales ready.