Search Engine Promotion  is too complicated.  Aren’t there other options?

Of course there are.  Here are three:

1. Paid Search Ads (PPC)
2. Affiliates/Banner Ads
3. eLetter

Now, let’s talk about why search engine promotion is the best option.

Reason Search Engine Promotion is Better Number One

It’s cheap.  If you’re really on a shoe-string budget, you can do SEO yourself.  All it takes is some planning and know-how.  This site is designed to help with both.

Using PPC campaigns can be very effective.  They can also burn through your cash in the blink of an eye.  It’s Pay-Per-Click, not Pay-Per-Sale.  Anyone who clicks through and then doesn’t convert represents not only a missed sale, but a negative cost as well.

You will want a strong background in effective direct response copywriting before taking on a PPC campaign.  These are generally hard-sell landing pages.  Most people do not like to write that kind of copy.  It makes them uncomfortable, and they find it distasteful.  Furthermore, it’s not an easy thing to do successfully.  You could always hire someone, but the people who can write effective hard-sell copy charge 4 to 5 figures without breaking a sweat.

So much for your advertising budget.

Reason Search Engine Promotion is Better Number Two

You have more control.

PPC gives you quite a bit of control, but again, it’s extremely expensive if not handled by an expert.  Banner ads are the internet equivalent of billboards.  You want to put them in places where your target audience will see them.  That means finding places that have a lot of traffic.  You will have to pay for these banner, and the more traffic potential, the higher the cost.

Also, because banner ads are the equivalent of billboards, they must necessarily be less focused.  Their broadness reduces the level of targeting in your targeted traffic, resulting in a higher bounce rate.

Search engine promotion gives you much more control, and is almost always for more targeted to your target audience.

Reason Search Engine Promotion is Better Number Three

The level of required maintenance is relatively low.  Once you have found your golden keywords, and optimized your pages with useful (and preferably evergreen) content, you can basically set it and forget it.

Of course, it’s wise to keep tabs on any trends, or any new keywords you start ranking for, but this is about addition, not maintenance.

Using a e-mail newsletter is an extremely effective marketing tool as well (By the way, why don’t you go ahead and sign up for my free marketing tip of the week).  The only problem is that you have to write it regularly.

Most people don’t like committing to such a deadline, particularly when they already have a lot on their plates.  This issue gets more onorous as the frequency of your mailings increases.  Monthly is easier than weekly, for example.

The benefits of search engine promotion over a newsletter approach is that each optimized page is essentially a permanent salesman for your site.  SEO is the shotgun, the e-letter is the rifle.  See my post on the shotgun-rifle-scope marketing system.

The e-letter should be used as a stepping stone, but not a replacement for an effective search engine promotion strategy.

The Takeaway

Search engine promotion, done right, is the most cost-effective method for marketing on the internet.  It offers greater control over the traffic you target, and lasts forever once it’s optimized.

Getting traffic to come to you naturally is the name of the game.  Once you’ve got them never let them go.

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