Social Media: Internet advertising and search placement on steroids: The social media rant!
If you were just getting used to the word blog (short for web log) and you still do not know exactly what social media means, you need to catch up quickly! The next big shift on the internet is well underway and it will leave you behind, lost in oblivion!
That website that you have: you know, the one with no way for a visitor to interact with the site, with you, or with the other visitors is already dead: it probably never produced much anyway!
If you are paying per-lead or per-click it is very likely that you are competing with lead aggregators: middlemen who need not make money at what you do, because they are buying your market, then selling it back to you (less the profit!).
When you get tired of trying to be your own lawyer in this unholy, largely unregulated courtroom, this stock market with no SEC, it will already be too late to dominate the first page of the major search engines organic results for your industry and-or location: because my clients will already be there, and they will be so far ahead you will never catch up.
The only thing saving you right now (if you are making anything online) is that the internet is growing so fast, and companies like ours are being bought out and screwed up by the new owners at such a rate, that huge gaps in the jury box are constantly created in this fastest growing marketplace ever in the history of the human race.
Thank for listening to my rant: sometimes I just need to vent after dealing with sleeping, lackadaisical people all day long who think they can still win by being slow and analytical!
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Another good method to increase traffic and site visibility is to use free advertising and link exchanges. A lot of bloggers nowadays are so amped up on ‘SMO (social media optimization)’ and ‘viral marketing’ that they forget about this simple and efficient method. I have used a couple of these since I have been blogging and found that they bring in a good amount of traffic without requiring much upkeep or money (always an added bonus). One of the better services that I have used is http://adgridwork.com because they allow content targeting and work with both WordPress and Blogger. I’ve also dabbled with http://bla.st and found it to be a good directory as well. Hope these help.
-Nick
Nick, nice to have you join the conversation. Nice advice, Adgrid looks like an interesting site and I’ve used many similar services for individual clients before. There is something I would be very careful about though. Because of the great number of adsense affiliate sites and thin content sites, having ads displayed on your front page or any page leading to your call to action could dramatically decrease your conversion rate and cost you more money then the traffic brings you. That’s why so much attention is currently being given to viral traffic and SMO is because unlike other methods of increasing traffic, social media can increase the trust factor of your website as it makes you look more popular and therefore easier to believe and purchase from.
If you were going to use free advertising and link exchanges on a commercial site or business blog, I definitely would not place any visible ads on your front page or any path to accomplish your call to action. It would probably be ok to have some advertising like adgrid on your resource pages or maybe your older blog posts, but I’d definitely be wary of pasting up ads on your main business blog or website.
Of course if you’re talking about a personal blog, then maybe traffic and exposure are more important then trust factors or your audience may be more forgiving in that area. My personal blog has adsense and text link advertising on it.
Another overlooked time-honered system is to comment real, relevant comments on industry related sites: not comment spam, but actual information. I have been succesful in getting some very prestigious links by endorsing good products and services.
To go along with comments that provide value it also needs to happen on a fairly regular basis in order to keep people returning to a site. I have noticed when slowing down comments, even on a personal blog, that the comments levels drop drammitically but can also be replenished by some old fashioned time and effort.
There is no substitute for hard work.
I have noticed when slowing down comments, even on a personal blog, that the comments levels drop drammitically but can also be replenished by some old fashioned time and effort.