subject: SEO: Building Solid Web Site Strategies Aside from SEO [print this page] We often hear people griping and lamenting about how Google, Yahoo, or MSN reduced their site's rankings, causing a huge loss of profits and business. These people surrender to the fact that their favorite search engine failed them and their business and are resigned to finding another search engine to advertise on, not realizing the real fact that they may just be committing another mistake waiting to happen.
Aside from pitfalls of the site itself, the most common mistake in this type of scenario is simply relying too much on a search engine to rake in the customers. This blatant fact of ignoring other avenues of online marketing is a common practice that leaves many companies and webmasters looking for other full-time employment at more established companies.
This type of "SEO is everything" perception is most prevalent in businesses that are new to Internet marketing. It should be avoided at the onset and throughout strategies and business plans to attract customers and leads, and Internet marketing and e-commerce should really be separated from other, more established ways of acquiring leads or sales.
Two simple reasons could be pointed out why over-reliance on SEO and search engines will kill your business:
First, search engines aren't doing business for you. They're doing business for themselves and for their owners. They would not care if your business took a sudden plummet because of your web site's loss of rankings. It happens by the thousands each day and search engines really could care less.
Secondly, if a search engine vanished or completely changed direction you'd be left with nothing. At this point you would've lost valuable time and money in focusing all your advertising efforts in that one single search engine.
The bottom line is to diversify your business strategy. You should always have a fallback or contingency plan. If you keep and follow other business tactics aside from SEO, a negative hit on your SEO arsenal will hurt you, but not completely cripple your business. There are other techniques such as e-mail marketing, banner ads, affiliate programs and direct marketing that can play an integral role in your marketing success. These techniques can prove to be as useful or, depending on your exact industry, even more useful than search engine advertising alone.
SEO: Building Solid Web Site Strategies Aside from SEO
