Online Marketing Without Search

Only one result gets to show up first in search results. As much as the boomer generation wants everybody to be a winner, in search there is only one winner.

Like a friend of mine once told me about playing in tennis tournaments, in a draw with 64 players there are 63 losers.  Put that big L on the forehead boys and girls.

So if you can not win in search marketing, how can you win in online marketing?

DoshDosh had a good post about this recently titled Marketing Your Website Without Search Engines.

For many small businesses I believe this is your best approach.

To quote...

"Without search engines, people will do what they’ve been doing for thousands of years. They rely on each other. They rely on the community, on the collection of publications known within their geographic location or industry. They rely on word of mouth. And they also rely on getting information from common resources like a public square, library, forum or marketplace.

Go where people gather. There you will be heard. It sounds like rudimentary marketing but quite honestly, until I’ve tried ignoring search engines and focusing exclusively on gathering points, I didn’t realize how much actual marketing I was NOT doing."

The problem is most small businesses do no intentional marketing at all. That is not the same as no marketing. We all create some kind of impression on the people we interact with everyday. Whether we intend this to be our marketing, it will be seen as marketing by those with whom we interact.

I say as long as you are marketing by default, why not put some thought and effort into it and get the results you would like. Build a better business.

If you use online banking, how did you get the web address of the bank to go to for your online banking? I doubt you found it through search.

The key for your online banking was the bank gave you something you valued. You went to the site they told you to go to, logged on, and used the service. Then you went back again and again.

For your business what service could you provide that your customers would come back to again and again? That is what you need to offer.