Where's the online exit door (and does it pay to leave?)

by PBMax
8 replies
  • SEO
  • |
I've about had my fill of the online SEO rat race. Manual, automated or paid services never seem to work for long, and I (the Internet Marketing Manager) get all the blame for lost or unhappy clients laid at my doorstep. Sucks to be honest. I never set out do SEO, it was literally thrown at me to do. We make websites. You know, your online HQ - let someone else figure out how to manipulate Google and satiate it's flavor of the month.

Does anyone still do old school marketing? No backlinks. NO SOCIAL MEDIA (which has created "outgoing" social shut-ins hellbent on mulitple selfies and a "me me me" zombie mentality.)

Yard signs, door hangers, flyers, newspaper ads, pounding pavement, word of mouth marketing and...dare I say it...interacting with REAL LIVE PEOPLE.

Anyone do that?
#door #exit #leave #online #pay
  • Profile picture of the author FaBiz
    For Local Businesses the "Old style marketing" is still giving very good results.

    Flyers, mail marketing (not email) and phone calls are the best methods when it gets to local marketing.
    Signature
    REAL RESULTS! Try and See!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9349524].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author PBMax
      Originally Posted by FaBiz View Post

      For Local Businesses the "Old style marketing" is still giving very good results.

      Flyers, mail marketing (not email) and phone calls are the best methods when it gets to local marketing.
      Mass (snail)mail marketing does work I hear, actually really well in fact. I do only local SEO so Google is starting to get more and more irrelevant to me.

      The only online marketing I care to do is making sure my citations are good via Moz Local. They rock - and for $49/year, they make things easy.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9349726].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Ryan3
    I wouldn't say I do Old fashion style marketing, but on some of my smaller campaigns im moving farther and farther away from google and seo.

    If you spend the time you would spend on seo and instead go out and get traffic on your own, you can have better results. Especially for newbs.
    Signature
    "Start"
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9349604].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author PBMax
      Originally Posted by Ryan3 View Post

      I wouldn't say I do Old fashion style marketing, but on some of my smaller campaigns im moving farther and farther away from google and seo.

      If you spend the time you would spend on seo and instead go out and get traffic on your own, you can have better results. Especially for newbs.
      Yep. Now to convince my clients of this...
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9349728].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author dburk
        Hi PBMax,,

        You seem to be jumping from one extreme to the other. Sure SEO is a rat race, especially if you are scurrying around like a rat that is looking for crumbs (free traffic) in the trash.

        Seems you have come to the realization that web spamming (what some people call SEO) is not free, especially in a competitive niche, and it is very Sisyphean in nature. Web spammers like to use the more respectable term "SEO", but what they are doing is website promotion, often with the intent of manipulating SERP ranking, not true SEO. Real SEO is something we do to our content o make it easy for search engines to understand what our content is about, web promotion is what we do to get people to find our content in the first place, and web promotion with the intent to game the search engines is what search engines call web spam.

        When was the last time you built a link strictly for the targeted click through traffic it generates, instead of it search engine manipulation potential?

        Instead of jumping from the fringe of website promotion, i.e. web spam, to completely old school marketing, why not try something a little more mainstream like advertising and promotion meant to drive targeted traffic. That is where many businesses are having long term success, and don't need to worry about the latest web spam fighting update.

        Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against old school marketing, it still works (especially radio and TV), just that there is a whole new world of marketing that exists between those two extremes. We're happy to have you join us here, but don't expect it to be any easier, conventional internet marketing is very competitive so you will need to bring your "A" game to compete in this arena, but the traffic potential is immense for those that learn to do it well.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9349862].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author PBMax
          Originally Posted by dburk View Post


          When was the last time you built a link strictly for the targeted click through traffic it generates, instead of it search engine manipulation potential?
          Wouldn't doing so be backlinking for SEO/SERP gain anyway? The purpose of SEO, as far as I know, is traffic building. Everything I've ever done is for click through traffic, which is essentially search engine manipulation.

          If Google and every other search engine was truly unadulterated, then they would be the ones to determine what gets shown and do so NOT based on how many links a site has to it, or how good they are. Everything is manipulation as it stands now.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9350017].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author Dr los3
            Originally Posted by PBMax View Post

            Wouldn't doing so be backlinking for SEO/SERP gain anyway? The purpose of SEO, as far as I know, is traffic building. Everything I've ever done is for click through traffic, which is essentially search engine manipulation.

            If Google and every other search engine was truly unadulterated, then they would be the ones to determine what gets shown and do so NOT based on how many links a site has to it, or how good they are. Everything is manipulation as it stands now.
            When was the last time you built a link strictly for the targeted click through traffic it generates, instead of it search engine manipulation potential?
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9350041].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author PBMax
              I guess every time I do a Facebook or Twitter post?
              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9350052].message }}

Trending Topics