The connotations associated with the word online marketing include the processes of SEO and PPC. To most of the businesses in the market, the online marketing is either search engine optimization or Pay per click. Businesses are either oblivious of the rest of online marketing function or they never bother to find out the truth.
No denying the fact that organic SEO services and PPC form a major part of online marketing, however, online marketing is much more than simply SEO. The foundation of online marketing is laid when SEO works in combination with
- Social media marketing
- Content marketing
Although if proper attention and focus be paid to any one or two of the processes, it can yield good results, however, greater results are only possible when all the processes are integrated and support each other. The lines below explain why simply SEO is not enough for online marketing.
1. Discrepancy between Ranking and Conversion:
The earlier conception about SEO that higher ranking means higher conversions, is proving to be wrong. According to the results of study:
- Over the last 5year, the CTR of the website ranked first in Google has fallen from 42.1% to a minimum of 18.2%.
The stats show that simply achieving higher ranking via SEO would not cut the slack for conversions. The reason behind this shift is that the users are getting smarter day by day. Now users don’t just blindly click on the website they see ranked at the first position in search results, rather they go through pages to find the right website that fulfills their needs.
Therefore, ranking high is not a guarantee of the business lasting for long or increased conversion. The high ranking may represent:
- That he website is trusted by search engines
- It does not mean that there is brand awareness, nor does it mean that the website has the trust of the target audience.
2. Content and SEO:
The general misconception is that all other factors of online marketing revolve around SEO. However, the fact of the matter is that it’s the content around which the SEO revolves. To rank high a website requires authoritative links from quality sources. The quality sources don’t just go on giving links to everyone who requests them, rather the links are only provided to the ones that have content that is worth the provision of links.
Moreover, it’s the quality and valuable content that has the tendency of being shared virally. The better the content, more chances of it being shared . Therefore, any SEO strategy that is not built around quality content can never yield the expected results.
3. Constant Interaction:
People and businesses regard SEO as an activity that needs to be done repeatedly and with objectivity. However, with the introduction and popularity of social media, the web marketing service providers have changed the way they did SEO. Online marketing without its social element is considered incomplete. To effectively capture the target market, a business needs to constantly stay in touch with its customers, and not just rely on robot postings on directories, or sending one tweet in a blue moon. Rather for SEO to be generating results, it needs to be accompanied with social media resulting in higher performance and productivity.
Bottom Line:
Online marketing has crossed the conventional boundaries of just being regarded as SEO only, rather it has become more social, and the quality of content has achieved its due importance. Now, social media and quality content are the cornerstones of SEO, thus a part of online marketing.