SEO Vs marketing: Which is more important?
Therefore a variety of SEO techniques should be effectively implemented by any retailer in order for them to be seen ‘king of the search results’. An example of this is www.scarfworld.com. This website has placed keywords in the title to assist in SEO, and as a result it is one of the top results in Google for ‘Scarf’.
Marketing on the other hand has been the mainstay of retailers for decades. Before e-commerce was even heard of, retailers have been using marketing techniques to ensure that customers (and prospective customers) knew that the retailer had what they wanted, or they had a wide selection of alternatives. http://www.funshipisland.com is an example of a microsite. It is an entirely contained website which runs independently but it is owned by the Carnival corporation which runs a separate website for selling its cruise packages.
Here are just 3 examples of techniques for both SEO and marketing:
SEO:
- Title tags: Title tags are commonly used when search engines index websites, therefore having an informative title tag about your site/page is very important. Having your company name as the title is no longer enough, the name, address, and type of products is more advised.
- Meta tags: Not commonly used by Google anymore but still worth having. Meta tags will provide some search engines with information about your site which is not visible to customers.
- Content: The most important technique in SEO. Ensuring your pages have appropriate and detailed content will guarantee search engines will pick up your pages and return them in results in the correct context. Not only is it important for SEO, it’s also beneficial for your customers to have as much detail as possible.
Marketing:
- Email campaigns: Retailers can send blanket emails to customers to build awareness of promotions of seasonal ranges that are going on. However, the most effective form of email campaign is a targeted email campaign. Products, deals, and offers are emailed to the customer based on their preferences (i.e. products they’ve viewed or purchased). This can draw traffic to the retailer’s website as the customer wants to find out more.
- Microsites: A retailer can set up one (or many) microsites on their website. A microsite is a small website which focuses on a specific range, brand, or product. Building a microsite has various advantages, for example it can have SEO of its own.
- RSS: RSS (Really simple syndication) can be setup to allow customers to receive information about deals, promotions or new releases direct to their desktop without having to have an email address or navigate to a website. With smartphones emerging in the market, RSS is becoming a more popular method of keeping up to date with the latest product releases.
Of course both SEO and marketing have their own pros and cons. In SEO, a retailer can use a variety of techniques from white hat, black hat, or grey hat. White hat SEO techniques are methods which are sanctioned by search engines while black hat methods disapproved of. Black hat methods often involve deception such as hidden text or repeating key words needlessly in the hope of improving SEO. Grey hat are methods considered not to be white hat or black hat (or in some instances may be both) – i.e. it’s a grey area as to whether or not certain methods are appropriate.
Marketing also has its pros and cons. Insistent emails from retailers can become frustrating for a customer and it can result in them blocking emails from the retailer altogether. Similarly, using microsites can be problematic if branding is not used appropriately. Many retailers use microsites as an opportunity to break from their standard CSS and HTML templates in order to promote the range, product, or brand. By not clearly marking that the microsite still belongs to the retailer, a customer (especially one not comfortable with online shopping) may feel they do not know the site and therefore cannot trust it.
In conclusion, to make customers aware of your business and your products a retailer must effectively implement both marketing and SEO. Marketing and SEO do sit very closely together, and in some instances overlap, however only time will tell if one becomes more dominant than the other in generating brand awareness.
