In my article, “Search Engine Optimization — What is it, do you need it and how do you do it?” I made the case for SEO.
But, there are people who don’t use SEO! This might be a little controversial, but I want you to know all the ways of marketing online.
SEO works when you want to provide people with information as a way of making sales. And social entrepreneurs often want to educate people and give away knowledge. When your site has a lot of content, if you use SEO well, more people will find your website.
But there are other ways to attract people to your cause — and website.
Video — and YouTube
Remember that SEO is search engine optimization. It’s purpose is to get people to your website when they search. Did you know that YouTube is the number 2 search engine, after Google? (And it’s owned by Google.) That’s right, people go to YouTube and search for topics of interest to them. You may have done that yourself.
So, you can put your content on YouTube in the form of video. Of course, be sure to use the tag feature to tag your videos. In truth, that’s a form of SEO. And the first text in the description box should be your URL.
Social media marketing
Instead of using your website, you can use social media to get out the word about your cause and website.
- Twitter: You can use Twitter as a quick way to get out your content. As you probably know, the content has to be 140 characters or less. You can include a link (usually shortened) to bring people to a page on your website.
- Facebook: If the people you want to attract frequent Facebook (almost any audience except business people), set up a Facebook page and link frequently to your website. But be warned, a Facebook page is not that different from a website and you’ll need to add content to it frequently and interact with your readers.
- LinkedIn: If your market is business people, I recommend setting up a group in LinkedIn and frequenting existing groups. LinkedIn has many other tools, as well to connect you with your target market.
Each of these topics is huge, so I’ll write separate posts on how to use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to connect with like-minded people.
For more information on social media marketing, see my post, “Overview of social media marketing.”
How the no-SEO method of Internet marketing works
Let’s get back to the topic of SEO. If you don’t want to create a large body of content, you can create a smaller website with a clear and compelling call to action. Then, you can use video on YouTube and social media to drive people to your site.
What do you think? Which method — SEO or not — do you think would work best for you? Or,, which method have you used? Perhaps both? Leave a comment!