Visitor acquisition: let’s be strategic and realistic

As I repeat every week during my “SEO café“, natural referencing should only be one part of your marketing strategy on the web.

With the notoriety I have acquired over the past four years, I have attracted the interest of larger clients than SMEs and independent entrepreneurs , who are usually my core clientele.

(Unfortunately, I can’t give any marks, the confidentiality clauses I sign in some cases are pure paranoia).

These clients with broader ambitions (sometimes with a global aura) and more comfortable budgets (not to say more realistic), are often taken care of by marketing agencies and/or creative and communication studios.

In such cases, I find myself a member of a team that works in a coordinated way in a multi-channel commercial presence strategy: traditional press, TV, poster campaign, buzz on the web, social media presence and SEO, everything goes, it’s exciting for those like me who don’t come out of a “marketing” mold.

The professions involved have “very trendy” names

• Press Officer
• Creative
• Web designer
• Social Media Expert
• “Youtuber”
• “Digital Consultant”
• SEO Consultant,
• Expert Adwords
• Business Networking Pros, Lobbyists

Needless to say, capital is waltzing and the cost of my service appears to be a mess in such communication plans.

What can we learn from these collaborations?

and why I’m telling you about it here!

1) A fundamental basis that is not new

You shouldn’t put your hopes, energy and capital into a single promotion channel.

Don’t think that your good idea, your beautiful product, your beautiful website is what the rest of the world has been waiting for with impatience and that once your site is positioned in the top 3 on your queen query, orders will pour in and money will flow freely!
The rules of commerce and marketing are the same on the web as in traditional commerce, but the conditions for fighting are tougher.
It is indeed easier to be the best and most famous in your neighborhood or in your city than on the SERP (Search Engine Response Page), it is a question of the size of the territory and the web is very very vast. It’s also a question of image and branding.

2) Don’t forget the human network, the one in real life

There are many business networking groups, linked by specific criteria that make each one have a reason to exist, but from the coolest (CERF) to the most demanding (Rotary Club) to the most mercantile (GR), find your place in one or two of them… it’s mostly about finding your place in general… And it can make a noticeable difference.

Distribute your efforts realistically on the web too

This rule of multi-media promotion also applies to traffic acquisition. Analytics, Google’s tool for statistics on your website traffic, clearly details this traffic acquisition.

Analytics, a picture of your traffic.

It has been known for a long time that the balanced acquisition of visits is the “mother of safety”. Website traffic should be more or less evenly distributed between

• SEO clicks (typed queries)
• Referral traffic (acquired links)
• Social traffic (active presence on social networks)
• Direct access to your site (your reputation)
• possibly paid traffic ( Adwords)

and direct marketing, which forces you to take to the streets, or go out at night to wet your shirt in the field through promotional actions, relationships and well-targeted advertising.

Kristof Maret, Web Copywriter Consultant at Référencement PME, SEO in Montreal.