Many forms of advertising over the Internet have been created over time and mixed results can be shown for them. There are some great differences between the advertising done in Blog type sites and other forms of text link based marketing tactics. Blog sites are also becoming a popular outlet for advertising, as it allows for a more detailed description about certain services or solutions that your products can provide. Other text link based marketing involves submission after submission to sites that are unreliable and only rake in minimal traffic.
This article will provide an objective analysis against Blog based marketing and text link marketing, e-mail marketing, banner advertising, article submission and web directory submission. To keep an open mind, there are some subject matters and niche choices that can fare better with either tactic as well as how much time you place into your marketing strategies. To be realistic, you will need to put into practice one hour of work into internet marketing for every hour of work that you make physical networking contacts to spread business cards, make phone calls, etc.
Text link marketing is a marketing tactic that uses the chance that a person will read and click a text based link somewhere on a web page, even if obstructed or well placed within that page. One truth about marketing, is that people tend to look as advertising as an annoyance, especially if it invades their personal viewing area for a specific website. The mind likes to ignore what they do not have in their focus and sometimes, after their focal point has been viewed completely, they may glance around the site for relevant information, or products. This is true for all text link based advertising.
The disadvantages of text link marketing are very straightforward as they invade personal space and are generally ignored. Shady business practices are put into place with pop-ups that appear when a person moves their cursor over links.
E-mail marketing is viewed as SPAM e-mail and most users will either unsubscribe or report it as SPAM e-mail so they no longer receive it.
Text banner advertising only works if it is perfectly placed within the website and even then, most people will just overlook the positioning of all ads within a website.
Article submissions to article sites can become a disadvantage as well, as most companies will have to hire other individuals to write articles for them, and ideas can be translated much differently than what you are marketing product wise or service wise. It takes many months for article submissions to work, and if you take a break rival websites doing more will still get higher web directory listings and traffic.
Another problem with article submission is that the writers may not be native English speakers/writers so their articles may sound choppy and unappealing.
| Type of advertising | Price | Efficience | Search engines | Main advantage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| E-mail marketing | $15 and up/ campaign | No efficience since people tend to consider unsolicited e-mails as SPAM. Your company can be flagged as SPAMMER. | No effect. | If the e-mails are sent to 100% targeted/interested people, you may get a few sales. But there is the big IF. |
| Banner advertising | $200 and up/month | To be reliable a banner should be placed on a high traffic website since only 3-4% of a website’s visitors will actually click on a banner. | No effect. | Banner advertising is recommended to spread a company’s brand. Suitable companies: Coca-Cola, Nike and so on. |
| Article submission | Free | It’s a BIG mistake to submit the same article to hundreds of article directorie. Would have some efficiency IF you would submit different article to each article directory. | Has a good effect, helping to build backlinks but ONLY IF you would submit different article to each article directory. | It’s free, although some article directories will charge you a small fee, like $5. |
| Web directory submission | $5-$299/ submission | A web directory should be a collection of quality websites, reviewed by humans. But we all know that for a FEE, everyone will accept your website. Google knows this. The best web directories to submit your websites are: DMOZ (free), Yahoo Directory ($299), MSN directory ($49). | SEO experts use to say that a DMOZ listing helps. | Usualy once your listing is approved will stay there, excepting Yahoo directory (they have the $299 approval fee, which is ANNUAL) |
| Purchasing text links | $10-$100/month | A few years ago was a common practice, these days only the missinformed ones buy links. | GOOGLE PANALISE link brokerage: Pagerank and ranking drop. | None. |
| Newspapper TV/Radio | $1000 and up/ad. | Can be efficient for companies with a fat budget. | No effect. | Your ad is viewed by many people. |
| Blog advertising | $5-$20/review (Pagerank, Alexa value) | Once a review is written, the embedded link will stay there as long as that blog exists. The embedded links are contextual which is great. | 90% of advertisers states that in 3 months their Page Rank and ranking increased, they got more visitors, more sales. | Low price + Durability in time + Efficience. |
Search submissions for web directories can also be a bit of a lost cause, as rival sites use shady marketing tactics to artificially move their sites up the ranks by employing black hat marketing strategies. If you want to get your traffic from search submissions, prepare to spend either a lot of money or a lot of time on this marketing strategy.
Textual based link marketing does bring some traffic in to your original business website, but it is mainly unreliable. Most of the time, curious clickers will just navigate away from the business site when it is not what they expect from the short and uncreative ads that they see littered and SPAM e-mailed to them. They like to humor the short term appeal of a text based ad more often then not.
Blog marketing is a simple way to create interest in your company or business. It uses the power of social networking as Blogs are thought of as journals or a diary, except published for everyone to see. It is best to stray from advertising on a Blog, as it may drive away potential customers. Taking time to create an insightful blog about your company or business and keep updates on your progress on solving other people’s problems with your products and services sounds less like an ad and allows for more people to view the blog and keep it in thought longer than an annoying textual ad on a web page that is cluttered with ads.
The benefits of Blog marketing are wide and long lasting. A Blog is an outlet for ideas and progress. Keeping readers updated on those progressive thoughts keeps them reading update after update. In time, people spread the word about your company as more people subscribe to your company’s Blog, serving as free advertising.
As you inform your readers about how your products and services solve their problems, they will take a positive look on your business and become more likely to buy what you market. Letting your customers know what you can do for them, instead of asking them what they can do for your company is always viewed nicer in the consumer’s eyes.
You get true traffic from Blog type sites as those individuals who follow you to your business website are more likely to purchase a product or service when they feel like they are in control of what they read. Readers feel like they are being treated as individuals instead of customers with Blog marketing. One of the best benefits of Blog marketing is that you can release little bits of information about an upcoming product or service, allowing suspense and hype to build up in your reader’s minds.
Then when you finally release the product or service, they will want to buy what you have to offer, if it can truly help them solve their problems for a specific need or want in their lives.
The truth is that people really enjoy being a voyeur, even if it is an innocent look into someone’s life. That is why Blog advertising works so well in bringing in actual traffic from interested consumers.
Allowing your consumer to see your company as an entity with real life concepts and everyday happenings such as normal people instead of an annoying textual link ad will keep them hooked longer and provide some real results. People decide to purchase your product or service on their own accord, instead of relying on the chance that text link ads will provide real traffic from genuinely interested individuals.
February 5th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Very informative article, which I found quite useful. Cheers ,Jay
February 5th, 2009 at 10:55 am
This is true that blog review works truly great for exposure and getting quality backlinks. Thanks for the comparison chart. It helps.