SEO is Out! Inbound Marketing is in?

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Great points. I would like to take a slightly different perspective on one of them though.

"It takes a great website! That means great design, great usability, great content, great customer service, great architecture, great optimization and time. "

Great customer service would be more a function of the corporate values than the website design. If it is in the corporate value system to provide great customer service it should be there, if not, it would not matter to the success of the site (walmart?).

Thanks

Alan

Alan, Customer service is built into many aspects of the website. Yes, it does stem from the corporate culture, but many times that does not translate to the web. So you have to work that into the website as well.

In my opinion, good SEO is going to incorporate good social media marketing, good content marketing, good online PR and more into the mix. Everything you do online can be leveraged for SEO, so a great SEO campaign is going to take advantage of every opportunity that comes by. Call it what you want as long as you get it done!

'Businesses today need much more than an SEO agency' - this line is cropping up more and more when I'm meeting clients. The problem is SEO is the word they know, so the task isn't just getting across the SEO improvements you can perform on their website, but also that they need to look at these broader fields.

Building a great website, well this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AmRg3p79pM

'5 common mistakes in SEO (and 6 good ideas!)', by Google's Maile Ohye, is a great starting point for any SEO practitioner.

Many Thanks

Stoney-Great insights.

Managing the analytical SEO team, creative design team and thoughtful copywriters is no easy task. I think the element that many firms are missing is that marketing is STILL a multi-pronged approach.

I think we as marketers need to consider both efficiency and effectiveness. Yes, inbound marketing can "efficiently" generate leads and new business. However, the power of a consultative salesperson to lead customers to what they need, not just want, will always drive the most "effective" results. So constant analysis and adjustments to inbound and outbound marketing efforts will always be vital.

Thanks-

Dave Gee

Search engine Optimization I believe is still one of the most effective way to do business today. World wide web offers global market place and with the help of creative websites, they can be on top of its kind.

Sweet Thanks,
Jonas T.
central heating

I think it will be important to lift our heads and focus on creating and reap synergies across the marketing mix, not look at SEO as a solution to everything.

Trond

Very ineteresting points and I would agree with you on the fact that SEO is really changing, its not only about firstpage rankings, its more of about web marketing and getting traffic from various sources, which in turn willl help sites land a first page ranking for targeted and relevant keywords.

Converting that traffic is key, and I think the best way to test conversions quickly is by driving some instant traffic to a website, be it through social media or ppc or any other quick way to get some quick targeted traffic.

It he site converts, then I think its tie to ramp up on S.E.O.

Awesome information thanks for sharing!

I don't think we need re-branding of SEO or web dev, and certainly not a brand that is being shoved down the throats of an industry by a 3rd party company with a motive. This has not been an open dialog.

Many articles that discuss or mention "inbound marketing" start by inferring that the entire industry was doing all the bad and none of the good. It's insulting. How is inbound marketing suddenly equal to website standards and architecture I've been preaching for years?

Neither SEO nor Inbound marketing represents an entire strategy. They never have and never will. SEO is still relevant because you don't do inbound (insert any on page technical SEO activity).

This is creating division instead of growth, doesn't cover all we good guys do, confuses clients more, and describes things many of us have been doing since the beginning as something that is magically new.

Let's leave specific made for marketing nomenclature to the individual companies.

The SEO service's are very much required for all the businesses. This helps them with the sales and getting more better teams for advertising there products

Kevin, I agree, we really don't need a new name for it. But I've always felt Web Marketing pretty much covers everything. SEO is a sub-set, so is social media, etc. Just curious, who is pushing "inbound" on us?

Stoney, Inbound Marketing, well at least how it is being used, is primarily being championed by Hubspot, it's partners, and a few people trying to distance/differentiate themselves from SEO. Mind you, they could distance themselves by actions and education without nomenclature confusion. The owner of Hubspots even purports to have created the term according to Wikipedia references. Either way, since we don't have an industry group or organization, larger companies who want to force change on the industry, and that have a marketing budget to do so, are likely to create enough stir to get enough people to just accept it. That type of behavior is not in the best interest of the industry as a whole.