 SEO
versus Advertising ROI
Advertising Is Dead! Viva le SEO!
First Published: October 2003
Last Update: October 2003
Author: Mike Banks
Valentine Copyright 2003
The King is dead! Long live the King!
The death of Louis XIV. was announced by the captain of the bodyguard from a
window of the state apartment. Raising his truncheon above his head, he broke it
in the centre, and throwing the pieces among the crowd, exclaimed in a loud
voice, "Le Roi est mort!" Then seizing another staff, he flourished it in the
air as he shouted, "Vive le Roi!" (Yes I know it's French for King, but work
with me here, it works so well for my story!)
Pardoe: Life of Louis XIV., vol. iii. p. 457.
Now I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the captain of the bodyguard for
Advertising, so the task of announcing the death of advertising is not among my
responsibilities. Nor is finding a successor to the throne. No, I do the less
glorious task of search engine marketing. I'm quietly on the sidelines as Dot
Bomb after Dot Gone pass by in a funeral procession that seems endless. The
parade route marching to the funeral dirge and drum, glumly trudging through the
streets mark the passing of online royalty on a weekly basis.
Every week we bow our heads in honor of the passing of another
advertising-reliant giant. Today it's WebGiant, before that it was WebVan and
WebMD and Wine.com -- I'm starting at the bottom of a very long alphabetical
list, as you no doubt know.
The deathmarch itself has been analyzed-to-death by everyone from network
news anchors to newspaper commentators and pundits.
I won't burden us with another perspective here other than to say that it's
big business that has it all wrong in a twisted attempt to apply old models to a
new medium. I wonder why it is that each new technology is constantly wedged
into the wrong shape hole because that is "where the money is".
When television was first developed, we didn't know what to do with it
because advertising was not so ubiquitous. We had print advertising in magazines
and radio advertisement ruled the airwaves. But everyone agreed that television
was worthless . . .
Not more than 10 per cent of the population will take up television permanently.
Raymond Postgate, 1935
Television? The word is half Greek and half Latin. No good will come of this
device. C P Scott, 1936
Television won't last because people will get tired of staring at a plywood box
every night. Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox co-founder, 1946
But TV finally fell to advertising and is now fully one-third ads and very
little content, except for product placement and sponsored content.
But because advertising ruled our lives when the internet was launched in
1995, we just naturally assumed that advertising would rule online as well. But
we got it wrong. I spend hours online daily and do all I can to ignore the
flashing, blinking banners and skyscraper ads and sponsored links glaring from
the top, bottom and now edges, of the screen in front of me.
How do people behave online? Simple, they search. They search for things they
have an interest in. They bookmark favorites. Most don't know why they get the
results they do when searching.
It's because the top ranking sites in search results are very specifically
designed by people who know how to gain those top rankings in the search
engines. Why on earth would anyone spend good money on advertising when most web
surfers seek to avoid advertising and even buy software meant to block
advertising from their web pages? Why on earth don't more businesses see that
search engine positioning is the number one solution to visibility and success
online?
Here comes another funeral.com march. I'll bet they had Super Bowl ads and
have banners flashing all over my favorite web site. Oh and look! They have
banner ads on the hearse! I guess they didn't want to waste the eyeballs
attending the funeral. At least they aren't animated banners. Have some Respect!
Well, I'm going to usurp the job of the Captain of the Kings' bodygaurd and
announce that "Advertising is Dead!"
"La ROI publicite est mort!" (Ad Return On Investment)
"Long live Search Engine Positioning!" Viva le ROI! Viva le SEO!
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Mike Banks Valentine is a Search Engine Optimization
specialist practicing ethical small business SEO
Search Engine Placement, Optimization, Marketing
http://SearchEngineOptimism.com/SEO_Tutorial/
http://SEOptimism.com/
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