This might be confusing especially because everyone out there in the online world keeps talking SEO and paying SEO companies a lot of money to increase their SEO. The reason why we at The Marketing Company are telling you to stop focussing on SEO is because the only way you would get your website seen and visited is by having a holistic approach. Website traffic and goal conversions (getting people to click on those wonderfully coloured call-to-action buttons that you’re web designer spent hours creating with just the right gradient of blue) is ultimately what every business wants. So how do you get website traffic without focussing on SEO? Well actually at The Marketing Company we still refer to SEO but our approach encompasses all the areas that you should be paying attention to. Below is what we call our Wholesome SEO.

Website

Firstly and most importantly is your website. Is your website the kind that people would like to visit? Without stating the obvious, the more popular your website, the better it will do with the search engines. Is it easy on the eye (sometimes also the ear as there is nothing more annoying than opening a website and some video automatically starts blaring about whatever they’re trying to flog – visual is king and videos are awesome on websites but give people a choice to press play). Is it easy to navigate your website and find content? Is the content useful or so loaded with keywords that it doesn’t make any sense? Below is an example of a website we think Rocks! (We are slightly biased but sure you will agree.)

Wedding Website – Beautiful Custom Wedding Websites

Related article: Unlike the 80’s fashion your old website is NOT coming back in style

Blog

It is the year 2014 and if you still don’t have a blog on your website with regular articles that your visitors and followers can read with lots of interesting information then you are falling behind. Having a Blog on your website has multiple advantages and most of them come with extra spin-off. The right keywords in your blog will increase your chances to be seen by the Search Engines, if your articles are any good they will be shared which will increase your website visibility. You can increase your email database by having a subscribe option on your blog. But this also gives you the opportunity to become a thought leader in your industry and build trust with your customers and potential customers. And so much more that if you don’t have a business blog yet you should do some research to find out how you’re losing ground.

Related article: Are you adding fresh Content to your Website regularly or are you losing ground with the Search Engines?

Social Media

Social media websites like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Google+ need to be part of your online marketing strategy. These can be great platforms to develop your Brand but also your visibility and increase your website traffic. Make your posts visual and avoid too much selling. Rather look at your audience and potential audience and what their interests are. Post stuff that they would want to see and articles they would like to also share with their friends. Share content, like your blog posts, from your website to your social media. This will increase your website traffic and will also help with your popularity with the search engines. Be visual. Pagemodo is offering a great and easy way to create posts and share them.

Related article: Google measures your website’s social media impact

Email marketing

Even though email marketing is more outbound versus your blog that is more inbound, it needs to form part of your online strategy. As you deal with clients and potential clients make sure you collect their contact details and email addresses. (With their permission of course!) Also have a subscriber option on your website, the best place for this is where it is very noticeable and definitely on you blog page. Send out monthly email newsletters. This will keep your followers in the loop of what is happening at your company but also bring them snippets from your latest blog posts. Make sure your newsletter has plenty of links back to your website. This will increase your website traffic and once again help with your search engine rankings. Make your newsletters interesting and your followers will even start sharing them with their friends. There are many mail programs but one that we think is great is MailChimp and you can track your progress with their analytics.

Related article: Inbound marketing – would you rather wrestle the bull or have it come gently to you?

Paid Promotions

To give your online marketing campaign a boost you should definitely include some pay per click promotions. This will certainly increase your website traffic and once again influence your rankings with the search engines. You can focus on Google Adwords or also include Facebook promotions. Twitter also announced earlier this month that advertising is now available for South Africa. And you can tailor your ad spend to your budget, even a couple of hundred Rand every month could make a difference.

Direct Customer interaction

Lastly don’t forget on the ground promotion. Teach your staff that interact with your clients to promote your website, blog and social media. This will play a big part in increasing your direct traffic to your website which again will have a positive impact on your search engine rankings. With Google it is almost like a popularity contest – the more traffic you get to your website and social media, and the more good content you publish on your website that people like to read and share, the better your search engine rankings will be.

Tracking

No marketing campaign can be successful without tracking your progress. Register your website with Google Analytics and measure the success of your online marketing efforts. You can track pretty much anything – Website traffic, which blog post attracted the most visitors, which website pages are the most popular, traffic that comes from your social media, the traffic from your email campaigns and your pay per click ad spend.

Related article: What you need in your Online Marketing Strategy