S.E.O

SEO Marketing Pull Or Push

03.10.2006. 07:37

Demand Pull Strategies Sites which want to attract search engine users, publish freely their content without restrictions which impede search engine crawling. They aim to fully exploit the potential of their content to attract visits, since they may not have other leverage (e.g. paid links or conventional promotion budget).This is a ‘pull’ web marketing strategy. For example, article banks not only offer rich content without any user registration requirement (which might obstruct crawlers), but also try to structure their content optimally to facilitate search. They try to find a balance between the need for structural sufficiency and structure maintenance overhead. The ability of certain authoritative sites or forum sites to pull repeat and frequent visits by a certain interest group, is based on the reputation they have built. Other sites pay their way towards a high page rank, without necessarily offering rich content. They attract visitors, based on high page rank which is leading to a higher SERP (search engine result page) ranking.

Push Strategies On the other hand, sites which have achieved a high number of newsletter subscribers depend less on search engines. They are able to directly distribute their newsletter to thousands of subscribers and exchange their info content for leads information capture. This is a push web marketing strategy. For example they offer a white paper in an email link. When the link is followed, the visitor is asked to submit his profile & contact details before accessing the white paper. This way they achieve to capture lead details, increase newsletter subscriber base as well as to promote themselves or affiliates in the white paper material. Does this model work -how can the receiver of the message judge that this white paper is of any value, just from the title and the author. Other sites pay expensive banner ads on sites well established on a specific subject, in order to promote content which is only accessible after subscription. This way they aim to generate lead information and promote certain brands. They may consider these authoritative sites as able to attract quality visitors (e.g. decision makers), they would like to target. The potential of the net to target these specific groups is superior, compared to conventional channels.

Combined strategies Sites supporting a marketing strategy which is targeting specific keyphrases, aim to produce content which is rich and highly accessible (a pull approach based on rich content). Moreover they may opt to support their rich content with a pay per click (PPC) campaign on these keyphrases (push strategy on these keyphrases). Therefore they may be following a combined pull and push strategy, which they think will optimize their incoming traffic. As we have analysed, there are alternative approaches in the way businesses try to exploit their web channel to build value. Each business according to: its size and financial strength (e.g. advertising budget), its market, its maturity vis-Ã -vis web channel development, its ability to research new ways to market products (innovation culture), follows a different web strategy. The web marketing mix has to be aligned to the overall marketing strategy, in order to yield satisfactory (if not optimal) results. 1