The goal of any successful internet marketer or business should be to reach new audiences and convert them into loyal customers. In order to achieve this, there are many tools available. The challenge for businesses and marketers is knowing which is the most effective tool to use.
In the past, many have relied on SEO marketing to rank in the organic search results for specific keywords. However, in the past few years, Google has made changes to the way it ranks websites. Some businesses have benefited from this; however, others have seen their marketing efforts collapse overnight.
Since 2014, video marketing has started to dominate the internet. Many studies show that video marketing now accounts for the majority of spending and by 2019 videos will account for 80% of all worldwide internet traffic. Because of the trend in video marketing, more and more businesses are using webinars to market their products and services.
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In order to achieve business success, which one of these should you be using?
What is SEO Marketing?
Traditionally SEO marketing consisted of 3 main factors to rank high in the organic search results. These are:
- Keyword research
- Optimizing each page on websites for specific keywords
- Building a large number of backlinks from other websites
In time, this led many marketers to start manipulating the search results and resulted in ‘black hat’ SEO practices, like keyword stuffing, buying backlinks in bulk and spinning content.
Now, SEO is more focused on building natural backlinks from authority sites and regularly posting high-quality content, which is optimized for specific keywords.
Branding has also come to play a key role in organic search results, where trusted sites outrank others for the top keywords in Google SERPS (search engine page results)
What is Webinar Marketing?
Webinars are online seminars where people are invited to attend and participate in. Webinars serve 5 main purposes:
- Brand building
- Building traffic
- Generating leads
- Expanding reach
- Attracting a targeted audience
Webinars are becoming more and more popular as a marketing tool because they allow businesses to engage with their audience in a more personal way.
SEO Marketing vs Webinar Marketing
If you want to promote a business through online marketing, which should you focus on SEO marketing or webinar marketing? Let’s look at the pros and cons of both.
SEO Marketing
Search Engine Optimization is an important part of any marketer’s tools. Without proper SEO, it is still impossible to get pages indexed by the major search engines. But, rather than be just one strategy or marketing technique, it should be a collection of various techniques and strategies to rank well in the search engines.
So, now SEO is an important way to give a website proper structure. Therefore, pages have to be written in a way where the main keyword naturally occurs. Backlinks to your website and keyword analysis are still essential. However, the focus needs to be on quality, not quantity.
One of the major downsides of SEO is that it is transitory. So, what works this year, may not work next year. SEO is also very much dependent on the how the search engines rank your site.
Benefits of webinar marketing
The main difference with webinar marketing and SEO marketing is that webinars can do what SEO can never do. What is that? Engage personally with your customers and leads. Today, consumers are looking for an overall experience from a brand, not to just have new products pushed at them.
During a webinar, the host has the chance to get live feedback from his audience in the form of polls, surveys, and questions. It is possible to engage with customers on a whole new level.
One way that webinars can take advantage of online marketing is video marketing. Videos impact on consumer much more than a page of well-constructed text. It is also possible to record and repackage webinars. This means that these short, instructional videos can be posted to your website, or uploaded to video sharing websites, and sent out in emails and newsletters.
It could also be said that webinar marketing is SEO safe. What do we mean by that? It seems that the main focus of Google just now is to force businesses to publish high-quality content that is of value to users. That is exactly what webinars provide. It is also worth noting that Google now ranks videos in its search engine algorithms.
One of the major attractions of webinars, especially in comparison to SEO, is that you donít have to rely on a search engine for traffic, so you have much more control in expanding your reach.
Additionally, SEO does little to build brand, while webinars do a very good job of doing so.
SEO vs Webinar Marketing. Which is Best?
It is clear that any website owner needs to think about SEO. However, this is no longer seen as the only marketing strategy to attract customers. SEO should be seen as a way to properly organize website content. However, it is not really possible to retain customers with SEO alone.
Webinars, therefore, are a much more powerful marketing tool than SEO. Of course, you can’t rank in the search engines just with webinars. But, webinars allow you to market your product and strengthen your brand, thus resulting in customer loyalty. Something that SEO can’t achieve.
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