At a recent FT event, a leading figure in the New Media industry, described search as being “distribution” as supposed to marketing and went on to say, “When you’re putting money into search you’re taking it out of marketing,” he said. “All you’re doing is buying a space on the internet high street. You’re commoditising your brand.”

The team at E-Strategy Limited are slightly aggrieved by this as Search most certainly is a marketing tool. What other media (other than Paid Search) shows such transparency in results and clearly highlights cause and effect throughout each and every campaign?

Search can be hugely successful; indeed, since we started we have gained over 250,000 first place positions for over 350 clients.

The “holy grail” is to get clients on the first page – preferably in the top five positions; this can take time and a lot of effort. It is not just about getting the site right, more importantly – it’s about getting the right relationships online and using the techniques for a client. For example one of our clients has a perfume website specialising in designer perfumes for women, aftershaves and gift packs. We have worked to build links with relevant websites from perfume blog sites (that we know drive significant traffic figures) to online press releases at key times of the year with product launches and special offers.

The combination of all our hard work has resulted in them gaining first page positions for the majority of their key phrases and this has led to a huge increased in online sales for them.

There are other factors that need to be considered such as usability (and how easy it is for visitors to purchase goods and services), is postage competitively priced and how good are customer service levels.

Search is all about marketing and should play a fundamental role in all online campaigns.

Tags: distribution, Marketing, search

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