The title of this post is Search Engine Marketing Does Not Affect Your Business Model. If I went into a search marketing conference and proclaimed that Search Engine Marketing Does Not Affect Your Business Model I imagine that the conference organizers, the speakers and quite a few attendees would want to tar and feather me then run me out of town on a rail.
I don’t care and I’ll say it again, Search Engine Marketing Does Not Affect Your Business Model.

Search Engine Marketing Should Emulate Your Business Model.

What do I mean by Search Engine Marketing Should Emulate Your Business Model? Chances are good that your website and your larger Internet presence (You do have a larger Internet presence, don’t you?) does not match your company’s business model.

Most business websites are designed for one audience, the sales & conversion audience. These are your company’s prospects, leads and current clients. The website content for this audience typically consists of extended brochure content for products and services, basic customer support such as manuals
and some type of a Q&A process, plus information about your company. This focus is so pervasive that, as an SEO Analyst, when I recommend expanding website content the immediate reaction is to add additional sales pages.

Does this reflect accurately how your company operates in the physical world?

• Does your sales staff only fill-out order forms or do they spend time networking and building relationships.
• Do they limit their networking to prospects and leads or do they communicate with others as a part of their search for those leads?
• Does your company engage in increasing brand recognition and building awareness of your company?
• Do employees attend industry conferences, either for your own business or the businesses of your prospects and your prospects’ clients?
• Do people in your company speak at events or engage in other activities that demonstrate industry leadership?
• Does your firm lobby lawmakers or work to influence regulations and standards?
• Is your business engaged in community development and charitable causes?

Okay, that’s enough, almost. Let me ask you two more questions.

• Would your company be successful if it did not do all or many of the things in my list of questions?
• How many of these activities does your business engage in on the Internet?

I understand it is rather difficult to attend a conference or trade show online. The point is that your business is about more than sales.

• It relies on building your brand or company reputation so people will know about your company and think of it favorably when they need your product or service.
• It relies on networking and building relationships throughout your industry and your clients’ industries.
• It relies on being an industry leader and an active business citizen.

Marketing a business online is no different than marketing a business offline. It requires enthusiastic interactive communication on multiple fronts.

How does this affect search engine marketing?

Search engine algorithms are designed to identify relevance, trust and authority. Trust and authority are measured using signals from other websites like links to your website. When you engage vigorously in building conversations on the Internet, on and off of your website, you dramatically
increase the opportunities for search engines to raise the level of trust and authority that they assign to your company’s website. That will increase your rankings across a variety of relevant search queries and, in turn, generate leads and sales.

That is why I say Search Engine Marketing Does Not Affect Your Business Model. I say it because Search Engine Marketing Should Emulate Your Business Model.