Hey, Which works better as far as marketing goes - Backlinks or friends telling people they know about it? Pretend I couldn't do both - which one is BEST to do? Thanks, -Matt
there are no absolutes. it depends on the style and niche behind the site. right now I've got a new site that for whatever reason is doing absolutely pitiful in the search engines. it's still getting 150,000 pageviews a day. in this particular niche, I'm convinced that even if I had great rankings in search engines, nothing could surpass word of mouth for it. but I totally realize there are times when it's exactly the opposite for certain sites. thankfully, though, it should not be an "either or" situation: word of mouth gets you backlinks naturally.
umm word of mouth is the best you can have... ask myspace You have tons of people everyday designing nothing but spam and scrap to fill the search engines. Yes you can beat them sometimes but it wont last long. Word of mouth and type in traffic is all that matters over time and in the end.
I don't know if I'd go quite that far. there are a lot of factors to consider. for starters, type-ins probably won't be converting as well as users from search engines for content sites. beyond that though, you need a "seed" for word of mouth to work. you can have an incredible site that has the potential to go viral, but it can be really difficult to get it off the ground without some initial traffic. if you get your initial users from search engines, that can later turn into people that will be promoting your site for you via word of mouth. not to mention all the sites I'm sure people here own (myself included) that no one in their right mind would bookmark or type-in after visiting once, but we still make money from them from SE traffic.
I would choose word-of-mouth. The possibilities of increase traffic and then backlinks can be tremendous. More traffic and then an increase in backlinks can happen, but an increase in backlinks may not lead to more traffic.
Not sure how many remember this commercial, or if you remember it at all.... Jerry Jones : Well, what will it be Deion, offense, or defense? Deion Sanders: BOTH One cannot support a site long term. It takes both to be successful.
Very very good points... What I was trying to say was its best to brand yourself. YES SE traffic is awesome to get that brand out there but in the end its the brandable world of mouth sites that will last
Wow, this has been an excellent read. thanks. Somebody mentioned it depends what type of site, well, I am trying to market this site: VirtualDN.com a domain name market game.... not going too well.... Really, though, my weak point is marketing, I can't advertise worth a DIME -_- Thanks for the help!
I don't think you can get great traffic from backlinks for this site. I would suggest "Word of mouth".
The bottom line is even if you have a great brandable uniq name site unless you get the word out through se traffic or othermeans then forget about it. I am still a huge fan of grass roots marketing. If you have a site you believe in then make flyers, business cards... get the word out. I have sponsored local events and made donations to charities. Also another great trick is to post in the classified ads you are hiring a developer or whatever for yoursite.com I mean there are so many ways to market.... People now adays make sites for a quick buck like get-free-ringtones-now.com (myself included) but who the hell is going to remember to type that if they like your site? Word of mouth
I think one aspect of traffic that a lot of webmasters don't really understand fully is how valuable a visitor is. Often times people spend so much time and energy trying to drive brand-spanking new traffic to their site that they pay no attention and no heed to keeping customers coming back. Look at most industries and businesses and you will see their customers as their most valuable asset. Some industries have valuations on a single customer that would absolutely boggle your mind. These same realities exist in the web world. Sure people want to discount repeat and long-term users because they might offer a lower-clickthrough rate or suffer from ad blindness etc etc. In the long-run though, as your site grows and your monetization options change and expand that customer becomes more and more valuable to you. If you spend $x dollars and get 100 new search engine customers, or you spend $x dollars and make 10 visitors a regular user for the next 5 years, which is more valuable to you? Without a doubt it is going to be the 10 visitors converted into regular users. For many reasons beyond direct monetization. Above all that there is not an unlimited supply of people out there. This idea that you can just 10k completely new random strangers to hit your site on a specific topic every day for the next 10 years is not a very solid business model. So regardless how you get them there, for the long-haul you should be considering how you are going to keep them there. The web space is not becoming less crowded and competitive, it is becoming more crowded and competitive. The only way to sustain any kind of long-term viability is with visitor retention.
it will depend on your site. What are the main keyword that one searches. If you get high ranking on search engine based on keywords that no one will possibly search, any backlink to your site is useless. Word of mouth is a more powerful tactic as it has a 'human touch' and trust.