TheMadScientist - 7:21 am on Jan 5, 2013 (gmt 0)

Actually, I thought I was completely out of this game about a year ago (that's how 'off Google' I was), because I believe it's seriously ending for most people and doing things at the level they're going to need to be to rank moving forward is going to be So Tedious and Meticulous and Testing/Results Oriented (actually Dictated) I didn't really want to bother with it. (It's really going to 'get nutty and difficult' in my opinion, way more than it is even now.)

But, I hopped back in for a bit and the very limited number of people I'm working with are just now 'getting' they need to move the direction I'm suggesting (rapidly), because it's tough to 'get off the free traffic drug' once you're hooked on it and think it will always be there...

I can tell you promotions 'on the way' we will likely be testing like you're wanting numbers from are: News (meaning print and online advertising), Magazine Publications (on and offline), Direct Mail, Possibly Television, Social. (Tracking some of those is difficult, but it's something I'm sure we'll figure out how to handle.)

The reason we decided on those is they're 'broad reach', can be fairly targeted to specific audiences, and very importantly, all build name recognition (which should 'directly impact' type in's of the brand name, and general name recognition is a win any way you look at it.)

Basically, the conversation I had with the people I'm talking about the other day got to: 'Okay, if we had B & M locations in multiple cities across the US, how would we promote them without search engines?' Then we took what we came up with and are applying it to the site.

I should note: I do believe it will be possible to get traffic from the 'knowledge engines' in the future, but it's not something I think most people are going to be able to keep doing, because things are going to have to be on a level that's beyond what most are capable of, in my opinion, so my 'official advice' is don't even think about relying on it.

* The reason I hopped back in for a bit is there's a site I'd like to build (one of those 'late night ideas'), but it won't be for search engines at all in the way I'm thinking of doing it ... It'll be for visitors and how it will go remains to be seen, because I have serious thoughts about building it so it can't be indexed other than the home page, since it's mine and I don't have to answer to anyone about it (except the guy in the mirror who keeps trying to fire me for even thinking about trying this crazy idea LOL).)

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 8:21 am (utc) on Jan 5, 2013]