seo and internet marketing

[2_much]

With some of our more competitive keywords, focusing on search engines is just not doing the trick anymore. The search engine results are preceded by directory listings, and some of the directory listings are impossible to get. The first search engine results appear in the first or second page, so they are not a good source of referrals. Sometimes it is almost impossible to get into the first page, and we simply don't have the time to focus on getting listed at the top of an engine when the amount of referrals is not worth it.
We have explored other venues of internet marketing and are trying to compile a list of different approaches. These are some of the ideas we've come up with:

* newsletters
* promo emails
* PPC (goto)
* banner advertising
* affiliate programs

The method of marketing will obviously be dependent on the target market and the product that is being offered. So I was wondering about what other forms of internet marketing people have been successful with.

It seems to me that the internet and especially the "search" function has changed tremendously within the past few months. Every month there seems to be a change, everything geared towards monetizing the search. We have seen a decline in referrals from search engines, so I am coming to the unfortunate conclusion that optimizing sites for the search engines may simply not be enough these days. A combination of SEO and internet marketing would be ideal. So I simply wanted to find out what was working for people who have experience with both (as most people here seem to have). Any ideas?

Thanks,
2Much

[rcjordan]

>optimizing sites for the search engines may simply not be enough these days. A combination of SEO and internet marketing would be ideal.

We've touched on the fringes of this before -SEO just doesn't stand alone in most markets.

As banner advertising imploded, more and more publishers grumbled about the need to "sell direct." No one wants to do it, it's messy, time-consuming, and requires a skillset that -frankly- most cannot muster. But, from the perspective you present, that of the media buyer, the same opportunity exists -to buy direct. For instance, I know of real estate firms still getting double-digit CTR from 125x90 buttons on highly targeted independent sites.

[Mike_Mackin]

Depending upon the site, community building can work as well.

[2_much]

RC, can you specify what you mean by buying direct? I'm not familiar with this term.
I agree Mike, community building is a great approach. Yet it is very time and effort consuming, and it's difficult to muster up the resources to do this effectively. For pure e-tailers, the best way to build a "community" is to provide great service (people don't need info. or updates, just good prices). What other ways are there to build a "community" for pure e-tailers?

A couple of other things I was contemplating was advertising on auction sites such as EBay (putting something on auction and listing a URL to the main site) and using features such as passport and flooz. Does anyone have any experiences with this?

Brett posted a list of good, traditional offline marketing venues, such as direct mail campaigns, classified ads, radio advertising, and advertising in trade mags. What I am trying to do is to compile a similar list but limited to Online Marketing Venues. By knowing what people are using to target different markets, it would be easy to take a concept and change or customize it to another audience.

Thanks,
2M

[msgraph]

E-mail campaigns are becoming very successful tactics these days. If you can gather a list of confirmed e-mail addresses you can reach a large audience and get very good traffic to your site.

Then to build that list even more(maybe you already have it), create some sort of sign-in free newsletter subscription type program. If you get users to sign-up for something you can rest assure they will return to your site on many other mails you send later on.

Just don't make them sound to spammy where they get filtered out.

[rcjordan]

>buying direct

Search out small, independent websites that have content relevant to your keywords and offer to sponsor the site or page(s).