SEO VS SEM a real formula for traffic

My SEO formula for a successful website

To start with the SEM vs. SEO question I will tell about some of my results. I have a couple of website all connected with a few of my hobbies. I have one on the Polish language as I live in Poland and another one on the history of economics as I have a master’s in economics.

These have a reasonable amount of traffic, all from organic search engine results. They grow steady, as long as I write interesting things. I have done nothing on those sites except write about the things I love, and somehow traffic started to pick up. Using WordPress with a theme that is well written, and a few plug-ins, it goes a long way in terms of promoting your site. I do no search engine marketing, yet.

My basic formula is try to write compelling unique content that users will find of value and can interact with and get a positive user experience from. All else is not that important.

How search engines work

You do not need to market your site because the way search engines seem to work. From my observation search engines work like this, when you publish a post, it will rank high for a day or so, then drift down. If people like it (based on ‘time on site’ and how deep they penetrate your website, comment activity and other stats) it stays high in the ranking, if not it falls in the search results.

Therefore, in one sense there is no need to market your site, just focus on quality content. I think this is very fair. However, many people want a site to go viraland cut out the years of work and writing. Therefore they try SEM.

Search engine marketing benefits

Search engine marketing is about getting more people aware that you even have a website. The advantages of SEM are:

You are not at the mercy of search engines
After you market you can promote your RSS and other subscription feeds and develop a loyal fan base. A loyal fan base promotes you as they refer other people to your website. Loyal fans buy physical good more than people just landing on your site by a search.
SEM breaks up the monotony of just being a writer and it is fun. Creating a crazy video or a viral image is fun.

SEM vs SEO why SEM might not be the best way to get traffic

A friend of mine is an author, the guy wrote a book with a major publisher in the US and Europe and was on CNN and in Time magazine. However, the traffic to his site did not pick up a lot. He tried traditional marketing and Seth Godin type marketing. He focused on SEM but no SEO. The result was his blog is weak. The take away if you need some level of SEO. SEO is nothing more than making your blog user friendly and appealing to people who land there. It should be easy to navigate and no too cluttered. Oh yes content that is useful, that is the summum bonum of search engine optimization and marketing.

What the Lost cast can teach us about why SEM will not rock your site

I just started to watch the series Lost. I have watched a few of the episodes from the first season. Its pretty good. I want to talk about two of the cast members.

The guy on the TV series Lost, Jorge Garcia (Hugo Reyes). I think the guy is a great actor and personally a good human (very interesting person). I read his blog. But for a major star who was on TV every week, his blog has a good rank but not as high (I know that is not his purpose) as some of my no name friends who use SEO in terms of traffic. Why?

Publicity only helps if people find a reason to come back. Therefore, the take way is SEM works if and only if you have something meaningful to write.

Not to pick on the Lost cast (it is an excellent show and the actors are great), there is Evangeline Lilly who played Kate Austen. She is a super actress and good human (she is into the charity and serving other people). Now the series is over, she is writing a children’s book . It is about magic and secrets. Yawn. Like I would ever read that, its like every other children’s book out there. Maybe its a good book but, everyone is trying to write a Harry Potter book. My point is you can have all the publicity and marketing media behind you but if your content is like everyone else you will not get traffic, fans or sales.

Therefore, being marketed or famous does not drive traffic to your website, but only helps if you are unique and different. If Evangeline Lilly wrote a book on the morality of Lost – Good vs Evil – an insider’s perspective, then I would read it. It is unique.

Viperchill marketing vs. Lost TV series cast

There is a young guy who runs the Viperchill SEM site. His site rocks. Why? Not because he markets but is content is very good. Once people find his site, they like he writes. He is good with writing and marketing. But I think his writing comes first, He is an excellent writer.

The take away here is organic search engine traffic or marketing takes a back seat to good writing.
However, if once you do the well written content part, try a little marketing.

SEO (that is well written content in a good CMS structure) first then Search engine marketing

Here are some ideas to help with promoting your content.

Make it easy and desirable for people to subscribe with big RSS buttons and asking them to.
Make a logo (it helps branding and makes the site look professional).
Use Stumble and Twitter etc, but do not clutter up your site with those buttons.
Guest blog like crazy. It is the one thing in SEM that really works

Guest blogging works for promote your site:

If the content is good people will come back
You might get a link
You will get branding
It is free advertising

As far as I have read it is white hat, it is simply a way for other people to become aware of your site.

Therefore, my conclusion is the winning foumla for ranking high and getting a lot of traffic is this:

SEO formula – Content + WordPress + SEO theme and plug-ins + inviting RSS + guest posting + user interaction + more unique authentic content that people find value in = positive user experience = lots of traffic.

Write content that has a wow factor, I never thought of it this way, even be a resource on the web, use WordPress and some good plug-ins and theme for SEO. Then set up your RSS to be inviting and guest post like crazy. SEO vs SEM, both but focus on writing well this is the first and most important step. So stop wasting time and write.