Website Promotion is Good PR
October 27th, 2006 by
So, we’ve established that website promotion is not voodoo, right?
I’ve always been a big fan of killing two birds with one stone (metaphorically of course), and realize that sometimes we can all get a little bit of tunnel vision around one issue or pursuit. Web site promotion is a good example of this.
I have some colleauges who have much more experience than I in promoting web sites and they tend to look at the tools of promotion in a very single minded way – write content to attract engines to increase ranking. Increased search engine rankings = website revenue.
Let’s stipulate that this is true: If you have created a revenue generating website then increased rankings should equal greater revenue. But, what if you could have it all?
And, what do I mean by have it all?
Ok, content is good. Content attracts search engines. Search engines drive traffic. Traffic = revenue. The problem for me comes when that content adds no value to the user. What if, instead of counting on a one-time click-through you were building a relationship. If more people thought of website promotion as a public relations exercise then they’d be more likely to write good content which people would be happy to read more than once, recommend and which would keep them coming back for more.
And of course, the same goes for off-site content. What if that press release or article you’ve published in the syndication services was actually worthy of publication regardless of it’s link-popularity benefit? Then you’d be engaged in public relations along with website promotion and you might be building a long-term customer (reader, client, whatever) rather than a click monkey.
I think too often we get caught up in the mission of the moment, and even those among us who realize that there is PR value can get lost in the need for ranking. The best PR you can develop is by providing something of value. There are lots of good examples, but here’s one at the top of my mind – Web 2.0 Awards .
