Beyond Google: diversity in your internet marketing

Here’s a serious question to ask yourself. How much do I rely on Google for my business’s success? If Google banned your site from their search results today, what would happen to your business? You probably have a serious problem if Google rankings determine whether you live or die.

You hear stock analysts preach about “diversifying” your stock portfolio to minimize risk. Following that same sound logic, you should ask yourself, just how diverse are my marketing activities?

Here are some alternatives to Google that you should consider.

Search marketing alternatives

If you are in the consumer market, you should consider experimenting with advertising on Yahoo! and Microsoft Live Search. Because competition isn’t as strong on those sites, it would cost you less anyway.

And think about the type of user that would be using Yahoo! and Live. They probably search through the Yahoo! toolbar. Or maybe they just installed Windows Vista and have Live Search set as their default search. Does this sound more like your user? Surely, some of you will answer yes.

Blogging

As more and more people start understanding blogging and RSS, more people will start subscribing to blogs. You could have your very own blog where people willingly subscribe to messages from you. I don’t care what your business is about; you should start today!

Don’t forget that other people have blogs too. You should be actively seeking blogs within your industry and blogs of customers in your industry. Start leaving comments with these people and get some conversations going. You will be rewarded with traffic back to your blog and more mindshare out on the Web.

Email marketing

You should also start asking for people’s email addresses at different points in your online activities. Have a web store? Put a checkbox during your checkout process that asks if the customer wants to receive messages from you. Use FeedBurner to let people subscribe to your blog via email. Have a place on your site where people can sign up for emails. Yes, some people do want to hear from you periodically.

But beware… Don’t annoy people with your email marketing. Keep it relevant, and be sensitive about how often you send messages to subscribers.

Link building

Make sure that your link building activities are relevant and on-key wherever you’re doing it. Sure, most of the benefit is from search engines, but you should start getting traffic directly from these links as well. If you’re not sure that you’d get desirable traffic from a link, then maybe you shouldn’t post it in the first place.

Social networks

Social networks like MySpace and Facebook are allowing people to form stronger relationships with friends, family, and even companies. MySpace allows businesses to create their own profiles. Facebook allows your company to register itself as such so that people can “become a fan” of your company. I can’t think of anything more desirable than having a built-in fan club!

There is also a feature on social networking sites where you can create “applications.” Most of these applications allow for people to interact with others in different ways. For example, Blockbuster has a Facebook application that allows for you to post which movies you’ve ordered through their online service. You can share your list, ratings, and reviews with friends right within Facebook. And a service called Zelky allows you to share your workout stats with friends on Facebook as well.

There is plenty of opportunity for the right companies to step in and build applications that people actually want to use within their Facebook social networks. Now is the time for you to dig in.

Stay tuned for more ideas

Any other ideas that I’ve missed? Let everyone know in the comments.

I could go on and on with ideas. It seems like it’s getting easier to come up with more blog post ideas after writing one. Stay tuned for more here on my blog.