Internet Marketing

Recent changes in the way we communicate through the net have been less about customary broadcast media and more about interactive, two way communication. As this type of communication alters it will undoubtedly affect the way search engines operate and by default the process of Online Marketing.

Conventional media “broadcasts” a message to the planned audience, whether it is in the form of a paper or an commercial (physical or digital) which exposes the reader, listener or watcher to a idea. The communication is one way and the proposed audience is advised of something, in fact “talked at”.

Accepted methods of Online Marketing carried out by the marketing sector and more recently the relatively new idea of Search Engine Optimisation companies (SEO Company) are targeted at the way that Google (mainly) accesses web pages. This is a kind of broadcast media not too dissimilar to a newspaper albeit with digital trickery to make the experience more appealing.

Is this all about to alter? Are the accepted Search Engine Placement services about to become less valuable? Assuming the internet continues to grow along the same lines as it has for the last ten years, we can expect to see the use of the web becoming more embedded in our day to day real time lives. It will develop into more of a delivery platform as opposed to an information supply, a concierge as opposed to a librarian. If we are accessing the net in real time that association will become two way and transactional, broadcast methods will offer a shallow experience and become a thing of the past.

Once a buyer can engage with the seller of the product or service through two way communication simply reading a website will be less than fulfilling. At this point conventional Search Engine Placement services become obsolete and Online Marketing becomes about making connections not identifying content.

The astute SEO Company will be looking at how that interaction can take place in an environment that is so crowded with information. Ideally, a buyer is exposed to a seller (or a number of sellers) in an atmosphere where he can actively interrogate and compare their goods, ask for detail and maybe even tailor the product or service to his needs before he makes the decision to buy.

Instead of providing website optimisation for a static broadcast, online marketing may be about promoting links and may take place on Twitter, chatrooms, forums even within games where product placement is already starting to happen.