SEO vs. Promotion

These days, we hear a lot about how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital for web success.

SEO delivers measurable results, but still, I wondered: how does SEO compare with promotion?

I used this blog to perform a test.

On Tuesday, September 22, I blogged "Saving the Monte Carlo," and used PingFM to let my network of friends and followers on Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn and Plaxo know about it.

On Thursday the 24th, I blogged "Getting Practical with Social Media," and loaded it up with my keywords ("Practical Marketing").

Then, I sat back and watched Google Analytics (the chart above is a screen capture with some notes added in PhotoShop).

It's clear that I got more "absolute unique visitors" from my PingFM notice about Saving the Monte Carlo, even though Getting Practical with Social Media remains the #4 ranked post on BlogSearch.Google.com.

Blog rankings change frequently so if you click too long after this writing the post may no longer be ranked.

The bottom line: promotion still works.

In this test, it worked twice as well as SEO.

Does that mean I'm no longer a believer in SEO? Well, let's just say I'm adding a signature line to my future blog postings.

And that's practical marketing.