Print Advertising Dollars vs. SEO Dollars

July 22, 2013

As a business owner, you're already well aware of the need to market your company and attract new customers. This is unconditionally applicable for all businesses, regardless of whether you operate a retail store, a large manufacturing facility, any type of professional business services, and even website designers.

That said, it is mind boggling why so many companies still allocate thousands of dollars for outdated print advertising, when the real emphasis needs to be on optimizing your website for search engines - a term you may have heard as SEO (search engine optimization) or SEM (Search Engine Marketing).

Breaking Old Stubborn Advertising Habits

There's obviously many reasons why a company would choose to focus on print advertising, such as newspapers, business directories and yellow page listings. The most common reason, though, is out of habit. A strong percentage of today's businesses are rooted in industries that were once ultra-dependent upon phone book listings, and other forms of print ads. But this is a new world we live in, and fundamental rules of promoting a company and finding new customers, now requires an entirely new way of thinking.

In this new electronic, socially-driven, SEO online economy, many of the advertising strategies that worked wonders just a decade ago, are considered obsolete by today's standards. Still, business owners continue to spend outrageous sums of money on advertising that sadly isn't likely to be seen or yield the ROI anywhere close to SEM. Many go this route under the assumption that others share their beliefs, thus justifying their actions. For others, it's simply a matter of not knowing how or where to make the needed changes. And for others still, it's the fear of making any substantial changes at all.

Why Search Engine Marketing Money is Better than Print

There is no longer any debate as to which medium consumers and B2B customers rely on most when it comes to buying new products, hiring services and meeting their other needs. Spending money on print advertising is a now a tremendous gamble, while smart and effective white-hat SEO tactics continue to build real value in branding and promoting your company.

Consumers and businesses alike, now rely on search engines to find anything and everything they need to live and work well. By taking the money you would spend on a basic hit-or-miss yellow page ad, you could invest that same money in having your website properly optimized for major search engines. Not to mention, young or old generation of people, the majority of us now have smart phones, emails, Facebook accounts and revolve heavily around the INTERNET, not flipping through the Yellow Pages!

Other beneficial SEO services include professionally-written blog articles, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, SEM, and many others; all of which are far more effective than simply paying for a print ad and hoping that someone still goes looking for your products and/or service there. The sad reality is that they won't. But the number of people who will be looking online has done nothing but increase over the years. Moreover, these numbers are guaranteed to increase as time goes on.

Why do people still use print advertising, radio advertising, billboards etc. ?

While we are on the "Business Owner" topic, what frustrates me more than anything is... Business owners who cry the blues about not having money, yet they live in huge houses, with all kinds of luxuries, fancy cars etc... I think with the old generation of business owners are on its way out, and they are trying to just bank whatever they can for their retirement and whatever happens to their business happens.

If you've been struggling with making the jump from print advertising to website SEO, this is a great time to get started. Call Evolution Marketing as we have worked with hundreds of businesses like yours, and have assisted many in easing into the transition of SEO and online marketing.