Tom Martin — December 27, 2017 — December 27, 2017
We all want the Google Juice. We’ve been told it’s the silver bullet to inbound marketing success. But we’re wrong. The only way to truly Google Proof your website, and your online marketing efforts, is Propinquity. Today we’ll talk about why propinquity marketing is a better long-term strategy vs the classic Google/Inbound strategy for most companies.
Why SEO is a losing strategy for most companies
Numerous studies suggest Search (organic & paid) produces anywhere between 60% and 90% of most websites’ inbound traffic. But here’s the dirty little secret your SEO agency won’t tell you. So it’s no wonder we all want the Google Juice… we know that research shows most people don’t go beyond page 2 on a search, so we’re all fighting for the most valuable real estate on the web – Google’s first and second page.
But for 99% of you, you simply won’t be able to reach page 1 or 2 on Google. Why is that? And more importantly, what can you do about it?
Do a Google Search for any term you’re interested in… go ahead, I’ll wait. Now, look how many web pages are listed on the first page of results. Then click to the second page and count how many are there. This is where my inner magician comes out — I bet when you add up the two numbers it equals 20. How did I do?
Yep that’s right. 20 web pages… not 20 companies, 20 web pages win the battle for ANY keyword or keyword phrase no matter how long the tail.
Now go back and look at how many results were generated for your search term. Do the math. That’s a whole lotta folks, companies, and web pages that lost the SEO battle today.
Google’s Algorithm Favors Big Deep Sites With Lots of Content
Don’t believe me, just google it — here and here are just two recent articles discussing Google’s newfound love of longer form, more detailed, more relevant content marketing. So the days of just quickly banging out 500-600 word blog posts with the right keywords every day and then getting your friends to share it on social media so you can get the juice are either over or quickly coming to an end.
And if you’re trying to rank for a more general, top of funnel type word like travel or vacation ideas…forget about it.
You’re going to find link after link from major media outlets, websites and content marketing machines that crank out tons of high quality, long-form, keyword rich and highly relevant content every day. So if you’re a travel brand trying to get that all important first look from a new prospective traveler, you’re hard pressed to win the day.
But don’t lose hope dear reader, because there is a solution. You too can Google Proof your website or blog.
Propinquity Marketing Solves The SEO Problem
Simply put, a propinquity approach treats every site as your site. In a propinquity driven program you don’t have to worry about great SEO on your own website, instead you ride the seo efforts of popular websites that will let you post your content on their site.
Here is an example.
Right there at the bottom of the page, after all the dictionary definitions of Propinquity, you see an article from Copyblogger describing Propinquity Marketing. Now Copyblogger does a great job with their SEO, they have a ton of deep, quality content, and it makes sense that you’d see that article vs the same article on my Converse Digital blog.
But that’s ok.
Because I own that page of Copyblogger’s site.
No, Brian didn’t sell it to me, hell he doesn’t even charge me rent, but make no mistake, when a reader lands on that page, it’s mine. I wrote the article, I selected which backlinks to insert and best of all, if the reader is a CEO, Director, Marketing Manager or Social Media Manager, and they decide they want to learn more about building Propinquity Marketing programs, they can’t call Brian or any of his Copyblogger folks — nope, they have to call the article’s author… ME.
Now scale this idea up beyond just a byline on Copyblogger… imagine having publishing authority on many Propinquity Points. For me this might include MarketingProfs, Social Media Marketing, and many others. All websites and blogs that our Propinquity Point Analysis showed where target rich environments where Converse Digital’s potential clients were consuming and sharing content.
Imagine what the Google search result looks like when I’ve published a bunch of articles in different places, participated in Podcasts, and spoken about Propinquity Marketing at conferences where other people like the idea and share it on their own blogs.
It very well might look just like this.
And that’s the point. If you can’t beat em, just join em. It’s easier, less expensive and a more sustainable long-term marketing strategy.
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