The Future Beyond Search

What’s next after search engines? Learn now and gain a competitive advantage.

As I sit here at the latest I Marketers Online Marketing Summit, I can’t help but marvel at the way our space is rapidly changing. With all of the talk about social media, local marketing, ad networks, and blog advertising, it is clear we are in a new era of online marketing.

AND yes, while search engine marketing should continue to be the cornerstone of your online marketing programs, there are a fresh new crop of sexy advertising alternatives that can help you drive additional traffic and perhaps even healthier returns beyond search.

Below are some of the top initiatives you should consider:

1) Google’s other advertising programs – Google now offers a host of new marketing opportunities through its AdWords console including radio, video, newspaper, and print advertising. Also, Google offers a “pay per action” program where you only pay if/when a prospect completes a task such as a sale, a download, or sign-up. Each other these programs have their own pros and cons which we will get into at a later time but all of them are seriously worth investigating.

2) Ad Networks –Did you know, people only engage in search about 5% of the time? As such, finding people when they are not searching is a smart play. The best way to do this is through ad networks. Many of them work just like pay per click but with advanced capabilities to target people by specific site and by specific demographic. Much more control than search and often less expensive, advertising via these ad networks can bring strong ROI to your business.

3) Blog Advertising – Have you heard yet about blogging? Of course you have, there are now well over 50 million blogs. Have you heard about advertising in Blogs? Probably not but it is also a very smart way to spend your budget, as long as you can find the right blog and produce the right creative to match.

4) Social Network Advertising – Most people are involved in social networking through sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, and so forth. There are literally thousands of social networking sites now out there and advertising through these sites can reap great rewards.

5) Local Marketing – most business are local yet they often engage nationally with their marketing spends. Local marketing is a way to make sure local business get seen locally. Sites like YellowPages.com, Local.com, TrueLocal.com, and Mojopages.com can ensure you are seen when local prospects go beyond search engines to find businesses like yours.

A final thought.

The time is now to take a portion of your marketing budget and experiment in these new arenas. Since these are new to most Internet Marketers, you can likely obtain good pricing and profitable results. Furthermore, you can leap ahead of your competitors who most likely are only engaging in just search engine optimization and pay per click marketing. The opportunities are here now. Will you take advantage?

Ron Weber is currently the President of SD Interactive, a San Diego Internet Marketing Agency.