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Don't depend on search for people to find your product. Just like you do not include vesting when comparing salaries between startups.

by z3t4 9y ago

zbentley 9y ago
You're not wrong, but this would require a radical re-architecting of huge swaths of how marketing and entrepreneurship currently works in most of the world.
renaudg 9y ago
This is a bit naive in a world where the address and search bars in browsers have merged, and many physical adverts don't even feature a website address any more, just search keywords.
- z3t4 9y ago
  It's branding. You advertise for a trademark that you have control over. If the users are using Android or Chrome they'll see some ads on their way to your website, but they will eventually get there, but that's ok I guess. What I mean is you should not depend on, for the life of your business, that a keyword like "secure email" will send traffic to your website, unless that is your trademark or brand name, and in that case you better own secureemail.com Back in 2006 or so when the address field became a search bar in most major browsers, I started to get a lot of traffic from Google, but 99% was searching for mydomain.com, I'm not talking about that kind of traffic, I'm talking about SEO keywords that will kill your business over night when (not if) Google change their formula or some algorithm removes your site from the search result. It's a bit upsetting that web browsers have monetized the address bar, but that's another, yet important discussion.
kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
So I do what? Printout flyers with a link to my unmonetized blog and put them on subway stations? Talk about completely impractical advice.
- z3t4 9y ago
  It's not such a big deal if your unmonetized blog disappears from Google search results. But for a company that lives or dies depending on search traffic it does. Never put yourself in that situation! It's OK to have some of your traffic from search, but you should not depend on it, think of it more like a lucky bonus. Now for your blog it depends on what you are writing about, but it's always a good idea to make public relations. Instead of doing printout flyer's, do something interesting, and good, and make sure it's covered in the news. Make people engaged.

Don't depend on search for people to find your product. Just like you do not include vesting when comparing salaries between startups.

by z3t4 9y ago

Don't depend on search for people to find your product. Just like you do not include vesting when comparing salaries between startups.

zbentley 9y ago

You're not wrong, but this would require a radical re-architecting of huge swaths of how marketing and entrepreneurship currently works in most of the world.

renaudg 9y ago

This is a bit naive in a world where the address and search bars in browsers have merged, and many physical adverts don't even feature a website address any more, just search keywords.

z3t4 9y ago
It's branding. You advertise for a trademark that you have control over. If the users are using Android or Chrome they'll see some ads on their way to your website, but they will eventually get there, but that's ok I guess. What I mean is you should not depend on, for the life of your business, that a keyword like "secure email" will send traffic to your website, unless that is your trademark or brand name, and in that case you better own secureemail.com Back in 2006 or so when the address field became a search bar in most major browsers, I started to get a lot of traffic from Google, but 99% was searching for mydomain.com, I'm not talking about that kind of traffic, I'm talking about SEO keywords that will kill your business over night when (not if) Google change their formula or some algorithm removes your site from the search result. It's a bit upsetting that web browsers have monetized the address bar, but that's another, yet important discussion.

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago

So I do what? Printout flyers with a link to my unmonetized blog and put them on subway stations? Talk about completely impractical advice.

z3t4 9y ago
It's not such a big deal if your unmonetized blog disappears from Google search results. But for a company that lives or dies depending on search traffic it does. Never put yourself in that situation! It's OK to have some of your traffic from search, but you should not depend on it, think of it more like a lucky bonus. Now for your blog it depends on what you are writing about, but it's always a good idea to make public relations. Instead of doing printout flyer's, do something interesting, and good, and make sure it's covered in the news. Make people engaged.