Contents
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- 1 Publishing vs. Advertising
- 1.1 Marketing
- 1.2 Publishing
- 1.3 From the website to a publication
- 1.4 Businesses outsource website development
- 1.5 The Cost Factor
- 1.6 Online Advertising
- 1.7 The Concept of the YORGOO Publishing Network
- 1.8 The Author Blog
- 1.9 The Shop
- 1.10 The Consultant site
- 1.11 Broad Publication and Media Distribution
- 1.12 Set-up and Performance
- 1.13 Publishing vs Advertising
Publishing vs. Advertising
When a few years back I was thinking about the tag-line for my first blog, it boiled down to Publishing, Media and Marketing. The idea was to focus my online activity to develop and to implement a concept allowing home and small business to take advantage of the internet in the same way large corporate do it but at a fraction of the cost. The purpose was to enable anyone to gain high visibility and to be able to put their products at the tip of the mouse of the largest possible number of people at minimal cost.
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The key to success was to be found by offering alternatives to the today high cost for efficient online advertising, such as Google or Facebook ads.
Today, the 3 keywords have to be completed with the word ‘Social’ as online socializing is what attracts most people to the internet. The main targets of our action are therefore besides Search Engines the Social Networks.
While over 500 million people have registered with Facebook, the fact to hang out on facebook does not mean that you will be able to take advantage of the social network for your business; you still need to be able to prove and to demonstrate your authority, presence and visibility outside of facebook.
What good is it to tell people in facebook that you are a nice guy selling a nice product if you cannot direct people to a nice shop? And what good is it to be in touch with potential business partners or customers if your business cannot be found anywhere on the www?
Before even going to facebook with the intention to let facebook work for you, you must define your business, your products and most importantly, you must exist online (and that is outside social networks).
Marketing
Successful marketing online is widely based on pull marketing strategies, meaning, the potential customer who wants a benefit, needs to find your offer when HE or SHE is ready to buy. It’s as simple as that.
Be it in a social network or on Search Engines, you need to be visible, credible and competitive.
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Publishing
From the past YORGOO experience we know that an individual cannot promote more than one link. The same applies for publishing: you cannot publish meaningfully more than one authority site.
And if we think about it, even the big corporates focus on one publication.
From the website to a publication
Let’s talk about Publication rather than website as a website may have a too narrow connotation.
The Purpose of your Publication is to present yourself in the best possible way, to gain authority in your professional field and to be able to present your products and services to those who are in the need of the benefits you can provide.
The publication may consist of multiple website (stricto sensu) but they must form an entity. Your Business website, your Shop and your Personal Blog for example must be streamlined and integrated from a publishing point of view, otherwise you end up developing 3 websites instead of developing one publication.
Be happy to find the time to develop one publication and forget taking care of multiples.
Only a streamlined publication will work for you and free enough time to serve your customers and develop new products as the case may be.
Businesses outsource website development
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If you are selling sneakers, then that’s your business. You want to serve your customers and the web should help you to reach out for more people who stop in and purchase your kicks. You don’t want to lose time with your web presence, you want to free time for serving more customers.
For this reason and also because website development has become rather complex, businesses outsource their website development and as they grow they may have an in-house department to serve that purpose.
The Cost Factor
The cost factor is important and the most important issue is to find a balance between the investment and the ROI. Here is where most businesses fail: if the amount invested, or the effort made, is not big enough, online development may rather harm your business than doing any good.
Harm in two aspects:
- You have a very low budget and you do things only half the way: for example you reach Google top 10 but what people see on your site is so poorly presented that they click you away. You are losing money and gaining a bad reputation.
Or you have brilliant web design and nobody finds your site: consider your investment in time and money lost. - You stay away from the internet all together: you are not taking advantage of the internet, nor are you shaping your reputation there; over short or long other people will make your reputation online and believe me, bad news are stickier than the good ones. I am not sure it’s cheaper in today’s environment to stay away from the net, since the net has become a reference for most any consumer: would you trust a business you cannot find online?
Becoming aware of the shortfall, you will then wonder about how you could fix the problem and 8 out of 10 times you will hear: just pull up a website and buy Google ads.
Online Advertising
While Google ads are a brilliant invention, they are only profiting those who understand the way they function and who have the necessary budget to bring the ads in front of a sufficient
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number of people to get sufficient click-throughs to generate sufficient sales to reach sufficient profitability to exceed the cost of sufficient advertising. (Wow, that’s a long one :-).)
If your ad campaigns don’t reach that critical mass, you are simply losing money and time. As usual, all boils down to the amount of targeted traffic on your site and the cost related to it.
The Concept of the YORGOO Publishing Network
In order to allow businesses running on small budgets to gain optimized visibility, we have developed a publishing concept which has proven to provide high visibility at a minimum cost.
The concept is based on streamlined online Publishing using multiple ‘websites’, set up on different hosts but fitting together to one business entity. Best of all in most cases you need to take care only of one website, which we call the Author Blog. Author in this case also means Authority.
The Author Blog
Ideally this is a high performance website optimized for reaching Google Top 10 positions on relevant key phrases. The site is well designed, functional and definitely building authority, reputation and credibility.
The Shop
Semiomantics E-shop for WordPress
The shop or product presentation can be integrated but more often is a separate unit because of the specific characteristics of a shop script. Single product sales-pages can however be very well integrated.
The Consultant site
While the author blog reflects your image as a person, reaching from professional interests to your hobbies, the consultant site projects only your image as a business person, associating your authority with your services or products.
The Consultant site and the shop are closely interlinked and both are interlinked with the Author site.
Broad Publication and Media Distribution
In order to create maximum impact the Concept includes an aggregator site which serves to distribute our publication as widely as possible within and outside our personal mini network.
While the above short outline of the concept may seem complex, it is in fact just a simple but intelligent form of interlinking sites with different individual purposes serving one global purpose.
Set-up and Performance
Some people have followed us on the development and implementation of the above concept by participating as Ycademy pros in the various Semiomantics Developments. They have spent thousands of dollars and hours to reach a high degree of professionalism in online Editing, Publishing and Website Development. From their own experience they know what works and what is less efficient and they also know what it takes to implement an effective and highly visible online Presence. These are our partners in Semiomantics, who are
Semiomantics XO for WordPress
authorized to set up Semiomantics designed, developed and or tuned websites.
Semiomantics will go live before the end of the year with it’s new partner site.
Publishing vs Advertising
Publishing provides you with a 24/7/365 presence on line. The time to invest will depend on your business, however regular publishing is required.
Advertising needs about as much planning as publishing in as much as you need to do the same keyword research and you need creativity to find smart Slogans.
Cost:
Setting up an optimized and customized web Publication has its price as does advertising. However the benefits are different.
While a Customized high performance web presence may cost anywhere from $3000 upwards (from a trustworthy source), efficient advertising with Google for example may cost as from $50 per day.
Sure the Google deal looks good on the first shot; but then, it will depend on the keyword and the number of clicks you need to get one sale and how much you earn per sale. From my experience, even $50 per day look like a very low budget and as any marketing budget, there is never a guarantee for success.
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The Website is a more consequent upfront investment, however the invested bucks will continue to work for you for as long as the site is up and running. The advertising buck goes with every click.
Let’s look where the money goes: in the case of Ads, the money goes to Google (and they then pay the publishers who display the ads on their sites.) In the case of a website, there will be hosting and domain costs, then there may be script licenses, may be custom coding; but a big junk will go into custom web design, in your online look an style, in the study about what sets you apart from the competition and in graphically expressing exactly that as well as the benefits arising from dealing with you. A poorly designed website will not build your authority nor will it create the necessary empathy.
In order to save on customization, many small businesses opt for ready made templates; that may do the trick just to get acquainted with the net, however you well notice over short or long that such templates always lack something and you will then either conclude that “it does not work” and abandon, or do what you should have considered in the first place: plan your project properly and develop it to set you apart from the masses by having at least your chosen template customized. The competition starts with the construction of your web publication.
Think about the time factor: once you know what kind of a site you want and what functionality it must have, plus you have maybe some branding elements ready, that’s when the developers and designers will start working. While coding often is a straight forward process for standard business purposes, web design, graphics, the creative process as such take time. No matter how fast you work on Photoshop (that’s just execution), the creative process and its implementation, as well as the discussions about the arising issues take a lot of time as you want the site to put you and your services into the best light possible.
YORGOO Times
Try it out and build a nice header graphic for example: the problem is not how fast you are using your design tools; the problem is in the perfect choice of colors, fonts, graphic elements, their positioning and finally in the uniqueness of your site.
Hourly rates are not a good measure: an experienced designer will work faster but not necessarily cheaper. The hourly rate increases with experience and speed and of course … creativity.
All this to tell you: it matters how and where you spend your time and money and good planning is of the essence which ever way you choose. Just don’t be fooled, either option will cost time and money in function of your expectations, there is no miracle but there is work and work wants to be rewarded as you want to be rewarded for yours.
Make it a thoughtful week-end.
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Author: Yorgo Nestoridis, Media Marketing & Publishing, Founder of YORGOO Publishing, YORGOO Press and Semiomantics.
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