I have always believed that marketing without selling your soul is possible. You need not resort to questionable tactics to sell your product. Earning trust the right way is how you should go about it. And that requires time, patience, consistency, persistence and willingness to be in the game for the long haul.
Web publishing is no different. You create content and expect that readers will like it and come in hordes. Like any form of marketing, web marketing too could be done through questionable tactics. What constitutes such tactics isn’t really a matter of perspective any more; Google’s Panda and Penguin updates have shown that black hat SEO techniques are dead. If you are not adding value, you are simply dispensable for Google and for your readers.
It’s been more than two years of starting Guiding Tech in probably the most crowded niche of the web: technology, and right from the first day I have followed the philosophy of “marketing without selling your soul”, which is what Rand explains beautifully in his presentation below. I can tell you today, after looking at Guiding Tech’s pageviews and other stats, that it’s absolutely the right path to tread.
I agree 100% with all of Rand’s points. If you are a blogger or a publisher, or anyone who’s involved with web publishing in some way or the other, it’s time to realize that content is truly the king.. it always was.
(Thanks to Amit Banerjee for sharing Rand’s presentation)
