Search engine optimization is hindered by immediate performance expectations. As soon as you begin an SEO campaign, whether it be link-building or content publishing, you are burdened with the need to produce metrics that show how much more search traffic is being earned because of your efforts and how long it takes to earn that traffic.
Some people hit the SEO channel hard with higher-risk strategies in order to deliver those performance results, and while it would be unfair to say they end up taking a hit down the road it is naive to argue that the risk is minimal. Sometimes the higher-risk strategies can be decoupled from a site after longer-term SEO resources have been put into place — before a search engine takes action. But that’s a very sophisticated marketing plan.
Reflective marketing is young enough in terms of conceptualization, execution, and market adoption to not yet be burdened with performance expectations and I want to go on record as saying that properly designed and executed reflective strategies are too fragile to resist that kind of hard-hitting channel development.
Can it be done?
Sure. I’ve done it.
But if you’re trying to develop a secondary channel of traffic you’re siphoning off resources from your main marketing projects. In my view adding high risk techniques to that kind of work increases the severity of any negative consequences you might incur. A reflective Website may fail forever if it attempts a high-risk strategy too soon, whereas a “money” site may have been around long enough to weather a temporary setback.
Reflective Marketing Opportunities are Often Overlooked
Relatively few people will invest resources in a reflective marketing campaign as soon as they launch their primary site. They may have the budget for complex marketing operations but that budget will be spent on media purchases, outreach to the news channels, and possibly engagement with other Websites.
Building a secondary channel of Websites is a commitment of time and resources few people are willing to make when launching a main site. Hence, by the time they start building their reflective channel the primary site has already established its “authority” and “reputation” and it can be stressed with occasional high risk strategies.
Aggressive Marketing May Impair a New Site’s Ability to Perform
The first six months of life for any Website is the most vulnerable period of time with respect to the long-term harm you can inflict upon that site’s authority and reputation with high-risk strategies. Clearly, rapid link acquisition through low-value resources is the most common high-risk strategy and the Web forums are filled with thousands of anecdotes from people who enjoyed immediate and rapid success for new sites with their spammy link campaigns only to be brought low by penalties or the loss of link value.
If all that happens after six months is that your links are devalued you’re lucky because you can start over again but if your site is penalized you have to choose between asking the search engine to forgive you (which means confessing your sins), waiting out the storm (which could take years), or starting over with a new Website.
None of these options are really positive developments because confirming your bad behavior with a search engine ensures they’ll track your future activity more closely; waiting out the storm forces you to develop other marketing channels (or Websites) as your primary business channel; or simply starting over means you’ve wasted time and money.
Reflective Marketing Takes A Less Aggressive Approach
Reflective marketing requires a soft launch strategy in the first six months. You grow your secondary channel organically. Its performance will not be spectacular unless you just happen to be in the right place at the right time with the right content.
More often your reflective channel experiences slow, steady growth and as far as the search engines are concerned that first six months establishes a good track record of good behavior. They’ll see that you are not pursuing spammy links, they’ll see that you’re just publishing good content — in effect, you’re on probation without having done anything wrong because you’re a “new driver”. You’re building up bankable credit.
And this doesn’t just apply to search channels. Social media communities will also pay attention to how you market a Website. Many an aggressive marketer has been kicked out of a popular or promising social media community.
So if you’re just growing your secondary channel’s social media visibility organically you’re far less likely to upset people in those communities. Instead you’re contributing value to them and helping their users develop their own personal resources.
Reflective Marketing Requires A Steady, Patient Methodology
Reflective marketing works best in low gear, without all the aggressive marketing that is usually pushed into increasing a primary Website’s traffic and visibility. By planning for six-month growth campaigns you can allocate your resources more intelligently, more efficiently, and know that the payoff isn’t measured just in traffic and conversions.
It’s measured in terms of the number of visibility channels that trust YOUR secondary channel enough to allow it to participate in their communities.
Reflective Marketing Offers Other Benefits
The day may come when you’re ready to change out primary Websites: perhaps you sell your site, shut down your business, you’re ready to grow into a new line of business, or maybe your aggressive marketing led to the worst-possible outcome. Or maybe your primary site just could not find a stable market and you have to find something else to focus on.
Your first alternative may come from your reflective marketing channel. If you build enough Websites that are ready and waiting to step into the lead role you can implement transitions in primary marketing goals quickly and with minimal loss of performance.
It’s better than buying “aged domains” because you have spent months or years building content, connections, trust, authority, and visibility.
But your secondary sites don’t reach that stage if you don’t invest enough time and resources in them in that crucial first six months after launching them to help them establish themselves. If you do nothing with a secondary Website the first six-month window is deferred until you take action. So simply buying and “aging” a domain for three years is not reflective marketing — you’re not acquiring and transferring traffic organically to any primary sites. You’re not earning your credibility.
What Early Stage Reflective Marketing Should Do
A proper reflective marketing strategy for the first six months must address three points:
- The strategy must ensure that the secondary channel acquires organic traffic
- The strategy must ensure that the secondary channel earns trust from search and social media
- The strategy must ensure that the secondary channel creates value that can be leveraged either for reflective traffic acquisition or in transforming the site or channel into a primary business resource
Impatience degrades the value of reflective marketing even more than it degrades the value of primary marketing. In primary marketing you’re more likely to be engaged in monitoring and responding to the performance metrics of your primary Website(s); in reflective marketing you may not even allocate resources toward capturing performance data.
If you devote as much time and energy to monitoring and developing your secondary channel as your primary channel then you’re not really practicing reflective marketing — you’re simply engaged in primary marketing on multiple fronts.
Reflective Marketing Enhances Traditional Web Marketing
I think that over time more people will study and implement reflective marketing. Its strategies offer a great deal of potential value and in fact the emergence of mobile platforms has already kickstarted the process. Many companies are now developing secondary channels in mobile marketing with fewer resources than they are allocating to their Web-based business models.
These mobile strategies are experimenting with ways to drive traffic to the primary Websites — and that is reflective in nature. Social media strategies that focus on building solid presences on Facebook, Twitter, and similar services are also reflective in nature. These “brand-building” marketing strategies are creating secondary channels intended to bring qualified visitors to primary Websites through identifiable channels.
Conclusion
So in reality reflective marketing is nothing new. It’s just that people are not used to thinking in terms of “this is a reflective marketing resource” as opposed to “we have a marketing strategy for that channel”. It’s a different way of looking at things, but it brings an important distinction to the secondary channel efforts you’re making.
You’re nurturing those secondary channels and protecting them from high-risk practices and shielding them from the damage inflicted by high-performance expectations. In the long run that may pay off better than having twice as many resources to work with.
The first six months is the most important for any secondary channel, not because it has to prove itself in that timeframe but because it has to establish itself as a credible resource. Performance can come later.
Read More about Search Engine Optimization
How Long Does It Take Google to Credit A Website with Links?
Natural Backlink Profile: Endless Ways to Build One
Website Not On Google? Why Some Internal Pages Aren't Indexed
RankBrain and Neural Matching: What Is the Difference?
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