Online Marketing Basics: Which Channel Fits You?

This page used to be a loose collection of tips, written in 2022, with a section on TikTok influencers and a typo in that very heading. While rewriting it I noticed: almost every beginner question in online marketing hangs on one decision. Which channel first? Once that is settled, you can sort out the rest calmly.

Which channel fits? Two questions are enough

First question: is anyone already searching for what you offer? In other words, do people type your problem or your solution into Google today? Second question: do you have more time than money right now, or more money than time?

SEO is the slow channel. It often takes months before an article ranks, but after that it keeps running without a budget. Google Ads work the same day and stop the same day your budget does. That makes them the best test of whether your offer pulls at all, before you put half a year into content.

Without demand, no search engine can help you: nobody searches, so nobody finds you. You have to meet people where they already are. Organic social media costs stamina; with social ads you pay to show people something they never searched for. For B2B, LinkedIn is usually a better fit than Instagram.

Content shows up in both columns because it can do both: answer search queries and give people something to talk about. What that looks like for a developer with a technical blog is in my guide to technical blogging.

Sure: most people end up with a mix. At the start I would still pick one channel and do it properly. Trading time for money is itself a question of leverage, by the way.

If demand exists: read the search results first

Before you build content for a keyword, google it and look at page one. If it is all big brands and comparison sites, a young domain will have a hard time. Then a narrower keyword or Google Ads is the better start.

It gets interesting when page one shows small sites with few backlinks. Tools like Moz and Ahrefs express this as Domain Authority or Domain Rating. Google itself does not use these numbers; they are an outside estimate. But if Google ranks a weak domain anyway, the content has to match the search intent really well. That is exactly where there is room for you.

New domain? Check its past first

A used domain has a history, and you inherit it. Before you buy, check the backlink profile, especially for spam: casinos, pills, link farms. Also look at the Wayback Machine to see what used to run on the domain. Since March 2024, Google explicitly treats buying expired domains to exploit their old rankings for unrelated, thin content as spam (expired domain abuse). If the profile is burnt, cleaning it up is rarely worth it. Look for another domain instead.

Free ways to check:

• backlink-tool.org by Seobility, no sign-up
• the Ahrefs Backlink Checker, shows the top 100 links
• once you own the domain: the Links report in Google Search Console

Keywords: one page per search intent

If two of your pages try to answer the same question, you compete with yourself. That is called keyword cannibalization. Several pages on the same keyword are fine as long as each serves a different intent: the tutorial, the comparison, the error message. Trouble starts when they want the same thing. Then merge them into one page that covers the topic properly. That page also collects the backlinks that would otherwise be split across two half pages.

The second trick only works once a page ranks: check Search Console for the queries it gets impressions for. Regularly you will find terms that keyword tools list with zero search volume. If they fit your topic, give them their own H2 with a direct answer underneath. How one of my articles got to position 6 without any backlinks is in my SEO content strategy. For the Search Console side in more depth, see Google Search Console and SISTRIX.

What about AI search?

Part of the answers today come from ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews, often without a click to any website. For simple informational queries that costs you traffic. The good news: what gets cited there is almost always a clear answer to a clear question. Headings phrased as questions, the key sentence right below, concrete numbers and a recognisable author help with Google and with AI search alike. How strangely the two sometimes interlock is shown in my case of Disney+, ChatGPT and a UTM URL on Google.

Writing ads with the PAS formula

If you want to write an ad and don't know how to get your audience's attention, the PAS formula helps:

• Problem: describe your customers' problem in their words.
• Agitate: dig into the consequences until it hurts a little.
• Solution: show how you solve the problem.

An example for an accountant: "Receipts piling up and the deadline is three weeks away? Every evening with the shoebox is an evening you don't get back, and the late fees come on top. Send us the photos, we'll do the rest."

Once you have your first customers, Meta can build a similar audience from them, a so-called Lookalike Audience. The source needs at least 100 people; a few thousand good customers work better. With Advantage+, Meta's AI now treats such an audience more as a suggestion and may deliver beyond it.

Testimonials that answer objections

Most testimonials only say how much someone likes the product. That builds a little trust but answers no question. Stronger testimonials show a real use case and clear up a typical objection along the way: too expensive, too complicated, not for someone like me.

Place them where the objections arise. Your visitors hold an inner dialogue while reading: first you show their problem, then your solution, and right then they wonder whether it will work for them. That is the moment for a customer who had the same question. A short line of social proof at the very top of the page doesn't hurt either.

The signup form is a landing page

If you want more people on your newsletter, treat the form like a landing page of its own:

• Ask for the email address only.
• Give a clear reason to sign up, such as a checklist, a template or early access to the next article. Ideas for that are in my lead generation blueprint after Alex Hormozi.
• Use double opt-in. In Germany and much of the EU it is effectively the only way to prove consent later.

So: answer two questions, pick one channel and give it a few months. Then look at the numbers and decide again.