John Gagnon is pretty insistent that you’ve got to be able to afford prime advertisement spots with search engines in order to succeed over the competition. While it’s true that paying for search ads can give you a boost, it’s certainly not the end of the world if you can’t afford it.
Gagnon also mentions that consumers rarely scroll below the fold, and almost never look past the first page of search results. Through strategic SEO, especially focusing on keyword search trends, your webpage can be pretty high on the results page, even without the cushy first spot reserved for paid ads. Not to mention, many people tend to scroll right past ads and look for natural results.
Early in the video, Gagnon seems to gloss over advertisements on Facebook, but in today’s world it’s pretty narrow minded to not consider social media a crucial advertising hotspot. Consumers take in content all day every day in some form or another, and much of that comes from social media, which provides opportunities for both paid advertisement as well as natural, cost-free exposure through owned media, the brand’s own account.