| Floods of business - ha ! |
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 I recently attended a seminar (checking out my competition) the room was full of paid up delegates eager to hear about how their website would become a world leader. We listened for a day. I'd heard it before - the 'floods of business dream'. It was news to most, and it will remain a dream to them, let me explain why and how you can succeed ....
The 'Floods of Business' dream goes back to the early days of the internet. The basic idea was that if you were successful online, your products could be available to everyone, anywhere. With the internet now reaching billions of consumers per day, you have a vast audience. Most internet users find their way by using a search engine - particularly Google - and you can get into Google for free. So, you could set up simply and be selling from your garage, but selling to millions. You could tap into endless 'floods of business'. Well that's how the dream goes. And interestingly - its true. That is exactly what you could do if you were successful online. The seminar, I spoke of, then concentrated upon some of the techniques that would help - such as good website design, search engine optimisation and email marketing. All of these are valid techniques, but they deflect your attention from the real issue. Worse than that, they get you to work the wrong way 'round and you will never find the light at the end of the tunnel if you are walking backwards. What do I mean? The real issue is competition. Your online competitors will not be the same as your usual competitors - and there will be many more of them. Just as your online business will try and reach out to the world, others will reach out too and into your patch. You might be the 'best known distributor of hydraulic pumps in Waterford', but where are you on a global scale? You may not have global ambitions for your online business, you might just want to grow your local business using your website. Even so you cannot ignore your global competition, they are still reaching into your patch. For example - I know that there are about 3 florists in the Staffordshire cathedral city of Lichfield. Yet if I go to Google and search for "florist in Lichfield" I will be presented with 52,600 alternative pages. To be successful as a online florist in Lichfield I would have to appear in the top 10 of these 52,600 page. It's a tall order. The techniques discussed in the seminar I mentioned would help (good website design, search engine optimisation and email marketing) but you could spend months and a lot of money just to get from position 52,600 to position 25. Its great headway but utterly fruitless. Unless you are in the top 10 you won't even begin to tap into the rivers of business - and really you need to get into the top 5. Worse still, you'll spend ages thinking about things the wrong way around. You will be thinking that its a technical issue, and you'll be offered loads of solutions to your technical issue - some cheap and some expensive. You might be lead to believe that you need better meta-text, or optimised page layout, or links, or magical word combinations. Improving all of these would help (IF they are done well) - but they are NOT what you should be thinking about. What you need to concentrate upon is that you have lots more competitors online, and that the MOST effective, and quick, way to beat your competitors is promotion. When I say this to some people they look mystified - to them creating a website is promotion, why would they need to promote their promotion? But they have it wrong. A simple website can be considered like a brochure, it's there to promote a service. But even the finest brochure will do no good for you unless (until) you get it into the hands of your potential customers. More complex websites are not there to promote a service, they are the service. Think of Amazon or Ebay, they are not brochures about a shop - they are shops. Just like Amazon and Ebay you need to tell the world you are there - you need promote your website. You need to get your website looked at by your target audience. This is called 'targeted traffic' in the internet business. Websites need promotion and how you promote your site will determine how much targeted traffic you will get. Until you get your audience the technicalities of the construction of your website, how it looks or what features it has will not matter one jot. Your key to success is to work out how to get an audience when you have so much competition. When you have an audience you can start to sell. Website promotion is the next article in this section. As you will see, you need not spend a lot to speak to your audience, it could be just a couple of € per day. Read on and we'll explain how. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites         Comments (0)
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