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Be Googled Or Die

Written by: Edmund

Article Overview: Companies who don't know the importance of SEO and Google will fade off from the scene in no time.

Be Googled Or Die

When Bill Gates mentioned 5 years ago that in the next 5-10 years, if you’re business is not on the Internet, you will have no business, he really means it. Right now in the year 2008, we are seeing more and more companies struggling to compete in their respective markets. What has happened is that globalization has almost matured in recent years. Those companies who understands it survives, those who don’t will face the agony of winding up their businesses.

With globalization going at full steam, just remaining the status quo will mean that your global competitors are eating into your market share while we speak. What do I mean by that? Many a times, I’ve spoken to successful business owners who run successful businesses who are contented to stick to their current growth rate and happily servicing their existing clients.

They have no desire in getting on the Internet. In business, there is no loyalty to a particular company. It’s more of the ability to stay competitive. With the Internet, your competitors can steal your customers under your nose without you even knowing it. Only to realize it after you’ve lost your competitors. Sometimes, they just get a website up without understanding how it works to their benefits. Having a website is just 5% of the equation. At the end of the day, it’s the traffic that matters.

The Internet scene has definitely changed big time and let me stick some examples.

Case Study 1
Company ‘A’ was a successful contract manufacturing company based in Singapore serving some of the biggest Electronics Manufacturers such as Nokia, Motorola, Sony and HP. They used to think they were competitive but not realizing that some China based contract manufacturing companies were sourced from online B-to-B portals and as they were having significant web presence.

The company was de-listed from the Stock Exchange in less than 18 months thereafter. A rude shock but the company never managed to recover from there. The next company is probably a bigger shock than that.

Case Study 2
Company ‘S’ was one of the biggest Advertising Agencies, if not the biggest in Singapore, Asia and probably Europe. After operating in Singapore for more than 20 years, they decided to pull out their operations from Singapore and Bangkok. At one look, you might think that the company had run into huge deficits with their high operating costs but the real reason is otherwise.

They failed to realize where the Internet has evolved. With more people using online media such as Face Book, MySpace, Google Videos, YouTube etc,
traditional media such as TV, Print Ads had suffered at least a 10-15% drop in advertising revenues and 30-40% in viewership and readership respectively.
Company ‘S’ did not realize this trend and carry on with their normal business operations not knowing that many of the other Advertising Agencies had already realized the trend and started equipping skills and marketing new services of promoting their clients services in the ‘New Media’ using online videos and powerful techniques such as viral marketing. Another classic example of how a big boy got beaten badly.

Marketing Your Business
When you have a business, whether an offline or online business, you have to actively promote it. It does not matter whether you’re the No.1 or No.2 player in the market. If you are not found on Google, you’re not there to compete. A company that is probably a small player would have gotten the lead or deal.
Congratulations, while you are ignorant of what’s happening, your competitors who might not have spent as much money as you had on branding would have gotten your potential customers with probably a small fraction of what you would have spent on traditional media.

Most Cost Effective Marketing Solution
One of the most cost effective marketing would have to be Email Marketing or E-Marketing for short. Sending out emails cost almost next to nothing but sending thousands of emails is another skill altogether. ISPs normally detect your email as spam mail when you try to send too many recipients at one go even though your email address is rated as ‘White List’ in their address book. Having third party Autoresponder service providers will help you overcome the problem. Otherwise, you could also approach organizations with large email databases that provide email broadcasting services.

Ways of Driving Traffic
Social Networking sites help drive traffic to your website but most of them are not targeted. If you are selling high ticket items (E.g. Products or Services that cost $300 or more) you can make use of the Search Engines to drive targeted traffic to your website. It will be helpful if you could measure your site’s conversion ability as the copywriting on your landing page (the desired directed page) while you fine tune the online marketing exercise.

Tips to Successful Online Marketing
As the saying goes, ‘If you want to measure your success, measure your results”. It is therefore important to set a targeted ROI and KPIs before starting on any online marketing campaign. It is also advisable to be selective of vendors and understand the strength and weakness of the company. The best strategy would be to engage vendors who have specific strengths in each field E.g. Online Media Advertising / Viral Marketing / Search Engine Marketing / Search Engine Optimization / Email Marketing. Any company that tells you they can’t guarantee you results is probably trying to scam you or don’t know their stuff well enough or probably trying their luck in getting you as their client.

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Article Tags: 10 years, agony, big time, bill gates, business owners, case study, contract manufacturing companies, electronics manufacturers, global competitors, globalization, internet scene, loyalty, manufacturing company, market share, portals, rude shock, steam, stock exchange, successful business, web presence



Related Forum Posts
Re: Suspicious/Problematic Users - I already sent a PM to GT but I figured I would post it here too so the rest of you can keep an eye out... Member: Luis21 He/she posted 3 posts that don't really have anything to do with anything. At first glance they do look somewhat legit (almost fooled me and apparently did fool Mal) but they aren't. They are somewhat related to the subjects of the thread but they don't really make any sense in the discussion if you think about it. So I Googled one of them and found that the entire thing was taken directly from Yahoo answers word-for-word and it was from way back in 2006. Then I checked another and the same thing was true. I assume the other one probably was too but I didn't check. For future reference, if something doesn't quite look right just do a little digging and you will find that it probably isn't.
Re: Traffic! How do you get it? - [quote="Alan Mater":gapxevob][quote="Trent Brownrigg":gapxevob][quote:gapxevob]Okay... I HAVE to ask. What is "blog walking"?? I've never heard that expression before.[/quote:gapxevob] Exactly what my question was going to be![/quote:gapxevob] LOL... I've seen this same exact post on several other threads now. Hopefully he'll be back to answer the question as I'm dying to know![/quote:gapxevob] I even Googled it and didn't find much. From the little I did find it appears that it might just be another way of saying blog commenting. But he also has that on the list so I'm not really sure.
Re: What is your biggest challenge? Today? - [quote="Alan Mater":1w6fxv1r]The question of quality comes into play at this point. If you can find a writer that's willing to write an article for you for say $1, what kind of quality do you think you will get? I personally wouldn't expect much, but then again you never know.[/quote:1w6fxv1r] Hi Alan, I know someone who recently hired a freelance writer to produce articles (500 words/article) at a price of $10 each, but the content wasn't usable. It was as if the writer simply Googled the subject and then tried to re-word existing content. The grammar in the articles was poor, while the content lacked flow and cohesion. But then again, $10 for 500 words is crap pay, so you get what you pay for.
Re: What is your biggest challenge? Today? - [quote="Kevin":3iyh4v03][quote="Alan Mater":3iyh4v03]The question of quality comes into play at this point. If you can find a writer that's willing to write an article for you for say $1, what kind of quality do you think you will get? I personally wouldn't expect much, but then again you never know.[/quote:3iyh4v03] Hi Alan, I know someone who recently hired a freelance writer to produce articles (500 words/article) at a price of $10 each, but the content wasn't usable. It was as if the writer simply Googled the subject and then tried to re-word existing content. The grammar in the articles was poor, while the content lacked flow and cohesion. But then again, $10 for 500 words is crap pay, so you get what you pay for.[/quote:3iyh4v03] Hi Kevin, Some people think $10 is a lot, while others are willing to pay it, or even more. But I agree, I'd charge more simply because it does take time to write, and it takes even more time if I'm not familiar with the topic and have to research it. You do get what you pay for, most of the time. I think it's also important to do some research on the freelancers you're considering in hiring. One of my proofreading clients, when she first contacted me about working for her, said that she had did her research on me and found that I would be a good partner. I was impressed because she took the time to figure out who I was and what I do. She viewed my bio in various websites and social sites. You almost have to do that nowadays if you want quality work. It takes time, but it will save you money and time in the long run.


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