The Mayan calendar ends on December 21st, 2012. There are many who believe that in one way or another this will be the end of the world as we know it.
For those of us who make our living online, and for our clients, and every business actually, the end of the world as we know it has already taken place.
April 24th, 2012 – the day the Internet changed forever
The end of the world as we know it was named Panda in and Penguin.
The significance of these names is not that they are both black and white animals that start with the letter P. No, the significance is that the updates to the Google algorithm affectionately named Penguin and Panda have essentially nullified all of the back linking and article marketing we have been doing for our clients for the past 4 years … and all of the rankings these tactics achieved went away as well.
All of the sudden, the entire Internet was just re-categorized.
It’s akin to the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. If you are a Fortune 500 who has the top spots under multiple keywords secured, you are even more impregnable now. If you are a top blogger with thousands of other blogs linking to you and you have real authority, your place is more secure now.
However, if you are a small business trying to separate yourself from your competition, whether locally or nationally, then your work just quadrupled. No longer will it be as easy to get back links without creating extraordinary content. No longer will you be able to spin articles and post them everywhere. Now, not only will doing it not give you any positive result, if you do it, you can actually be penalized.
The way ahead
But fear not! I have seen the Future and I know how to survive and thrive in this post apocalyptic world … err, post Panda and Penguin virtual world called the Internet.
If you own a business, listen up, we are the closest thing you have to a best friend right now.
On our blog, we are going to be sharing the secrets of success with you and guide you by the hand back to where you were before, and help you grow your business reach even further online and make a whole bunch of money and eventually have the freedom you desire.
Sound good!?
Excellent!
Here’s the first thing you must know: You, Mr. or Mrs. Business owner, cannot outsource your Internet Marketing strategy. You, and you alone are responsible for your success online!
Sounds obvious right? Almost idiotic even. You think, “of course I’m responsible!”
A typical Web Development Back story
Look at it from our perspective. We have built hundreds of websites. HUNDREDS! We told everyone the same thing: “Even if you build it, they will not come. You have to market your website. You have to control your Internet Marketing strategy!”
We have become really, really mean about it now days. We force clients to hear us. If they act like they aren’t listening, we tell them to go somewhere else!
Now, we charge for training. We won’t do a website anymore without training business owners how to control their marketing strategy. If at any point they seem uninterested, we fire them.
Why?
We are tired of telling business owners about the importance of marketing their website and how to control their Internet Marketing strategy but they don’t listen.
Invariably after the launch of the site they wouldn’t hire us or anyone else to work on their Internet Marketing and they let the site sit with no updates.
Typically, 6 months to a year later, the client calls us and asks: “Why am I not on the search engines?”
The answer: “Because you didn’t market your site! You let it sit there!”
Building a website is the easy part. It’s step one. The hard part is marketing that website, in order to attract attention. That attention can draw suspects, who become prospects, who become customers.
It’s a process – but it’s gotta be worked! Understood, then worked!
A B2B company with a long sales cycle is not going to put up a website and catch the attention of a Multinational conglomerate who wants to do business with them today because their site is so nice.
It requires a process.
It’s commonly known as a conversion funnel.
As the business owner, your job is to identify the purpose of the website and your strategy for converting visitors into suspects, into prospects, into customers.
You may think that identifying the purpose of a website is ludicrous, but a website can perform many functions. It can build trust, and brand. It can set the business apart as the go to source, the expert in the industry, it can educate the visitor. It can connect with the business audience and open up a conversation. It can track visitors, and test their responses to various actions. There are many things a website can do, but are you utilizing them?
So what about Panda and Penguin and the end of the world?
2 years ago, even if you let your site just sit there, you might get traffic to it. Now, it’s not going to happen. You have to engage your audience.
How?
With content. Lot’s and lots of content!
You are going to have to learn how to control your Internet Marketing strategy and learn how to attract attention and engage your visitors.
The days of building a website and leaving it sit are over. The days of brochure websites are over!
The Writing Is On The Wall
The Fortune 500 have pulled almost all of their Internet work in house. They are tracking you the minute you click onto their site. They have optimized their sites for conversions. They want to get you to read their blogs, and sign up for their newsletter, so they can drip market to you and entice you to buy. They know if you have opened the email they sent you or not, and they have a multi step sequence of actions ready to engage you whether you open it or not.
The strategy has been worked out and is at play in all your interactions. You are a mouse in a maze and they have cheese everywhere.
Why? Because they know that this is the future of marketing. The future of all businesses will be determined by the strength of their online presence. When you watch a TV commercial, there is no way to know how much it influenced you. But when your customers come to your website, you can track how effective a certain ad, or callout is.
The companies and people who are making fortunes online, are engaging visitors with content, content and more content. They are tracking you, and making assumptions about how to influence you to convert.
The name of the game is conversions. Well, traffic and conversions.
In order to maximize both traffic and conversions, you are going to have to produce lots of content!
There is no way around it. Especially now with Google’s updates.
That means you are going to need a plan. You are going to need to learn how to write engaging content. You are going to need to learn how to trade content for contact information. You are going to have to learn how to track and test and measure. You are going to have to learn Internet Marketing!
If you decide to outsource some of the work, because there will be a LOT of work to do, then you will know if the people you hire are doing a good job or not. You will be able to tell them what you want, and you won’t be at their mercy.
Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!
So stay tuned, because we are going to teach you everything you need to know to be successful online. Sure, there is a lot more information that we share in our training courses, but we are going to get you headed in the right direction and a long, long way down the road into profits. We want to get you making money and understanding the need to know even more. Then, the training is essentially free.
Besides, you probably need to reinvest some of those marketing dollars you have been sinking into yellow pages ads that everyone throws away. The Internet is not free. It takes a lot of knowledge, time, effort, and, if you don’t want to do the work yourself, money to succeed.
P.S. This article is really long because only people who are serious about their success will read it. Everyone else will go away. An article this long separates the wheat from the chaff, if you will. Imagine that! Now, realize what type of person you must be to have read all this. Like us, you too are quite remarkable. Just the kind of person who can succeed and take your business to the next level on the Internet.
