Generating traffic online

The three biggest reasons corporate and small business fail to make money online whilst individuals literally make millions in the same market.

In this article we look at how people are making money from their web sites and what they are doing differently to those that are not making money. Specifically why individuals are constantly making literally millions of dollars in the same market place that businesses struggle to even turn a profit.

Many businesses are failing to make money on line. This applies from the small and medium operator's right through to the large corporations. Yet many individuals are quietly generating serious incomes literally under the radar. Take for example 30 year old Mark Ling from Christchurch. His earnings are 8 figures per annum on line. (That over ten million if you're like me and couldn't quite work it out). So why are he and many others like him so successful when the large corporations typically struggle? Take Telecom for example. One of New Zealand's largest companies set up www.ferritt.co.nz, and online shopping mall. After spending millions of dollars on it they closed it down because it was losing so much money.

There are many reasons but there is one glaringly obvious mistake that most businesses make. But before I tell you, you need to think about the environment that is the Web. In the bricks and mortar world most businesses are used to competing with only a few influences at a time.

· The retail store only has a handful of competing retail stores nearby

· The mass marketer may have many competing messages but most are for unrelated products and services

· The direct mail letter may be one of five or even ten pieces of mail but almost certainly none of them are in the same industry.

So if the marketing message in a conventional environment happens to arrive when the recipient has a need for that product or service then there is a reasonable chance of success. Now obviously this is also why many conventional marketing factors, from the power of the offer to the quality of the lead to the strength of the creative content.

But on line is a totally different world.

The online individuals have a huge advantage of conventional businesses. They can genuinely create a product that services an unsatisfied demand. Ultimately this is what marketing is all about yet so many businesses are confined by existing practises that they are forced to try and sell something that they already have, rather than find a demand and meet it.

Now does this mean that businesses can't make money on line selling their existing products and services?

Of course not.

But they need to learn from those that are doing so well and apply the same principles to their own marketing.

The thinking in corporate New Zealand is so far behind the successful internet marketers it is staggering. Mind you it's not that surprising. Anyone attempting to learn Internet Marketing at the local (Victoria) University is plain out of luck. The sole course on Internet marketing takes an academic overview but does not teach you how to market and sell on line. When asked which course would teach on line marketing the response was "we prefer to leave that to the private sector"

Anyhow I digress

Back to the on line environment. Let's look at the psyche of people when they search for information on the internet. That's the first key right there!

The majority of people are looking for information - not to be sold to.

If your business is not featuring on the first page of Google search results then you have no chance. And you need to be there for each of the search terms that your customers are using to search under.

Let's look at the first problem most businesses have. Their web site and branding all revolves around the name of their business. This is fine if your customers already know who you are and are just searching for some contact details. But these are not the customers you need to reach. Chances are they are already going to find you.

You need to reach those potential customers searching about your product, service or industry that don't currently know about you.

Let's use the hotel industry as an example. Tens of thousands of people search Google New Zealand for hotels every month. A handful of them enter the name of the hotel. But the majority search under Auckland Hotels or Auckland Hotel or Best Hotel in Auckland of Closest Hotel to Auckland Airport or whatever the term is that meets their needs. There will be hundreds of relevant searches terms each month using unique phrases.

And for each of these phrases you need to be on page one of Google. Some people buy Google Adwords (sponsored links) and this is a very effective way to get onto page one but it can be expensive.

The real purists know how to optimise their site so that Google ranks them on the first page. This has lead to the growth of an entire industry known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to help companies elevate their search rankings.

undergroundmarketing.co.nz