Every single week I meet people who are so excited about their new website that they can't wait to tell me all about it and how it's going to make them a lot of money very quickly. They're almost jumping up and down because they've probably been to a seminar when they were told that the best way to live the dream is to first dream it and then visualise it and think about all the things they can do with the money they will earn from it.
Life's going to be brilliant.
Really, life is going to take off soon because there are so many millions of users on the Internet and all you need to do is attract a small fraction of those for your new widget to sell by the truckload and finally you'll be an Internet Millionaire. Except it doesn't happen.
So many people are sold the dream of SEO in such a way that they believe it's easy to do and you can suck visitors to your site like a vacuum cleaner sucks dirt. E-tailing is easy, selling is easy and attracting visitors is easy, except it isn't; it's difficult and it's a hard slog.
Just getting on Google is difficult
You need to be listed on Google in the first place and this is the initial hurdle - and what a whopper! Google indexes approximately 50 billion web pages and it grows at a phenomenal rate, probably hundreds of thousands a day. Why should they index yours? Why should they even care about yours? The answer is, they shouldn't and so they don't.
When your website is finished it just joins a very big queue and even though there are ways you can get yourself listed quickly, these are quite complex for the complete beginner and it's very easy to do it wrong.
So, when the site is live, there then begins a huge process of what many people call 'optimisation' and that's where us SEO type have really upset people. You now believe that 'optimisation' means changing some words on your site so that Google automagically pushes you to the top of search whenever someone types in your product. You probably believe that it's a one-step process and when it's done, you're good to go. That's not what optimisation is about at all and we should really call it 'marketing'.
Marketing is the process of getting your product in front of your customers (whoever they may be) and traditionally this is a lengthy process, even when you're competing with just a few people in your local area. Imagine competing with millions of people globally!
The more competitive your market, the longer it's going to take too, for example you're unlikely to beat B&Q if you're selling DIY equipment. Just face it - your site isn't going to beat anyone unless you are committed to spending a lot of time promoting it and this is where the second hurdle rears it's ugly head.
I'm still not on Google and it's been a month!
It's probably the most common complaint I hear from people. They (or we) 'optimised' their site a month ago and it's still not found anywhere when somebody searches for it. You can't find it anywhere at all and you're therefore not selling anything and so you're really hacked off.
You probably think that SEO is a whole bunch of hogwash and so you have decided to end it now before you waste anymore money. Giving up is too easy but you'll probably do it because you can't think of any other option.
This isn't just about SEO, it's about many things in life - it becomes too difficult so you just walk away and blame Google or something. You probably think you've been banned or Google doesn't like you or your web designer has done something wrong.
Let me just make it really clear - if you've got a new website and it's just been launched you're going to wait a long time before people are finding you on Google. We estimate between 8-12 months before it's getting anything like the amount of traffic an ecommerce site needs to work and so you need to do something else. SEO isn't the magic bullet and so you shouldn't rely on it at all.
You should also look at other marketing streams such as email marketing, AdWords and maybe even some of-line things like advertising. Seriously, even though the world has gone Internet mad, it doesn't mean you should ignore traditional methods of advertising.
The real killer marketing method
I've saved the best to last because this is where you can make a fortune if you really want to. So many people think that Google is the only way to make online riches that they completely miss the biggest barrier to sales - themselves. Look at all the really good business people and you'll notice something about them that's missing in many others - they're good at networking. They're usually quite happy to speak in public and they're always chatty. If you find a really great Internet entrepreneur, you'll probably find that most of his business has come through word of mouth and networking.
Some of the best marketers do not rely on Google, in fact, neither should you. Expecting to make money through a search engine is crazy, especially for brand new sites. You need to realise that you are the most important part of your business and you need to get yourself out there promoting it.
You don't even have to do this all through face to face marketing. There's even a saviour for those who hate talking to other people in the form of social networking online. Facebook, Twitter and MySpace for example are great places to promote yourself without having to actually meet someone in the flesh.
You've probably heard of a few bands that have made it big through social networking and their rise to fame has been touted as success for the Internet as a whole. But it's not, it's success for people talking to each other, social media and the Internet is just a tool and the minute you realise that, you'll find it much easier to cope with the fact that your site isn't currently number one.
Andy Calloway is the online marketing director at Calloway Green Ltd, a website design and optimisation company based in Wolverhampton in the UK. Calloway Green take fantastic website design and turn it into a marketable and usable product that will actually make you money. They specialise in Birmingham Web Design for West Midlands based organisations that are looking to sell their products to a wide audience.
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