Please Tell Me Your Web Site Is More Than Five Pages!

I turn down a lot of potential business week after week. I get a lot of individuals who believe that that web is an unlimited source of outrageous income and that you don't have to do much to get it. I get a lot of fanatical people with off the wall ideas. I get offers to do splits and joint ventures with a lot of half baked conceptual ideas. These people all fall into one unique category.

Every single one of them believes with all their heart that you can attain this type of wealth with five pages or less. We are talking serious numbers here too folks, ($20,000 a week +) with absolutely no effort on their part and zero marketing strategy.

Not only do I turn them down I take them off of my list. I am a bit surprised at the amount of investment they believe that is needed to plunk down twenty grand a week. I am going to list the common traits that all of these individuals have.

1. Web page is five pages or less
2. Web pages are not optimized for search engines
3. Business owner will not submit any audio or video, ("Absolutely no podcasting!")
4. Investment is usually $2,500 or less!
5. Business owner will not link to anything on the web, (defeats the whole purpose)

This is the best part. Everyone that falls in the $2,500 investment category has threatened to sue or take me to court if they don't get these outstanding results, ($20 grand or more a week). They all come with a bully attitude and are beyond lazy.

My advice to them is to play the lotto.

THE SEVEN FAMILIES OF SEARCH ENGINES

Ten years ago search engine technology was not where it is today. We only had a few search engines to play with and most of them weren't very reliable. In 1997 we did the best we could. Often times we had to rent outdoor advertising such as buses, subways, and billboards to promote our web sites to the public.

Today the scene is very different. Google, MSN, Yahoo only is responsible for 10% of all web site traffic. The rest of this comes from other sources. When you consider how much money is dumped into pay per click campaigns this becomes problematic. It's very expensive and the return to do a typical PPC campaign is not worth it in some markets. The way to get around all of this is to do something with the other search engines.

Podcast Search Engines - Online audio commercials are featured on these and they include http://Podnova.com , http://Meefeedia.com, and Podcast Pickle.

Standard Search Engines - MSN, Google, Yahoo.

Video Search Engines - Web 2.0 search engines including http://YouTube.com, Google Video, and at least 700+ others around the world.

Social Directories - Delicious, Digg, Redit, and many more support reader voted content. This allows people to give the thumbs up on what they like on the web.

Niche Directories - There are many private niche directories on the web to find things you are interested in.

Article Sites - Article Submitter, http://Isnare.com and sites like this allow you to submit articles that get distributed throughout the Internet. This tips the PR model upside down and also gives you more recognition for the things you do or sell.

Industry Directories - Or Industry Portals. Every type of industry has a search engine type of environment where searches can be made connecting companies to goods and services.

IT'S CALLED WEB MARKETING FOR A REASON

This is where so many online marketers hit a flat tire. They don't market. They don't even go online to check on the status of their sites or how they are ranked. They dump the money into a "cash vehicle" and then harass the professional who established their site in the first place.

Yes, it is a vicious world but nothing comes for free dear boy. There is a price and it is called Web Marketing for a reason. You need to show up where you are supposed to. You also need to show up in front of the right market.

These people I mentioned in the earlier classification also suffer from another delusion - they are seem to suffer from technophobia. These individuals can barely turn on their computers let alone attract a customer on the Internet. I see a lot of mistakes being made in their offline efforts too. All too often it is one in the same.

You see, the coupons and the direct mail pieces are often identical. Usually the web site, business card and flyer are all the same marketing effort. It is one of the worst sins you can commit in marketing because they dare to be boring. A brochure web site is nothing more than a glorified business card and there is really nothing too special about it.

My advice to anyone who feels compelled to market this way is for them to save their money. Put it into something else that will yield them some type of return.

What should a good offer look like? I'll give you one of my top favorite ways to attract a customer online and offline. These usually get the message across and will get some type of response.

Speed - Your offer should have a time limit on it. Limited offer, limited supply, act quickly by March 10th to get the special introductory price.

DO I REALLY NEED MORE THAN FIVE PAGES?

The phone company and telecom groups did a great number on the public a few years back and continue to do so. There is this belief about keeping up with the Joneses. Many web site packages are sold through telecommunications groups as part of their "business package". The business owner is told how to do basic things with it like make changes to their pages and so on. The problem is that the business owner will continue to make changes to the same five pages over and over again. They will never be able to get high up on the search engines because they change the content over and over again, (most times it was never formatted properly to begin with - think Meta Data).

You can forget about getting any type of real marketing penetration with this type of thinking. The other negative is that these pages never progress outside the initial five pages. Working with your site takes a great bit of effort and diligence.

Case Study 1: JVC

Companies like JVC do not mess around. They know that when they get a page up and indexed on Yahoo and Google it is better to leave it there and build around it. When I was looking for a particular camera model I was surprised to see it was no longer being made. Instead of taking that page down they took the content out and put a link in that said, "We no longer carry this model but for something similar click here...."

They knew how to keep the customer inside the site and gave him plenty more options. This is a very powerful strategy. Think infrastructure.

Case Study 2: SONY

Sony is another company that believes in heavy infrastructure. There are thousands of web pages that are out there that lead to a product or service. They don't take anything down but continue to add to it. This is the norm for a lot of the great companies of the world. They don't nitpick and fuss and rewrite over content or the same pages to get their point across.

Online real estate is a big deal. You want to hold as many spots as possible on the web. Even if you change a product or service it would be wise to leave the pages up and have re-direct links to other pages that sell something similar. This is something that cannot be overlooked.

Do you really want to start fresh from scratch week after week? Or would you rather build an infrastructure and have consumer penetration? This is the cheapest way to build up a brand. With web site hosting being as low as $10 bucks a month it would be wise to build multiple sites.

An example of these would include:

1. Video testimonial sites, (let others do the selling for you)
2. Article information sites
3. Lead generation sites, (lead capture sites)
4. Ebook giveaway site
5. Members only site
6. Audio testimonial site
7. Dot Info, (.info) sites, (they get indexed quicker than dot coms)