Guest Post: Ivor Smith, dutyfreeonarrival.com
When I founded my website I didn’t realize that I was opening a “Pandora’s box”. An open invitation to be blinded with internet science and technique, a lava- flow of advice, slowly engulfing me with tips about social networking, search engine optimization, content writing, link building, domain name strategy and more.
Don’t even mention “how are you going to monetize your site”! There was nothing they didn’t know about my market, but apparently I knew little about theirs.
I have drawn some harsh conclusions since that day nearly 4 years ago when I registered my first domain, but now I know what it must have been like to fight your way to a little piece of land in the Wild West and put a small stake in it… or to toil my way through the Klondike. The “Arab Spring” or the fall of the Iron Curtain almost seems simple compared to starting-up. But, the good news is that all this prospecting and revolution can be done from the comfort of a screen, rather than a covered wagon.
All this and then a business plan, another jungle to be negotiated. “Like putting your hand in a bag of snakes”, so said my old boss.
Traffic, “what’s your traffic”, “are you a publisher or advertiser”, “merchant or merchandiser”, “spiders or robots”, “android or app”, “page views or impressions”… doesn’t Rory Bremner or Robin Williams do impressions? Am I hacked or hacked off? Another old boss used to say “it’s like trying to juggle soot”!
Conclusions, dare I say?
Everyone is a social network, a forum, a daily deal, a like, but not a
don’t like, a plus1, but not a minus1. There is too much “me too and copycat”, like all those cheaper energy drinks that will never ever catch up and overtake the innovative and now generic, Red Bull. Do you order an energy drink and vodka and do you find meon my social networking or find me site on Facebook?Do you buy the National Enquirer or Ok Magazine to buy a vacation, or do you buy it for the gossip. Mixed metaphors at best! Groupon… how could I begin, they have even found their way on to my newly tuned digital tv guide, fortunately there are other channels offering me a cheaper massage and groom.
Where does this leave the start ups, the normal businesses, the ones that do commerce the way it has always been done? It leaves them trying to find endless more hours in the day to do all the business they used to do, whilst coping with tweeting at dawn, apples for breakfast, blackberries for lunch and tablets before bed. It is swamping them with info and advice they may not need or want, in a language akin to Swahili for the average westerner.
Every day is a lifetime on the web, its about managing your web marketing life, daily, hourly, by the minute, second even.
How do we do that? We, those not born to the net, must fall back to our roots, cut the wheat from the chaff, extract what we want, what we need, be clinical, objective and rational. Be tough, walk away from the deal and not get drawn into the storm, take many deep breaths and wait for the web to mature. Will it mature, yes. In terms of a dog’s life, the web is a puppy.
Do I love the business, yes. Why, because sooner or later they will have to do business our way, the way it has always been done and we have done it like that for years.
That gives us the upper hand.
Do they realise this, no. But when they arrive in our world they will feel like…..Absolute unique visitors. Many will bounce, then the market is ours.
