Everything's Evolving
every corner of the world. It has empowered people to learn, communicate, shop, and explore our existence. Every day, thousands of websites are added to the “Inter Web”(pet name coined from Dr. House) in silence. The rate has increased since the good old days of dial up and now we are seeing a situation common to traditional marketing companies- over saturation. This is one of the primary hurdles companies run into when trying to launch a new site. Not only are they competing on a national scale, but also on an international scale. This creates difficulties in defining your targets and potential demographics. In order to be competitive, you need to know a thing or two about the Internet and how it ticks. Larger companies hire outside consultant similar to marketing firms to manage their online marketing presence. This is where things become tricky because the trends, code, and tactics change within the blink of an eye. If you're not on the ball, you'll fall behind. A good measure of how things will change is Google’s Spider Bot Algorithm. Every few months Google will change and update their algorithm. Google doesn’t release what they changed so its up to the Internet community to figure out what happened. This is where so called Internet Marketing companies simply don’t get it. They would rather keep doing what feels comfortable instead of evolving with the Internet. Most of them don’t have the knowledge, connections, or tools to evaluate the Algorithm.
Another example of Internet evolution is all the new browsers that have been developed. In the mid 90’s we had Netscape and Internet Explorer. But now we have Firefox, IE6, IE7, Safari, Opera and the newest addition - Google Chrome. Each browser reads website code differently. I remember when I only had to program a website to be compatible with two browsers. Now I cross browser test for five different browsers. If you want to make sure your website or marketing company knows what they are talking about ask them to explain just two things. One, what is the IE6 PNG FIX. Two, what script of code did Microsoft lose a lawsuit over in reference to Internet Explorer. Click here for the answers. (Warning: Nerdy technical stuff)
What does this all mean for your company? Well, if you’re currently thinking about creating a website then you need to make sure that the company provides comprehensive search engine optimization. Make sure your site uses 2.0 and w3c standards. The Google bot weighs in on a variety of things including how your site is coded the number of lines, code positioning..ect. If you’re interested in the things Google looks at check out this article” Conquering Google.”
Overall, since the Internet is an evolving entity and the competition grows every day, your marketing is not good enough to simply create a web page and place it on the Internet. You need to think in a comprehensive forward thought process that deals with not only past changes but also future changes. You can do this by hiring a truly Internet related marketing firm to do a feasibility study BEFORE you start your website. Once the site is launched you then need to a comprehensive SEO campaign.