Archive for March, 2009
Whenever I put forth on the Internet’s numerous newsgroups, discussion fora and Websites a controversial view, an iconoclastic opinion, or a much-disputed thesis, the winning argument against my propositions starts with “everyone knows that …”. For a self-styled nonconformist medium, the Internet is the reification of herd mentality.
Actually, it is founded on the rather explicit belief in the implicit wisdom of the masses. This particularly pernicious strong version of egalitarianism postulates that veracity, accuracy, and truth are emergent phenomena, the inevitable and, therefore, guaranteed outcome of multiple interactions between users.
But the population of Internet users is not comprised of representative samples of experts in every discipline. Quite the contrary. The barriers to entry are so low that the Internet attracts those less gifted intellectually. It is a filter that lets in the stupid, the mentally ill, the charlatan and scammer, the very young, the bored, and the unqualified. It is far easier to publish a blog, for instance, than to write for the New York Times. Putting up a Website with all manner of spurious claims for knowledge or experience is easy compared to the peer review process that vets and culls scientific papers.
One can ever “contribute” to an online “encyclopedia”, the Wikipedia, without the slightest acquaintance the topic one is “editing”. Consequently, the other day, I discovered, to my utter shock, that Eichmann changed his name, posthumously, to Otto. It used to be Karl Adolf, at least until he was executed in 1962.
Granted, there are on the Internet isolated islands of academic merit, intellectually challenging and invigorating discourse, and true erudition or even scholarship. But they are mere islets in the tsunami of falsities, fatuity, and inanities that constitutes the bulk of User Generated Content (UGC).
Which leads me to the second myth: that access is progress.
Oceans of information are today at the fingertips of one and sundry. This is undisputed. The Internet is a vast storehouse of texts, images, audio recordings, and databases. But what matters is whether people make good use of this serendipitous cornucopia. A savage who finds himself amidst the collections of the Library of Congress is unlikely to benefit much.
Alas, most people today are cultural savages, Internet users the more so. They are lost among the dazzling riches that surround them. Rather than admit to their inferiority and accept their need to learn and improve, they claim “equal status”. It is a form of rampant pathological narcissism, a defense mechanism that is aimed to fend off the injury of admitting to one’s inadequacies and limitations.
Internet users have developed an ethos of anti-elitism. There are no experts, only opinions, There are no hard data, only poll results. Everyone is equally suited to contribute to any subject. Learning and scholarship are frowned on or even actively discouraged. The public’s taste has completely substituted for good taste. Yardsticks, classics, science - have all been discarded.
Study after study have demonstrated clearly the decline of functional literacy (the ability to read and understand labels, simple instructions, and very basic texts) even as literacy (in other words, repeated exposure to the alphabet) has increased dramatically all over the world.
In other words: most people know how to read but precious few understand what they are reading. Yet, even the most illiterate, bolstered by the Internet’s mob-rule, insist that their interpretation of the texts they do not comprehend is as potent and valid as anyone else’s.
When I was growing up in a slum in Israel, I devoutly believed that knowledge and education will set me free and catapult me from my miserable circumstances into a glamorous world of happy learning. But now, as an adult, I find myself in an alien universe where “culture” means merely sports and music, where science is decried as evil and feared by increasingly hostile and aggressive masses, and where irrationality in all its forms (religiosity, the occult, conspiracy theories) flourishes.
The few real scholars and intellectuals left are on the retreat, back into the ivory towers of a century ago. Increasingly, their place is taken by self-taught “experts”, narcissistic bloggers, wannabe “authors” and “auteurs”, and partisan promoters of (often self-beneficial) “causes”.
Dismal results ensue: fads like environmentalism and alternative “medicine” spread malignantly and seek to silence dissidents, sometimes by violent means; the fare served by the media now consists exclusively of soap operas and reality TV shows; Reading is on terminal decline; with few exceptions, the “new media” are a hodgepodge of sectarian view and fabricated “news”; the few credible sources of reliable information have long been drowned in a cacophony of fakes and phonies.
It is a sad mockery of the idea of progress. The more texts we make available online, the more research is published, the more books are written - the less educated people are, the more they rely on visuals and sounds rather than the written word, the more they seek to escape reality and be anesthetized rather than be challenged and provoked.
Even the ever-sliming minority who do wish to be enlightened are inundated by a suffocating and unmanageable avalanche of indiscriminate data, comprised of both real and pseudo-science. There is no way to tell the two apart, so a “democracy of knowledge” reins where everyone is equally qualified and everything goes and is equally merited. This relativism is dooming the twenty-first century to become the beginning of a new “Dark Age”, hopefully a mere interregnum between two periods of genuine enlightenment.
Q: Tim, I have spent the past few months trying so hard to start an ecommerce business. I have read virtually everything you have written. I have listened in on more than one of your teleconferences.
I have clicked and spent and clicked and spent and clicked and spent. I filled the laundry basket and sold on eBay. I became a Clickbank affiliate (I think I am an affiliate of almost the entire Internet).
I know that it’s ironic that I want to make money on the Internet considering I have not one drop of technical skill in my body, but I am a single mom: bottom line is my kids NEED me… and I really and truly am relentless when it comes to getting what I want (in other words, what I lack in technical skills I make up for in persistence.)
Please, please, please…just give me one word or sign or anything…that this CAN be done by the little people (such as myself). Otherwise, I will return to my 5am job that exhausts me so much, I can’t even tell my children apart anymore (which isn’t flattering to a daughter and son who are almost 5 years apart in age!).
This Internet thing is kicking my butt and from what I have studied, you are the “Dr. Phil” of the ecommerce wannabes, successes and everything in between. (Please don’t be offended by the comparison with Dr. Phil….I merely use this in the most pop-culture way possible).
I swear, I am ready to sacrifice my PC in the backyard firepit and return to my old typewriter: that is how frustrated I am.
Thanks for letting me vent (must be an estrogen thing).
– Mary (real name withheld)
A: Hi Mary, The first thing you need to do is close your eyes, take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
(repeat as necessary :o).
First, let me say that I understand your frustration, but it has been my experience that most people in your situation (including yours truly when I was first starting out) create much of their own frustration because they put themselves under too much pressure to succeed quickly. Their situation is not a happy one and they want to change it TODAY. When that doesn’t happen, frustration and anger can set in.
Everyone wants to hit home runs the first time at bat. They want big money and they want it fast. When results don’t come as quickly as they think they should, they say, “This Internet thing doesn’t work and those who claim to make money are scammers!”
I have been an Internet marketer for 3 years now. The first year I did miserably. I lost about $5,000 trying to figure it all out on my own. One day it occurred to me that succeeding would be much easier if I knew what the heck I was doing.
You see, I, like so many others, didn’t take the time to educate myself on Internet marketing. I saw others making money online and figured if they could do it, I could, too.
I just found the crowded pool and dove in head first. As you expect, I almost drowned because I had not taken the time to learn how to swim. Heck, I couldn’t even float…
So I stopped what I was doing and became a student instead of a practitioner. I discovered that I was making every mistake in the book because I had not taken the time to learn what to do, and more importantly, what not to do.
After losing a ton of cash, time, and sleep, it finally started to make sense.
I remember finally making $100 profit from eBay in one week for sales of my own ebook (CD Money Machine).
I had made hundreds of thousands of dollars in other ventures, but that $100 was the hardest money I had ever made. That’s why it meant so much to me. It told me that FINALLY I was doing something right.
I took that $100 and plowed it into more auction listings and just kept repeating the process.
Then I moved beyond eBay to my own website.
Then I started to concentrate on developing more products, creating my own affiliate program, pursuing more joint ventures, expanding my marketing campaigns.
Success came to me, BUT ONLY AFTER I stopped doing everything wrong and learned to do a few things right.
Like so many people before me and like so many of you now reading these words, I wasted a year of my life and thousands of dollars because I did not take the time to learn first, then do.
I had unrealistic expectations of myself and the business. I expected big bucks and fast results and when they did not come, I looked for someone other than myself to blame.
It took me taking a step back and reassessing my entire thinking to finally learn how to succeed.
And I succeeded in baby steps, not giant leaps.
There were no home runs.
There were a lot of foul balls and finally base hits.
That’s how you succeed.
Here’s the bottomline:
There is no such thing as a real get-rich-quick opportunity. If someone tells you that you can start with no money and no experience and make hundreds of thousands of dollars overnight they are lying to you and you are a fool for believing them. Yes, you can make lots of money in a short period of time as an Internet marketer, but you’re not going to get rich this week unless you hit the lottery or your rich uncle dies. And you have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than either of those things happening. Be realistic, be smart, be logical. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. An Internet business is no different from a brick and mortar business: both take hard work, dedication, perseverance, and an investment of time and money. Just because your business is “virtual” that does not mean that you don’t have to put some time and effort into launching, building, and running it. Yes, there are many things you can do to automate the process, but you have to build the business before expecting it to run on autopilot. You must have patience, realistic expectations, and the ability to keep plugging along even if you are not getting the results you expected at first. The problem with we humans is that we are an impatient species. We expect our grand ideas to play out quickly and effortlessly. We expect things to happen at lightspeed. We are a microwave society: nothing happens fast enough for us. In business, nothing happens quickly. Until you understand that, you will drive yourself to failure every time. You will start ventures and quickly abandon them. You will grow frustrated and you will fail. This is the biggest lesson you can learn here, so read this several times and ask yourself: Is he talking to me? When someone is unhappy with their current situation they are prone to desperation, which leads to unrealistic expectations, which leads to failure, which leads to anger, which leads to a dead end.
I know because I hear from them all the time. I receive emails like:
“Tim I’m broke and in debt and if I don’t make $1,000 by Friday they will take my house! Tell me what to do! You are my last hope…”
And…
“Tim, if you don’t tell me how to make $500 today my wife is going to leave me. You have to save my marriage…”
These are not made up statements. I am not trying to be funny.
These are actual quotes from emails I’ve received.And I receive hundreds like this every month.
There is nothing I can say to these people (other than “I’ll mail you a check”) that will make them feel better about themselves and their situation.
When I reply with the truth, that I am not their salvation and they need to study and work a plan of action, often these same people reply with hate mail.
If I don’t tell them what they expect to hear or offer to solve their problems I am the villain. I become the target of their venting. And that’s fine. They have to blame someone if they aren’t willing to take responsibility for their own lives.
The difference between you and these people, Mary, is you are really trying.
You’re learning and practicing and testing and TAKING ACTION.
That puts you in the 1% of people who actually have a chance to make it.
You tell me the things you’ve done, but you don’t tell me anything about your results.
Have any of your efforts paid off, even in small ways?
Large success is built upon a foundation of many small successes.
Have you taken the time to actually learn about Internet marketing, affiliate programs, pay per click, etc.?
It’s one thing to signup with a bunch of affiliate programs. It is another thing entirely to know what you should do after you sign up.
Other than listening to me and other so called gurus, what have you done to educate yourself on the Internet marketing business?
What books have you read? What websites have you visited? What forums have you been to?
Education is the first step.
I’ll say it again: you must learn to swim before diving in the big pond or you will drown.
No one is going to throw you a life jacket.
No one is even going to notice that you’re drowning.
It’s sad, but it is entirely true; you are on your own.
Here is my best advice for you: Stop trying to make money until you learn all you can about the Internet marketing industry.
Read books, study the successful marketers, do a Google search for ‘Internet marketing forums’ and spend time reading what others have posted. You will find people in those forums who have been there, done that. Post questions, ask for advice, join the community. You will find kindred spirits and people more than happy to help you learn and grow.
Finally, if technical ability was a prerequisite for Internet success 99% of the so called big dogs (this pup included) would be back working day jobs.
The key to Internet success is not technical, it is mental.
You can hire someone to write an ebook or hack together programming code for you, but you can’t hire someone to do your thinking for you.
Success is about having a plan of action and working it through to the end.
It is about learning to effectively market your products.
Remember, you can have the greatest product in the world, but if you lack the ability to market it, no one will ever know.
On the other hand, you can have a horrible product, but if you are a master marketer you will sell a ton.
Ever heard of Microsoft?
It’s easy to find products to sell. The key lies in having the ability to market them, and that is a skill that must be learned before you do anything else.
Don’t give up on your dreams, just slow down.
Stop putting so much pressure on yourself.
If you don’t make a million dollars by Friday guess what: life goes on. Your kids will still love you, even if you can’t tell them apart.
Set goals in baby steps, not giant leaps.
Think long term success, not short term efforts.
Instead of getting frustrated with yourself, pat yourself on the back and say “Dang girl, you are taking action… You are doing things to give your kids a better life!”
Did that sound like Dr. Phil?
I have more hair, he has more money. :o)
Keep the faith and don’t give up.
Tim Knox
Though the countries in transition are far from being an homogeneous lot, there are a few denominators common to their Internet experience hitherto:
1. Internet Invasion
The penetration of the Internet in the countries in transition varies from country to country - but is still very low even by European standards, not to mention by American ones. This has to do with the lack of infrastructure, the prohibitive cost of services, an extortionist pricing structure, computer illiteracy and luddism (computer phobia).
Societies in the countries in transition are inert (and most of them, conservative or traditionalist) - following years of central mis-planning. The Internet (and computers) are perceived by many as threatening - mainly because they are part of a technological upheaval which makes people redundant.
2. The Rumour Mill
All manner of instant messaging - mainly the earlier versions of IRC - played an important role in enhancing social cohesion and exchanging uncensored information. As in other parts of the world - the Internet was first used to communicate: IRC, MIRC e-mail and e-mail fora, and SMS (short messages services on mobile phone and other portable devices) were - and to a large extent, are - all the rage.
The IRC was (and is) used mainly to exchange political views and news and to engage in inter-personal interactions. The media in countries in transition is notoriously unreliable. Decades of official indoctrination and propaganda left people reading between (real or imaginary) lines. Rumours and gossip always substituted for news and the Internet was well suited to become a prime channel of dissemination of conspiracy theories, malicious libel, hearsay and eyewitness accounts.
Instant messaging services also led to an increase in the number (though not necessarily in the quality) of interactions between the users - from dating to the provision of services, the Internet was enthusiastically adopted by a generation of alienated youth, isolated from the world by official doctrine and from each other by paranoia fostered by the political regime.
The Internet exposed its users to the west, to other models of existence where trust and collaboration play a major role. It increase the quantity of interaction between them. It fostered a sense of identity and community. The Internet is not ubiquitous in the countries in transition and, therefore, its impact is very limited. It had no discernible effect on how governments work in this region. Even in the USA it is just starting to effect political processes and be integrated in them (for instance, through blogs).
The Internet encouraged entrepreneurship and aspirations of social mobility. Very much like mobile telephony - which allowed the countries in transition to skip massive investments in outdated technologies - the Internet was perceived to be a shortcut to prosperity. Its decentralized channels of distribution, global penetration, “rags to riches” ethos and dizzying rate of innovation - attracted the young and creative.
Many decided to become software developers and establish a local version of “Silicon Valley” or the flourishing software industry in India. Anti virus software was developed in Russia, web design services in former Yugoslavia, e-media in the Czech Republic and so on. But this is the reserve of a minuscule part of society. E-commerce, for instance, is a long way off (though m-commerce might appear sooner in countries like the Czech Republic or the Baltic).
E-commerce is the natural culmination of a process. You need to have a rich computer infrastructure, a functioning telecommunications network, cheap access to the Internet, computer literacy, inability to postpone gratification, a philosophy of consumerism and, finally, a modicum of trust between the players in the economy.
The countries in transition lack all of the above. Most of them are not even aware that the Internet exists and what it can do for them. Penetration rates, number of computers per household, number of phone lines per household, the reliability of the telecommunications infrastructure and the number of Internet users at home (and at work)- are all dismally low.
On the other hand, the cost of accessing the net is still prohibitively high. It would be a wild exaggeration to call the budding Internet enterprises in the countries in transition - “industries”. There are isolated cases of success, that’s all. They sprang in response to local demand, expanded internationally on rare occasions and, on the whole remained pretty confined to their locale. There was no agreement between countries and entrepreneurs who will develop what. It was purely haphazard.
3. The Great Equalizer
Very early on, the denizens of the countries in transition have caught on to the “great equalizer” effects of the Net. They used it to vent their frustrations and aggression, to conduct cyber-warfare, to unleash an explosion of visual creativity and to engage in deconstructive discourse.
By great equalizer - I meant equalizer with the rich, developed countries. See the article I quoted above. The citizens of the countries in transition are frustrated by their inability to catch up with the affluence and prosperity of the West. They feel inferior, neglected, looked down upon, dictated to and, in general, put down.
The Internet is perceived as something which can restore the balance. Only, of course, it cannot. It is still a rich people’s medium. Former US President, Bill Clinton, pointed out the Digital Divide within America - such a divide exists to a much larger extent and with more venomous effects between the developed and developing world. the Internet has done nothing to bridge this gap - on the contrary: It enhanced the productivity and economic growth (this is known as “The New Economy”) of rich countries (mainly the States) and left the have-nots in the dust.
4. Intellectual Property
The concept of intellectual property - foreign to the global Internet culture to start with - became an emblem of Western hegemony and monopolistic practices. Violating copyright, software piracy and hacking became both status symbols and a political declaration of sorts. But the rapid dissemination of programs and information (for instance, illicit copies of reference works) served to level the playing field.
Piracy is quite prevalent in the countries in transition. The countries in transition are the second capital of piracy (after Asia). Software, films, even books - are copied and distributed quite freely and openly. There are street vendors who deal in the counterfeit products - but most of it is sold through stores and OEMs.
I think that intellectual property will go the way the pharmaceutical industry did: Instead of fighting windmills - owners and distributors of intellectual property will join the trend. They are likely to team up with sponsors which will subsidize the price of intellectual property in order to make it affordable to the denizens of poor countries. Such sponsors could be either multi-lateral institutions (such as the World Bank) - or charities and donors.
Do you remember how great great grandfather did the family shopping? He would hook up his team of horses to the big wagon put in the family and trudge off across the prairie for a day or so to get to the nearest ‘general store’. Once there it was a great outing for the family. The store had everything needed from children’s store bought candy to mother’s ready made dress. If the store did not have that certain special item there was always the option of the catalog.
After the turn of the century (1900 not 2000) a couple of remarkable changes occurred that begin to alter family shopping. America began to grow up and out – at least to the oceans. And the automobile made its auspicious entrance. Now the family could get to the general store much faster. Mother loved that, she could make more trips is a shorter time.
There was, however, an embryo of change being observed in the stores themselves. The increase in populations made for more stores and a wider variety of markets. The general store began to break up. ‘Specialty’ stores began to emerge. Dress shops, drug stores, movie theaters etc. A whole group of cottage industries began to make an entrance. It is true the big boys were still ever present and getting bigger. Sears Roebuck and Co, J. C. Penny, and others were still on top, still selling through the ever present catalogs.
As our country grew through World War II it became more sophisticated. The little village grew into a city. This resulted in the concept of a ‘town square’. The big stores were usually on opposite sides of the square with the little specialty shops filling in the gaps. Usually these types of cities were the county seat so you would have a court house and a government office building. There was something else of importance that came into prominence through this period. Access to information began to grow with the appearance of the County Library.
As we moved into the 1960s the automobile presented a nightmare problem to family shopping that was totally unexpected. Traffic and Parking began to choke the city square concept. It is certain everyone still wanted to shop, but usually at the same time. It was near impossible to find a parking meter on the down town streets in the town square.
American ingenuity, as usual, prevailed. We made parking the priority item and called it all a ‘suburban shopping mall’. Now there were acres of free parking with the shops in the middle. The next major evolution was to air condition the whole shopping mall. What’s not to like? The big guys where still at opposite ends of the shopping mall. Now there was unlimited space for expansion of the specialty shops. Even better, it was all accessible on foot. Only thing left was the food court. Now family shopping had moved to heaven.
We refined and sharpen this concept to an art form over the next few decades. Some where during that period of time the government slipped in a not understood or utilized system which took the handle of the ‘internet’. So what? Nothing happened for a long time. Then the next stunning invention occurred. The mouse (computer) began to wiggle around. Do you not understand that without the mouse the computer is a black box? Put them together and we have the Personal Computer.
Somewhere in the eternal scheme of things the infinite minds of the computer geeks and nerds began to squeak and rumble. A marriage of the internet and personal computer took place. While that is a worthwhile discourse in its own right far too large for our purposes we would be remiss to pass it by without comment. It was only a few years back, in the mid 1990s that this even occurred. This is important to understand to be able to focus of the rapidity of current events, speaking of the internet online shopping. It was about 1994/95 time period that a company called Netscape came along with their commercial internet browser. It started an absolute revolution. It is not until about 1996 that Microsoft finally figured it out and came roaring down the road with their internet explorer. The race was on.
The other side of the story was the functional software development on the internet. In the beginning the only thing we could figure out for the internet was file transfer (FTP). Then it dawned on someone that if we could read from the internet why not write to the internet. Incredible concept! Websites began popping up all over the place.
We began to see a true information highway. Any company could advertise it presence throughout the world with minimal effort. The internet browser now could interact with a company’s data base. Of course, it was just a heart beat away until the website could actually sell products. The impact of this was absolutely profound. Shopping was changing course. It was now being called internet online shopping. Family online shopping was born.
Internet online shopping is now moving so fast it is near impossible to keep up from day to day. However, what goes around comes around; we are right back to the 1950s, electronically speaking. The big boys still have their big websites. But now the little specialty ishops are filling in the blanks. They can compete directly with the big companies-almost. There are online shopping malls all over the internet. Home shopping online, even discount shopping online is growing non-linearly everyday
There are now, as there always are, another set of complications that have risen with need to be addressed. There are literally millions of websites on the internet to be found or in most cases NOT to be found. This has caused the mushrooming of another incredibly fast most moving cottage industry in the form of Internet Marketing. Search engines, Pay Per Click (PPC), Website Content etc. are all now very critical to a website.
When you search during an online shopping spree, for our purposes a shopping search, it is not uncommon to get back several thousand websites. In order to truly shop you must go through one website at a time until you can find that for which you are looking. This gives rise to the word surfing.
The solutions for these problems are emerging in the form of holistic online shopping mall websites that provide categories from discount shopping online to online clothes shopping to surf through. The website bears the burden and responsibility of filtering and selecting appropriate merchants based on the subject of the website.
The next cutting edge development emerging is the ‘internet online shopping specialty ishops’. That is where a very narrow subject is the focus of a ‘mini website’. For example, a ‘Women’s Plus Size Clothing Specialty iShop’ or a ‘Family Scrapbooking Specialty iShop’. The list for online shopping specialty ishops will soon be endless. The important factor here is this type of website contains only merchants for that very specific specialty. That places all the major merchants plus many of the competitive smaller online shopping website within one click of the customer. It greatly curtails the endless surfing through each merchant website.
One last point, much like the shopping mall of old the specialty online shopping website will have the library, i.e., information highway, news links, ebooks, fresh content articles and what ever else is required to maintain a holistic family shopping environment at you finger tips.
Then the next step in family online shopping will be …
Are you interested in hearing about the biggest internet scam in recent history? NO! Would you be interested if you discovered that it is possibly you that was scammed several months ago and did not even know it? In fact, if you were scammed back then you probably have had money removed from your bank account every month AND you may not even know you are losing your money. Now you are interested!
This foundation for this breech of internet security started a couple of years ago as a gift from your caring politicians and bureaucrats in the form of bank funds electronic transfer legislation. Simple stated, if you owe anyone money they (whoever) can ‘electronically’ withdraw it from your account without your permission if they have a contract in place.
A few weeks back a neighbor lady came to me venting her disapproval because some unknown and unnamed internet company had cleaned out her banking account. She was going to complain, bring legal suit and if she could find a real person she was going to do really mean things. It took 5 minutes and three questions to find out she was into a legal binding electronic contract she knew nothing about.
Questions 1: Did you buy and download (very key) any information from the internet. Usually a CD or something similar. Answer-YES.
Question 2: Did you knowingly enter into a binding contract with these people. Answer: ABSOLUTELY NOT!! Real answer-Yes
Question 3: Did you read all the fine print including the “Terms and Services”. Answer: NO, BUT I KNOW THERE WAS NO CONTRACT OF ANY SORT. Real answer-NO I did not read the fine print.
After displaying the website it took the whole of about 15-20 milliseconds to see the scam. I had to explain it three times before the dear lady could see it. Then the next question: “What can I do? I have tried to stop it.” The result was she had to close out here bank account to kill the credit card.
Here is how it works. Either through email or PPC or some other way you end up on a webpage that, for example, guarantees to make you $187,594.26 in 30 minutes while working at home 10 minutes a day. Maybe this is slightly exaggerated but you get the picture. They usually have a CD that will give you all the information you need to carry off this money making project. Normally this CD would cost $99 but if you act within the next 2 hours, being the good guy you are you get it for free.
Now this is great deal. What is not to like? Wait there is one more thing. It only fair that since the CD is free that you should pay the shipping and handling. I think that is only fair don’t you. Stop and read the above paragraph carefully again. What is wrong with this scenario? Where is the big red flapping flag!
DA!? This is the internet remember. The keywords are digital, electronic, and downloadable. If the information is electronically downloadable why send it by snail mail? What does this transaction yield to the creditor website? Your credit card information! Why is that a worry, the shipping cost is so small; only $7-8.
Now Question 2 comes into focus. Somewhere on the website there is a free trail offer (usually 15-30 days) that comes with a ‘on line resident expert’ attached. If the CD doesn’t contain all the information you need the expert is on call to answer your questions. He/she might not speak English or have any relevant knowledge or experience on the subject but you get the free service for 15-30 days notwithstanding.
Here comes the neat part. Look at question 3 again. Did you read the fine print included in the terms and conditions? Of course not, no one reads that stuff. I bet you do from now on. Somewhere in the fine print it will say something like. ‘You can unsubscribe from the normal service of the expert within the trial period (15-30 days) and there will be no penalty. However, if you do not unsubscribe we will take the normal amount (usually $20-40) out of your credit card account monthly.” But, you say, that does not a contract make. You are absolutely correct. Except!
It is the little check box down where you enter you credit card information for the handling and shipping to get your ‘free’ CD that causes all the problems. “Buy checking this box you agree to all the terms and conditions” of the website – meaning the month to month withdrawal of your funds if you do not unsubscribe during the free trail period. That constitutes a legal contract under the electronic signature legislation. You have just agreed to send that company a monthly payment for services for the rest of you life or until you stop it.
Hold on, it only gets better. How many people do you know that really check their credit card statements in detail every month? Apparently not enough. A $30 withdrawal might stay hidden in your 4+ page credit card statement for months. Then when you do find it try to get it stopped. I tracked down an internet company doing this very thing; it took about three days of intense research. I sent an email to the highest officer we could find demanding to stop, stating we had no contract. I got back an email with the following answer; “Oh yes you do.’ He was correct.
The moral of this story is simple. You must prevent this scam before it begins. In writing or generating legal documents of any kind, especially electronically, there is one absolute generic rule. “READ THE MAIL, UNDERSTAND THE MAIL and ANSWER THE MAIL”
In other words if you are reading and understanding every word on a website, conduct your business with confidence. If not my recommendation is “DO NOT ELECTRONCIALLY SIGN ANY THING, IT MAY CONTAIN A HIDDEN CONTRACT”. Read the fine print. Make sure you know exactly what you are electronically signing. Answer ever detail with personal knowledge as to what it means; even if you have to read the terms and conditions a dozen times. Reject them if there are any questions.
Internet security is a serious matter that can only be controlled through knowledge by those people using the internet. Do not rely on a piece of software or a firewall entirely. Internet scams are perpetrated by very intelligent people that can think and work around most internet security devices.
Remember what Smokey the Bear says; “Only you can prevent internet scams!” Well, if he didn’t say it he should have.
P.T. Barnum did say. “There is a sucker born every minute.”
I say on the internet there are one million suckers born every minute.
Q: I recently launched a website for my sporting goods business. Do I need to do anything special to attract customers to my website? I know nothing about search engines and marketing as such. Please tell me where to begin.
A: That is a question that has been asked by every business person who has ever launched a website. If I build it, will they come? Of course they will — if you’ve built a website that appeals to dead baseball players.
For those of you who didn’t get the “Field of Dreams” reference, let me put it this way: No, Sean, if you build it they will not come, at least not without some effort on your part.
Assuming that a website will automatically attract customers is the single biggest mistake that many business owners make. It is this mistake that eventually leads them to dismiss their website as a failure and abandon their online sales efforts.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a client say, “Well, I threw up a website, but nobody ever came to it and I didn’t sell a single thing from it! Dang thing was a waste of time, if you ask me …”
Forgive me, but “threw up” is the operative term there. These short-sighted entrepreneurs (God love them) mistakenly think that all they have to do is throw up a website and that their business will automatically double overnight. And when nothing happens they blame it on the infallibility of the Internet, on El Nino, on the Bosa Nova, on their customers… everything but their own lack of marketing efforts.
If you build it, will they come? That, Sean, depends totally on you.
When it comes to attracting customers, opening an online business (or an online branch of an existing business) is no different from opening a traditional brick and mortar shop. Without a little fanfare and a well-devised marketing plan, chances are your website will become just another spot of roadkill on the Information Superhighway.
The first step in devising your marketing plan is to ask yourself this question: Who is my customer? Who is it that I want to attract to my website? Believe it or not, this is a question many entrepreneurs fail to ask. The identity of your customer is incredibly important because if you don’t know who your customer is, how can you expect to market to them?
The next question concerns the locality of your customer. Do you want to attract a local or global clientele to your website? If the answer is local, then you will gear your marketing efforts toward customers in your own backyard, which means incorporating your website launch with your offline marketing efforts.
If the website is the online branch of a brick and mortar business, include the website URL in all your print materials and advertising campaigns. Consider running ads in the local paper, on radio or TV announcing the launch of your site. Use direct mail or in-store posters to announce the site launch to your existing customer base.
In short, keep doing what you’re doing to attract customers to your physical store, just add your website address to the mix.
Just remember, it’s important to consider your website a branch of your brick and mortar business because that’s exactly what it is. A good business website will help you sell more products, widen your range of clientele, and increase your revenue without adding overhead. Don’t sell your website short. Make it work for you.
If you are seeking a global audience, your marketing efforts will be quite different. Attracting customers from around the world is a more difficult task than attracting customers from around the block. Fortunately, the task is not impossible. The Internet has leveled the playing field in many ways. Now every business, no matter how large or small, has the ability to do business internationally.
In the most basic sense, an online marketing campaign to attract global customers should include the following efforts.
Register With Search Engines There’s not enough room in this newspaper for a thorough discussion of search engines and their effectiveness (or lack thereof) in driving traffic to a website. Suffice it to say that 95% of search engine traffic comes from Google and Yahoo, so start there. It’s also important to realize that just registering with search engines does not guarantee you traffic, but it certainly can’t hurt.
Unfortunately, the free search engine lunch ran out a couple of years ago when search engines figured out that people would actually pay for listings and higher placement. Since that time the only way to guarantee a high (or at least higher than others) ranking is to pay for it. The two most popular pay-for-placement programs are Yahoo’s “Yahoo Express” and Google’s “Adwords.” Visit their respective websites for details on these programs. Be prepared to spend several hundred dollars at a minimum to get your site listed.
Exchange Links With Similar Sites One free - and potentially effective - way to drive customers to your website is through link exchanges with sites of similar interest. Locate sites that make a good match to your own and contact the owner to ask if they will link to your site in exchange for you linking to theirs. If you sell golf balls on your website, set up a link exchange with another website that sells golf clubs. You post a link to them and they post a link to you. It’s called digital back scratching, and if done properly, can work well to drive traffic your way.
Go To Where The Customers Are If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain. One little known way to attract customers to your website is to market your products on a mega-site like eBay. There are thousands and thousands of people on eBay at any given time and each one is potentially your customer, so it’s a great place to drum up business.
Your goal is not to make a living selling on eBay, but to use eBay as a marketing tool to drive traffic back to your website. Go to where the customers are, then bring them back home with you.
Let’s use our golf ball example. Post a few auctions on eBay selling your golf balls at a ridiculously low price so your auction attracts plenty of attention. When customers make a purchase, add them to your client list and send them an email inviting them to visit your website for more great products. eBay also lets you create your own “About Me” page that you can use to advertise your business.
We have just scratched the surface, but hopefully this is enough to get you started. I wish I could tell you that attracting customers to your website is easy, but the truth is, it’s anything but. It takes hard work, creativity and above all, perseverance.
Here’s to your success!
Anyone can pick out related keywords to rank their websites for. However, it’s the crafty webmaster who knows how to find multiple keyword goldmines among the thousands of possibilities available.
One popular approach is called the “long tail”. In this approach you go after three word + phrases in hopes of having less competition. The main problem with this approach is that there is a second aspect of it that most people neglect. The second and most important part of the “long tail” approach is that with longer, more targeted phrases you are more apt to directly meet the needs of the user. While that may seem obvious, many people ignore or poorly execute it. That’s because they don’t understand the importance of their client’s purchase cycle as it relates to search engines.
The Purchase Cycle:
The very first thing you need to understand before starting keyword research is the “Purchase Cycle”. Its main steps are:
Attention > Interest > Desire > and Action.
Finding tons of low competing yet high converting keywords is as simple as understanding your customer’s buying habits. When they are in the action stage you will want to be there with them.
Let me give you some examples. Let’s imagine you are a new Real Estate Agent in the crowded but profitable Los Angeles Real estate market. You have had a site up for almost 6 months, have done a little SEO but have gotten almost no traffic and not a single lead from your site. The problem is more than likely the phrases you are going after. Everyone will be competing in the SERP’s for obvious terms like “Los Angeles Real Estate”. Now there is nothing wrong with competing for the best phrases, however this guide is all about training you to look at the areas your competition has ignored, and are at the end of the buying cycle. Trust me, great opportunities are available in every single market.
Think Like Your Customer
Imagine yourself as a customer who is using Google to find or sell real estate in Los Angeles. A typical search may go something like this.
Search Term: 1 “Real estate” (hmm too broad what was I thinking?)
Search Term: 2 “Los Angeles real estate” (Lots of options maybe I need a local agent?)
Search Term: 3 “Real estate agent in Los Angeles” BINGO!!! If you are a real estate agent in Los Angeles this should be one of your many keyword goldmines.
Now let me show you how the competition for rankings in Google has diminished as the customer got more and more refined with their search. I want you to see just how ripe the opportunity is when you understand the process your customers go through.
To get a good feel for the level of competition for a phrase one simple but highly important SEO factor is the Title tag. Using Google we can easily see how many sites have the exact search phrase we are using, as the title tag to their website. This is a great initial gauge of the competition you will face.
The command I use in Google is intitle:”real estate” (returns results with the exact phrase “real estate” in the title tag).
Diminished Competition
intitle:”real estate” Over 59 Million Pages Retuned
intitle:”Los Angeles real estate” Down to 25,000 Pages Returned
intitle:”Real estate agent in Los Angeles” 57 Results and only 7 Domains listed!!!
This high conversion keyword is just sitting there waiting for you “our new real estate agent” to rank for it. If you do the proper SEO work and point a few quality links to the page then you should begin to see highly qualified traffic.
Let me give you one more example and then we will move on. Let’s say you sell high-end condos right on the beach in Hawaii, which by the way is where I call home (Its OK to feel sorry for me). The competition for the condo market in Hawaii is very stiff and any little edge you can get is extremely helpful. Again all you have to do is understand how a potential customer searches and know your own product to find those keyword gems.
Results:
Search 1: “Hawaii Condos” intitle – 11,100 pages
Search 2: “Hawaii Condo Rental” intitle – 147 pages (Great action phrase)
Search 3: “Hawaii beach front condo” intitle – 0 pages!!!
I could literally go on and on finding great marketing opportunities for these two markets. I promise you if you spend the time you will find these all-too-easy keyword treasures in your market as well. Now let’s take what we have learned to the next level with action phrases.
Make Use Of Action Words
Ok let’s say you sell the latest PC video cards at great prices. You have done your homework and realize that many consumers do extensive research on specific video cards to find the one that’s perfect for them. They then lookup the specific model of the video card they want when they are in “purchase mode”.
A popular video card series right now is Nvidia’s Geforce 6800. However, when you do an intitle: search on Google you get over 40,000 results for “Nvidia Geforce 6800”. This is where Action words come in handy. Some great action words are Buy, Lowest price, Purchase, Free shipping etc. All of these words are used when the customer is in the purchasing phase, which is exactly when you need them to find you.
intitle:”Buy nvidia geforce 6800″ 3 sites!!!
intitle:”Purchase nvidia geforce 6800″ 0 sites!!!
intitle:”Lowest price nvidia geforce 6800″ 0 sites!!!
You get the idea. Now that you understand the concept I can suggest a few keyword research tools.
Now let’s put you on a path to find 20 to 40 money keywords you are not currently using
Keyword Research Steps:
Step 1 - Logs: One great asset that you may not be utilizing is your weblogs. You should always mine your weblogs for niche keyword phrases and use them as a basis for what type of searches your users are typing into search engines. If you have not done this before it can be highly informative. You will not only understand your audience better – you will also get a great variety of keyword “goldmines” that you can then use for your organice SEO campaign. I suggest doing this once a month or every two weeks if you can find the time.
Step 2 - Competition: Your competition can be a great source of keyword research. Check the keywords in their Title, meta tags, and body text to see if you find anything you might have missed.
Step 3 – Keyword Tools: Three free tools that you should check out are SEO Books online keyword tool http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/ and http://www.goodkeywords.com/ which is a free desktop download that runs off of Yahoo data and http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/ which queries both Yahoo and http://www.wordtracker.com/ (A top tool if your paying) . All three of these tools are very handy and for the price…who can complain?
A word to the wise, these tools should only be used as guides. They are heavily biased to PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising and are subject to distortion due to automated queries.
The main thing to look out for with any tool that uses Yahoo is that it does not separate plurals. It shows Condo and Condos as the same results. So when you are doing your research be sure to check out the Word Tracker tool over at digital point because the MSN version will show you how a phrase does for singular versus a plural version. While search engines are still ironing out how they handle plural searches its highly important that you select the right one. Sometimes you may choose to go after a less used plural or singular version of a keyword because it has less competition.
Bonus 1: Don’t forget about hyphenated or potentially hyphenated words.
If you are looking at a term like “increase online traffic” don’t forget hyphenated versions of the same phrase. According to Word Tracker “increase on-line traffic” is searched for 186 times a day on MSN alone. The non hyphenated version has over 1,000 pages listed for an intitle: search on Google. While the hyphenated version only has 21 sites listed.
Bonus 2: Use slang or insider terminology when and where it makes sense. One great example of that is locally here in Hawaii. Locals call the main island of Hawaii the “Big Island” A term like “big island real estate” is typed in a few thousand times per month. But according to Google only one site has the phrase in their title!!!
Bonus 3: People often type keyword phrases as one word. So instead of typing in “Hawaii Condos”, they’ll type in “hawaiicondos”. Then engines serve different results for these 2 phrases, and guess what – the kwkw version is usually a LOT less competitive!
I must mention that just because you find great keywords that others are not using in their title tags does not mean you can simply put in a new title and rank. In some cases that will actually happen but in most you will need to do a good job with your on-page SEO and acquire a few relevant links. In any case you will be putting yourself in a great position to be successful with minimal competition and maximum return on investment.
I hope that I have helped to get your mind churning about the endless possibilities in your own local market. If you follow these steps you should be able to quickly generate a wonderful new list of keywords for your site to dominate the “Action” phase of the purchase cycle. Once you place your site at the end of the purchase cycle and away from the hordes of competition it is quite easy to strike keyword Gold.
Just when you thought you had this whole online business thing mastered, it turns out that now you must become a secret super spy, break into your competitor’s databases and steal important documented information that you can put to use for your own benefit. So get your rope and mask ready because we’re going in!
Oh, and by the way, I’m just kitting. Spying on your competition doesn’t require a mask and a rope or any kind of illegal activities. It is a lot simpler than you think, and it could give you the edge you need to attract more targeted traffic, discover helpful content, score well with the SE’s and ultimately make more money. The truth is that the word “spy” is actually a little too strong of a word to describe what you need to do. I like to use it because of its theatrical value, so I will keep on using it throughout this article. I like to think I’m a dangerous man.
How do you find who your competitors are and how do you check them out? Easy, Google will do most of the hard work for you. Let me begin by telling you that this process, although simple, takes time to do it right. You must be thorough in your research if you really want to achieve the best results. If you are going to go on a mission, make sure you get the mission accomplished right. Let’s begin.
First, come up with the ten most relevant keywords in your website, the ones that are the most important to have good Search Engine rankings with. I’m sure you’re already working hard on getting a good spot on the major SE’s with these words. Now go to Google and do a search on every single one of them. The top ten listings that appear for every keyword are your most fierce competitors. Unless you already have top ten rankings for some of these keywords or some of the same websites rank top ten for more than one keyword, you will end up with a max of one hundred quality websites to “spy” on. Remember, take your time doing your research, do it right. Don’t try to do all sites in one day, it will be impossible. Make some time in your schedule throughout the week and concentrate on one website at a time.
When studying each website carefully, concentrate one five major aspects that you could benefit from: Content, Sales Letter, Affiliates, Keywords and Link Popularity. Let’s find out how.
Content
Content is one of the most important aspects of having a quality website. You can bet that a site with an excellent amount of helpful content is going to rank well with the SE’s and be appreciated by its visitors. Check for related content which you could incorporate in your site by using your own words and style of writing. Also make note of how this content is organized throughout the website and under what categories. Notice how many pages are dedicated to each category, and suck as much helpful content out of each page that could help you enhance your own pages even more. Learn from the experts, use what works for them and you will succeed.
Sales Letter
Ok “Super Spy”, it is time to put on a secret disguise (This gets cooler by the second). I want you to dress yourself as an average visitor who just found the website you’re spying on by doing a real search for a product or service he/she needs. Now, look and read the sales letter through the eyes of this visitor. I want you to take note of what phrases caught more your attention. What did you read that made you think: “This is a pretty convincing statement”? That is exactly the kind of information you want to extract out of the site, because you can easily put it to use on your own business. You know that if it had you convinced, it will most like convince your own visitors also. Make note of all the convincing arguments you can find, then “steal them”. Of course, by this I mean put them in your own words and use them for your own benefit. Many webmasters have spent a lot of time doing research and putting together a sales letter that will sell, and you can take advantage of that. Don’t you almost feel bad?
Affiliates
No matter what kind of online business or website you have, it is always a great thing to be affiliated with companies that will pay you for referrals that lead to sales. Being affiliated with a good company not only could bring you a lot of extra cash, it will secure the survival of your business by creating multiple income streams. This is crucial to the beginning online business person. If your main source of income goes down the drain, it won’t be the end of your business.
Spying on successful websites of related content to yours could lead you to high quality affiliate programs that you can create partnerships with and secure a successful future for your business and more income for you. Usually websites refer visitors to their affiliates by making a friendly suggestion about their products or placing a link to their website under a related category. They don’t want the customer forced to click on the link, but willing to do so. Search the links back to the company’s main website and check them out for yourself. If you like what you see and feel the product is worth representing, sign up for the program. The foundation of your business gets a lot stronger by having quality income streams.
Keywords
Keywords are “key” to getting targeted traffic to your site. After all, more than ninety percent of people online find what they are looking for by doing a search on a specific word or phrase that relates to what they want to find. Your website and the websites you are spying on already have one or more of the same keyword in common. Now you can check and see what other keywords these websites feel they need good rankings with. You could probably find some words that you could possibly insert on your site and improve the chances of getting noticed by the SE’s. You have nothing to loose here, it’s a simple procedure:
Go to the top of your browser and click on “View”. Now click on “Source”. A new window should open displaying the html code for the page that you are viewing. Locate the Meta Keywords Tag on the Head of the page. You will be able to see what keywords the webmaster felt were relevant to the content of that page and needed to be noticed by the Search Engines. Make note of the keywords or phrases that you could possibly work with. You can add these words later on your keywords Meta tag and insert them into the content of the page for increased value. The more relevant keywords your site has the more chances it has of getting noticed by the SE’s.
Link Popularity
Checking the link popularity of websites that rank top ten in Google could give you an idea of how many links you would need to place in order to rank higher. This is probably the easiest task to accomplish. There’s many websites that offer free link popularity checks. You can go to http://www.imomms.com/FreeTraffic.html under the Link Exchange category and use the free link popularity checker. Just type the url of the website your spying on and check their numbers. You could also check the websites that they are linking to and try to exchange links with them, since they are also most likely related to the content of your site.
As you can see, spying on other quality websites, although a little time consuming, is a simple task that if accomplished right could give you great results. It could help you add more quality content to your website, try new keywords, find new sources of income, discover what attracts more customers, increase your link popularity and get higher Search Engine rankings. It’s worth it! Try it out and you will see! So keep your mask and rope handy, your mission is about to begin!
Clustering may mean to have two or more computer systems working together or multiple servers linked together for the purpose of handling variable workloads as well as to provide continued operation in case one fails. It may also refer to data clustering which is a technique used for data analysis by dividing a data set into subsets whose elements share common traits. Search result clustering aims to change the way people search online by organizing search result into folders that group similar items together.
Why Clustering is Needed
The use of the vast information available online cannot be maximized unless an effective means of organizing it can be provided. Clustering engines put search results together based on textual and linguistic similarity. This basic similarity is supported by heuristics which are coded by programmers using as basis the users’ preference on what they want to see on clustered documents. Clusters are presented using the style of folders and sub-folders.
When a search engine provides millions of results for a particular query, the searcher can either sift through the endless pages of results or depend on the search engine’s judgment as to the most relevant results. Neither can ensure that the targeted information can be accessed as it may remain buried under pages of results or it may not meet the search engine’s criteria. In the same way that all other things are clustered or organized, the world of web searching would be more useful once given the benefit of organized search results.
Clustering engines automatically cluster results into categories that have been intelligently selected from words and phrases contained in search results. Categories are intended to reach human-level accuracy and to offer hierarchical drill doom capability in a familiar folder-style interface. Mind-numbing lists need not be scrolled through or ignored as the main themes are viewed in the first 300 – 500 results right on the first page. A quick overview of the types of information available on a particular topic is made available so that the area of interest can be immediately put into focus.
With the great improvement of search engines’ capability to return a large number of relevant results, it became more difficult to navigate meaningfully through all the results. A typical searcher does not take the time to view results beyond the first page which makes it very probable to miss results that would have been relevant and useful to his/her search or query. Clusters make it possible for results found on the tenth page to be just a click away. Related items can also be viewed together without much effort. It even reveals unexpected relationships between words, ideas and concepts.
A good cluster is considered such if it possesses a readable description. It should be able to assist in narrowing down a search to find exact results. A clustering engine queries multiple search engines and combines the results to be clustered and displayed on one screen. Each result list comes with information regarding the total number of results clustered and retrieved. The clustering engine’s own heuristics shall determine the pages to be favored. Search engines sometimes return multiple copies of the same page with slightly different URLs but this is minimized in search result clustering. This is because clustering engines does not reproduce results with similar descriptions. Clusters are specific enough that repeated documents are very rare. Some are able to offer advanced search features which allows searchers to specify which sources should be searched, the number of results desired, allowable waiting time, the desired language to be used and the filtering out of offensive contents.
Search Engines that Clusters
Google Sets do not provide results but rather helps in finding similar terms to the ones entered. This allows the user to create more complex queries in one area and brainstorm on how to put a search together. Google Sets is Google Labs’ clustering agent.
Wisenut is a full-text search engine which provides for related topics aside from a number of results for any search item entered. This is called the WiseGuide. Some results would have subtopics which will show underneath the clustered results. A link can be found next to each of the clustered results whose keywords can be used to run another search. A different set of clustered results shall be produced in addition to the web page results. This search engine has been bought by LookSmart.
Teoma has been dubbed as the “Google Killer” due to its very interesting clustering technology. A single search run will produce four sets of results. Those found at the top left are sponsored results, those found at the bottom are website non-sponsored results, those at the top right are the suggestions for refining the result and those at the bottom right are link calculations from experts and enthusiasts. The link collections are suitable for general information needs while the suggestions are for more specific searches. A click on any would signal the search to run again where a different set of site results shall be provided. Teoma has been purchased by AskJeeves.
Infonetware.com is more of a demonstration of Infonetware’s Real Term Technology than a search engine. The results page is framed where the area on the left provides topics related to the search term while the web page search results are found on the right frame. It works with full searching.
Oingo uses the open Directory Project as its search source. The search results page gives a drop-down list of potential meanings. The list of categories in order of relevance to the search can be found beneath it as well as the site results from the directory itself. It is more useful for general term searches or search terms that are in a broad category.
Vivisimo is a meta-search engine that clusters its results. It provides a very simple front page with search results that are organized in groups. The page design makes it easy to explore several categories without having to “lose your place”. Clusty is the consumer search destination powered and owned by Vivisimo. It queries results from Ask, MSN, Open Directory, LookSmart, Gigablast and WiseNut. These sites were chosen because of their accurate results and quick return speeds.
Query Server offers several types of search on the left side of the front page. Each search has more or less the same interface and all cluster results. Search results are presented in a frame at the right side of the site.
Surfwax offers both subscription based and free services. A focus link can be seen in the upper left corner after a search is entered. These focus words can be used in addition to the search term. They are divided into narrower or broader categories and contain generic words and not links to specific people or places.
Northern Light News search requires a search to have a certain number of results in order to be clustered into folders. However, folder listing does not provide information about the contents of a particular folder although there are subfolders provided for broad topics. Search results are listed by order of date.
Clustering search engines break up several hundred results into manageable packages. Suggestions are provided so that the use of information is maximized and the search itself a lot easier. A search query cannot always be specific enough to target the right information at once.
Mar
10
Some people search the Web like a Neanderthal standing before the Library of Congress steps grunting, “Me want food!” While other, more sophisticated searchers, act more like a person actually entering the Library of Congress, approaching the librarian, and saying, “Pardon me, please lead me to your books on agriculture and growing food, and while you’re at it, please show me your books on fine dining in the Washington D.C. area.”. Who would you rather be?
Back in high school there was the ‘in-crowd’, often populated by the jocks, and then there were the geeks, among other social clicks. Today, many of those ‘geeks’ are wildly successful; while some of those unfortunate others are asking us if we’d like fries with our burgers.
So it’s not so bad being a geek today, especially since so much of our lives and economy are dominated by computers, software and the Internet. It is wise to learn how to use the Internet as best you can. By understanding how search engines and directories work, like many geeks already do, you will find the information you’re looking for more easily, quickly and with a lot less frustration. Knowing how to pinpoint specific bits of information quickly will give you an advantage over most other people who do not have these skills. And this advantage can turn into big money by saving you time in your day to day business. And learning about how to search will help in your search engine optimization efforts if you run your own website too.
So, I invite you to pull up your pants to make high-waters, apply some masking tape to the bridge of your eye glasses, and insert a pocket protector in your front shirt pocket, and join me in learning how to search like a geek.
The more appropriate words you use the better.
Let’s say I want to find tickets to a new Broadway musical show called Wicked next weekend in New York City. If you just type the word ‘tickets’ into Google’s search box, you’ll get 99.6 million results, which is very unwieldy. The first result is ticketmaster.com. It took 4 clicks for me to get to their listing of Wicked tickets, but they were out of inventory up to 6 weeks from now, so it was a dead end since I want to go next weekend.
The next result was Tickets.com, and when I searched for Wicked on their site I found tickets available to Wicked in Toronto only. Another dead end, I need tickets to the NYC production.
The third result only sold airline and cruise tickets, not what I’m looking for either. After clicking on another 4 websites, I still hadn’t found what I was looking for. I was getting frustrated, impatient and was just about ready to toss my PC out my window and give up totally.
If instead, I used a few more appropriate words in my search, my results would have been much better. I tried typing the words ‘new york city broadway wicked musical tickets’ in the Google search box and came up with 230,000 results instead of 99 million, which is slightly more manageable.
The first result was www.musicalschwartz.com which offered ‘Ticket Tips - Wicked on Broadway, Seating info’. So I clicked on that and learned a number of things about purchasing Broadway tickets, NYC travel tips and other information on Wicked the musical.
The next two Google results were http://www.eagletickets.com and http://www.bestshowticketslasvegas.com , and they both offered tickets for the Broadway musical Wicked in New York City on the weekend I wanted. So by carefully choosing appropriate words to search with and using more than one or two words, I found what I was looking for much more easily and quickly than just searching using the word ‘tickets’.
I am not suggesting you use lots and lots of words willy nilly. The best method is to think of very specific words related to what you’re looking for, be a little creative, and watch what order you put the words in. Searching for ‘broadway wicked musical tickets’ and ‘tickets broadway wicked musical’ will give you different results.
Never search using one word. Avoid only using two words. Try to use 3-7 words. This search rule follows the law of diminishing returns however. So searching using 25 words will probably get you little or no results. So there is a “sweet spot” you’ll have to discover for any given search, but it is almost always using more than 1-2 words.
Use more than one search engine.
When I search on the Web, I use more than one browser and more than one search engine or directory. The difference between the two is that search engines are run automatically while directories are run by humans. Google is a search engine and show search results of websites that no one has actually looked at in advance. Directories on the other hand contain websites that have actually been reviewed by a person. Therefore, the results you get will differ. A good list of directories can be found at http://www.directoryarchives.com.
Open up your browser and click on ‘File’ in the top left of your browser and select ‘New’ > ‘Window’. Do this a couple of times until you have three or more browsers open on your desktop at the same time. Choose your search words carefully, use more than two words and try the same exact phrase in Yahoo, MSN, Google, and a favorite directory using a different browser for each. That way you can compare results to find the best ones. You can also try a new site I found called http://yagoohoogle.com/ which lets you perform a simultaneous search on both Google and Yahoo.
Use modifiers in your searches.
Going back to the tickets example, let’s say I wanted to find airline tickets, but each time I performed a search on tickets, most of the results had to do with sports and theater tickets. I could weed out all those irrelevant results by using the minus (-) sign next to the word ‘theater’.
Bad search: tickets
Better search: tickets to New York
Even better search: airline tickets to New York –theater
So if you are getting a lot of extraneous results in your searches, try adding a minus sign to words you don’t want showing up in your results.
Another good tip is using quotes around your phrases. By doing this you are telling the search engine to find the exact phrase and in the order you are specifying. By adding quotes, you are being much more specific. You’ll get very different results using quotes. If you searched for ‘2005 NBA playoff tickets’ (without quotes) you are asking the search engine to look for sites that have the words 2005, NBA, playoff, and tickets associated with them. So you will probably come up with airline tickets, football playoff information, NBA history and so forth. If you put quotes around your phrase you’ll get much closer to what you want.
Use the ‘Find’ function.
Trust me; this one suggestion is worth the price of admission alone. You will save lots of valuable time if you do this. Ever get to a Web page that has a lot of text on it, and quickly scanning the page doesn’t immediately produce what you’re looking for? In fact, the scanning just makes you dizzy.
Try this: while holding down your ‘Ctrl’ key hit your ‘F’ key (this works on PCs only). A ‘Find’ dialog box should pop up. Simply type the word or phrase you’re looking for in the box and hit ‘Enter’ and it will immediately find each and every instance of it on the Web page you’re on. This will truly save you time if you remember to use it.
One can get lost on the Net. There is so much information, and almost all of it is not applicable to what you want at any given time. If you use the Net for your business, pinpointing appropriate and relevant information quickly will put you ahead of the pack every time. By following these simple suggestions, you will find more accurate results which will reduce your frustration, save you time, and give you an edge over others who are still searching for information like a caveman at the steps of a library.