This introductory note is from my just-published book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Growing Your Business with Google. If you’re reading this, I just bet you’ll be darn interested in my new book. Tom Peters, Chris Pirillo, Debbie Weil and lots of others experts have already stated how much they like it, and Guy Kawasaki liked it enough to write the foreword.
You know that there’s been a dramatic change in how companies are doing business, a change that probably made you wake up in a cold sweat, wondering if your company will survive the transition. You might think that it’s about building a Web site, but just as a few popsicle sticks can’t build the Eiffel Tower, so a Web page or two won’t help you rethink your business for the new online world.
In the 21st Century, successful business will be focused on findability, about creating an online and offline presence that helps your customers find you. Business and marketing used to be characterized by efforts to brand your company and get in front of your customers, but that’s not what’s propelling the hot new companies, the entrepreneurs who are already striking it rich in this new world.
You can no longer go to your customers because they’re no longer passively waiting for you and your message. Your customers are actively looking for your products, searching for your services, seeking your company right now! And they’re doing it through Google, on mailing lists, through blogs, and a myriad of other online means.
This book isn’t about how to write Web pages, and it certainly won’t explain how to make text bold or link from one Web page to another. Instead, you’ll learn how to think like an online entrepreneur and assess the risks and rewards of online advertising, search engine optimization, affiliate programs and much more. You’ll find out about choosing good domain names, what makes a good business Web site, how you can promote yourself and become an online expert and how cutting-edge technologies like Weblogs can dramatically improve your findability and help customers pick your company over all your competitors.
We’ll also spend time talking about business fundamentals including how to identify and reinvent your core business, how you can use Google to identify your competitors, and the secrets of tracking customer whims and ideas online.
Most importantly, you’ll learn exactly why it’s critical that you add content to your site with great frequency, and how the real secret to findability is content.
I’ve been involved with the Internet since 1980, when it was barely a dirt road, and have grown and sold off a number of online companies. Throughout this book, I’ll be sharing why my current Web sites have certain features and how they’ve improved my bottom line.
As an entrepreneur, that’s what it’s all about. Your bottom line. You’re not an idiot for checking out this book. In fact, buying it will be the best business decision you’ve made for years…
Learn more: Growing Your Business with Google
Anyone who goes into business thinking that they can rely on Google to bring them customers is a complete fool.
http://smartstartup.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/08/memo_to_yahoo.html
Ooops!
Didn’t see that it was your book.
Nevermind.
Delete and ban.
Oh, au contraire, Peter, I’m not going to delete your comment because you raise an excellent point, one that I talk about at length both on the book’s web site — http://www.findability.info/ — and within the book. It’s not about Google at all, it’s about being findable, and that’s 95% the same whether you’re paying attention to MSN, Yahoo, Google or some other search engine that we haven’t even heard of yet. Why? Because they are all trying to reach the same perfect search engine results, and so understand what they’re trying to do and how they accomplish it really is critical to long-term business success.
But don’t just take my word for it. Pop for the $14 and buy a copy of my book to read it for yourself!
I think we are in agreement for the most part.
Many webmasters and owners are now starting to openly talk about the strange fact that relevant new sites appear quite quickly in SE indexes, with the exception being Google. With Google it can take years for a site to appear in the first 100 search results pages.
Here’s a typical example I have witnessed three times with my own sites. (I am also hearing the same complaint from others.)
After a year of operations a new site with upwards of a hundred pages of good content will have these typical SE rankings:
On Yahoo: first 5 pages
On MSN Search: first 10 pages
On Google: NOT even in the first 100 pages.
BTW, I use http://www.googlerankings.com to track this.
Why is Google so different? Two reasons. First, as I point out on my blog, it places too much weight on the number of incoming links. This gives old dinosaur sites launched back during the Korean War an unfair advantage over fresher more relevant sites.
Second, it may have to do with G wanting to force new sites to pay for its Adwords advertising to create traffic. Of course the Big G denies this. But it makes economic sense, doesn’t it?
This is why I have switched back to Yahoo for most of my searches. I actually want to see the fresh new sites. Yo Google, I already saw the old ones years ago.
One final point, these days it’s much harder to collect links than it was back in the 1990s. Two reasons. Link fatigue is one. Webmasters are just tired of adding links and getting link requests. Two, those that have links have no incentive to help out the newbies who don’t.