Embarrassing Story and Internet Marketing Updates

January 11, 2015
Mike Dolpies

I hope you’re gearing up for another productive week!

The story I am going to share with you is embarrassing.

Before we get to it.

A few internet marketing updates.

First… Facebook:

Facebook user growth is slowing. And that’s to be expected. I mean… come on… Facebook is the standard social network. But, guess what… User engagement, time spent among users and how often users visit the site is way up.

To make Facebook a winner for your biz requires strategy. More on that next time.

Next… Google Loses Market Share:

Google’s dominance of the search market fell by 4% in December. This after Yahoo became the default search engine for the Firefox web browser.

An FYI about Yahoo… Yahoo is still using Bing’s search engine to power their results. Yahoo does layer their own system on top of Bing. Because of the Firefox agreement Yahoo jumped from just a 7% share to a little over 10%.

To see how your SEO stacks up visit…

SEO Truth- Click Here

Now – on to the embarrassing story.

It still amazes me as to how many old, outdated and less than professional websites there are out there representing small businesses of all sorts.

And we still have a bunch without any web presence at all. Mind boggling… I know!

Anyway —  you can laugh at me.

About 18 months ago… we were contacted by a small insurance agency because they knew it was time to redesign their website.

We talked with one of the principals at length. We gave her a ton of info. Listened to her needs. Then we came up with an objective-driven website rebuild plan to address everything.

The numbers were right.

She trusted us.

But guess what… No dice! She decided to go another route.

I expected her to do her homework.

But it was not about the money.

In fact… the two proposals were different, but the dollars were really close.

So close, in fact, the money was not a factor.

What was the difference?

Well… we were not fast enough in redesigning our own website.

The other company simply had a better website than we did (at the time).

We were working on it. But, client projects, and reluctance to burn the candle at both ends to get our own redesign done actually cost us a client.

We learned our listen and now move much faster on internal projects – no matter our workload.

Of course… in our line of work there’s no room for an outdated site. And it’s a no brainer for an internet marketing firm to have a kick-ass web presence.

But you’d be surprised how this same phycology applies to all industries.

The plumber with a “cracker-jack” website could come off as… “Hmm – will these guys show up?”

The home-remodeling contractor with a site that only shows projects from 2011 or prior will give off the wrong impression.

The less than professional martial arts studio website can give savvy moms the wrong sub-conscious feelings and undermine trust.

The restaurant with the out of whack online menu will irritate potential guests.

It happens.

Sadly… most out dated websites have no measurement tools in place to measure traffic VS conversion so this post may sound like me blowing smoke because my company redesigns websites.

I assure… it’s not smoke. It’s the reality of 2015.

Have fun. And get your web presence up to speed!

About the author

Mike Dolpies Mike Dolpies (aka Mike D.) owns “Ocean View Publishing, LLC” - a diverse media/Internet Marketing and Consulting Company. He started his first business when he was just 18 years old. By the time he was 23 that business had generated well over a Million Dollars in sales and was consistently in the top 20% of its industry. He's the Author of 6 different books. His first book, “Motion Before Motivation, The Success Secret That Never Fails,” became a bestseller on Amazon.com He's been a guest on the Fox Morning News several times and has been written about in many newspapers. His work has also appeared on Entrepreneur.com and Fox Businsss.com

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