Spiders and Webs

The guy who decided to use that metaphor for the web is (was?) a genius! (No, I don't think it was Al Gore.) Little did he know how much affect it would have on a marketing guy like me. So, without further editorializing, here's a little spider and web tour as I SEE IT!

First of all, we are not thinking of one of those little weenie webs you find between a couple of flowers. This web is a monster like the webs you find out on the farm that you can easily mistake for a hammock if you stood it on its end.

There are over 43 million web pages according to various sources and that number is growing faster than bellies at fast food joints. (On second thought, maybe it was Al Gore.)

If each one of those "spokes" going out from the center is considered a "link," then there are three trillion of those links according to Google. I guess that would be like fast-food dirty straws, huh. Marketing guys like to get an idea what the competition is like.

Good Lord. That's a bunch.

If the web just stayed like that, with spokes out from your page, that would be one thing. But there is something else to consider-those rings that go around and create the circle of our giant farm web. Let's call those distractions.

You are the "searcher" out there next to one of the anchor hay bales. You start your search and find a link that is going to take you to the center of that monster web, right to the heart of my craftily designed web site. No problem. It's just a sticky little road trip.

But suddenly, your eyes catch a nifty looking ad on the side of that link. You click on the nifty ad. You are now going around and not down at the heart of the web. That damn spoke corrupted my link. (Those are distractive little spokes to your immediate left!) Hell, you may never reach my website now. Pass the Rolaids Mr. Marketing Man.

Another Marketing Person has just won the game and distracted you (prospect) enough to get to you to start going around the web instead of taking a shot right at the heart of my message. That guy or gal did it with better creative or paid for the chance to put that distractive message right in your face. I and my client will lose unless the searcher (you) is determined to find my client's page for some specific reason

Dammit! Why did my prospect take a left (or right) turn when I had him focused in the first place? In the old days, we would throw up or hands and wonder. But today, we have some tools that can help tell us why turns get made. The prospect will even tell us what they were looking for in the first place. The key to that is, oddly enough, "keywords."  That is what the prospect typed into the search engine to find your "spoke" in the first place.  Google keeps track of those keyword in a program you can sign up for called Google Analytics,

Go ahead. Sign up. I'll wait.

Here's what you do. Type in some terms that you think your prospect will type in. (That's the Prospect's Problem in Mr. Mitchell's questions. God would he be smiling right now.) Google will then do a search of all kinds of synonyms for your keywords; provide a report of those words; and give you an idea of how much interest there is in those words. Now you know why so many former research company owners go by the new title, "hey waiter."

Remember our crafty marketing person who picked off your prospect and got them going around you instead of straight at you? They may have used keywords in their effort to do it.  Bastards!  Let the battle be joined!

You can have those keywords, too. In fact, you can out compete that sneak for them. All it takes is a little money or, maybe a lot of money. Enter Google Adwords

Go ahead, sign up.  I'll wait.

That's how you make a couple of billion dollars. Who would have thought there would be money in one word headlines!

Now play with those gizzies for a while. Next up, where does all of this stuff show up in my web site?