The Internet has evolved quite a bit over the years as have the way people use it. The biggest change is in what I call the “Store Front”. Store fronts used to belong to larger businesses now everybody has a “Store Front”. The Internet has become the great equalizer and has leveled the playing field between small and big business. It has also changed the way we market our businesses.
Pre Internet, we marketed our businesses through print, direct mail, radio, newspaper and the Yellow Pages. In the day, only larger companies had the budgets that could really reach large markets. Now the Internet is here and that has changed things you no longer need the big budgets to reach masses of people. Now we do this by marketing your business on the Internet.
The Internet and its users are now ever evolving. Google has replaced the Yellow Pages. And as we did back in the YP days, everybody competes for a page position. Social networking has taken off and opened new channels that include music, images and video all within the ability of a small business. Now with the development of mobile devises a whole new age has arrived, the Internet of Things.
This new generation of the web is called the IoT (Internet of Things) because it will include everything from desktops to kitchen appliances. Just about everything will connect to the Internet and offer yet newer ways to collect data and reach out with your marketing.
Marketing your business on the Internet – Web marketing then and now
For a long time, the most accepted way to get traffic to your website was what is called the “First Page “ approach. You would optimize your website to have the highest listing for your category on the search engines. This spawned several of its own industries Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Lots of time energy and money was spent optimizing a website for a page position but that was ok at the time. It worked for a while when the web was still new though many SEO companies still pursue this method it really died years ago. The ‘First Page’ approach has been replaced by the more sensible method known as “Driving”.
Enter mobile
Mobil was a big game changer and really kicked the ” I want it now and I want it fast” into gear. People are now shopping or connecting from their devices and responding to ads in their cars, or from their couch to web addresses or businesses seen on TV or a blog post or off the side of a truck.
This is the result of the move into the current more effective method of marketing your business on the Internet called Driving method of web marketing. Meaning you use a mix of traditional and digital channels to “Drive” visitors to your website. And, as a side note (kind of funny too) is that older marketing techniques are now new again.
What is driving
“Driving” is using a broader number of channels to reach people where they are and drive them to your website. These channels include a mix of traditional means like radio advertising, newspaper, networking, flyers, direct mail combined with new digital and social networking. These of course would include social networks like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn to name a few but also email, electronic newsletters and my personal favorite the sales funnel.
Enter the Internet of Things
The IoT really ups the game. People will have the ability to visit your site from a screen on a refrigerator door or be able to order soap from a screen on a washing machine. This is going to affect the way websites are designed and speed the transformation from website to web application. New tools and technologies coming will change the way we use web applications to advertise or offer new products or services.
Personal assistants will add dramatically to this change with voice searches and how they affect your web marketing. This evolution brings new options to add to your Driving mix: web-based applications and the voice search.
What are web applications
Web apps are like phone apps except they reside on the web instead of a phone. They are considered the Silver Bullet of IoT because they will work on just about any device. You can even put your icon on mobile device screens like traditional phone apps. The advantages are many, less expensive to development, less expensive to maintain compared to traditional phone apps and way easier to distribute. The other big advantage is the plethora of uses from points and reward programs to build customer loyalty through custom applications for your product or service. Many apps you already use daily like Google, Instagram, Netflix, Dropbox, Facebook. You already see specialty apps for house cleaners, to order pizza and babysitters. Web apps are more adaptable, usable, and scalable than the websites we are used to now. Web apps are out of the realm of the do-it-yourselfer and you will need a professional
Alexa find a web marketer near me
Personal assistants have brought us voice searches with the big four being Google, Alexa, Siri, and Cortina. Voice searches have become the fastest growing method of searching the Internet since the Internet itself and spawned a new specialty the VUI (Voice User Interface). Voice searching leads to the next big internet trend … wearables. Wearables are items like watches, glasses, and the new bio computers. All will be voice commanded.
Because voice searches will also become the leading way to deliver content optimizing your website or blog is important and different than the old on-page optimization we are used to. You can navigate through setting these up yourself, but it may be better to leave this to a VUI specialist.
What is next
Wearables. They are already beginning, soon people will have a keypad as part of their shirt sleeve. How do you think that affect marketing your business on the internet? We are just a few years away from implants and after that bio computers that attach to the body one way or another. These are almost ready for market. Now that is scary.
