Stomping the Net

I joined up for a trial run of StomperNet last week. What is StomperNet well to take a quote directly from their own site,

"StomperNet is many things, but it boils down to this. It's THE program that teaches you everything need to know to start, grow, and explode your online business."

StomperNet is owned and run by two guys, Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins, who are probably the best in the world at Internet Marketing. They each run their own very successful Internet businesses but a few years ago they joined forces to teach others how to create successful Internet based businesses. Their business has grown to a team of over twenty pros who are mentoring business owners on the ins and outs of Internet Marketing. StomperNet operates on a monthly subscription basis which is not very cheap so you have to be serious about your business before joining up but for anyone interested in learning from the best this is the place to be.

A few short years ago it was possible to start an online business with nothing more than a website and a product or two and with some rather basic onpage optimization technics you were off to the races and making money. Move a head a couple of years and the business of Internet Marketing has changed drastically. It has become a very competitive business that requires more than a fair share of skill and technical knowledge if you want to experience serious success. The name of the game is rankings. You need to have a good position on the search engines Google, MSN, or Yahoo, etc. Just do a search for a product on Google and check the number of web sites that Google will return for that particular keyword...typically it is in the millions, so to outrank the other millions of sites and end up on Google's first page takes a little knowhow. But not to dispair as it is not impossible and for those focused enough the business of Internet Marketing can be learned...maybe not mastered but certainly learned.

In the Internet Marketing world there are countless numbers of so called experts who know the latest trick to beat the search engines however there is also a lot of misinformation going around. In this business getting it 80% correct could be all it takes to experience complete failure so in my quest to learn more I decided to go with the best and learn from the real experts. Over the next thirty days I will be completely immersed in StomperNet and gleaming every tidbit of info I can and then using myself as a guinea pig to see if I can put this knowledge to good use.

Once the thirty days are up I will have to decide if I will be staying on with StomperNet so keep posted as I will update my blog with my new adventures.

Persuasion Architecture

I am in the process of reading a book by Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg called Waiting for Your Cat to Bark. After reading another book by these guys called Call To Action I was intrigued enough to read another. These guys really understand the advertising in a world of such diverse media. No longer are we competing for just radio, TV, or print ad space but there is now a whole new world of Internet Marketing that in many ways complicates the choice process for the business owner but in other ways allows the business owner to tap into a vast market that they could not afford only a few short years ago. Reading these books has broadened my understanding of the potential of what a proper web solution can do and help make some sense of proper design and how to get visitors to do what you want them to do.

Your site is not simply a place to throw in a few words about what your company does or show a few pictures of your products and then hope that this will be enough to make customers want to buy your products. While this is certainly a starting point for many new sites you should be always looking for ways to improve your online marketing and developing your site with a defined strategy.

You need to define what you want your web site to do and then develop a strategy for getting it done. It is possible to funnel customers through your site and direct them to taking that call to action, whether that is just signing up for a your newsletter, registering for product info or actually buying a product from your site for those of you offering ecommerce. Keep in mind that for many business sites the goal of the site is not always to have your visitors immediately buy something. For many businesses their web site is a place to educate their customers and start the buying process.

It is estimated that approximately 70% of purchases are initiated by someone searching the web for more information. With that number in mind you need a solution that will 1. help potential customers find you and 2. convert those visitors into customers.