Online Traffic Formula Web Site Relevance and Reversing the Myth

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Online Traffic Formula Web Site Relevance and Reversing the Myth

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Internet Business - Marketing

Written by Trisha Frauenhofer

Friday, 21 March 2008

by TrishaFrauenhofer

Marketers seem to be attempting to gain control of an audience by thinking that he who yells the loudest will get heard. This philosophy can get misconstrued easily because people seem to feel manipulated by shocking ads or obvious messages to buy buy buy! What people really want is related to. Consumers want common life ads not outlandish claims.

The most common rebellion against advertising is the DVR, like TiVo - it's now almost impossible to get a TV ad to any consumer who has a television with one of these devices. On the Internet, the analogy to Tivo is add blocking software, and RSS syndication, which filters out ad links. With 90% or more of all ads being blocked, how does your business get its message out?

So the real question is "How do I get my message through the clutter? That's part of your online traffic formula. How do I get heard without trying to shout down a football stadium?" The answer is relevance and concomitants. People are cynical of marketing claims, and have been for years. Instead, they're looking for people who are like them and making actual recommendations about products they've used. Here's an easy litmus test - do you read online product reviews? If so, how do they influence your buying decision?

The downside of trusting your readers is negative reviews. Amazon almost lost two publishing houses over negative reviews, but eventually got them back. Ultimately, a negative review doesn't hurt you; it's simply telling the customers what didn't work about the product for that person. It's difficult, when you've put your heart and soul into a product, to look at a negative review with calm and poise, but the rewards for doing so are very high.

If it is something that you can learn from and make changes, do so, and admit your faults. This will actually be advantageous to your business because it will develop trust through your honesty. When you are feeling attacked, don't attack back. You just put yourself on their low level. Just remain genuine, relevant, and offer exceptional service.

Second, look at their review as an avenue on how to improve your product. This person cared enough about your message, what you were saying, to try your product. It didn't work for them, and they cared enough to tell you why. Use that information to make your product better! Just remember, you'll win more arguments with reasonableness than you will with defensive temper tantrums.

Some sites that have proven effective and relevant are Google.com and Amazon.com. People let Google scan their emails for keywords so they can receive more relatable advertising. They are trusted to do this and gaining trust is your entrance into your marketing world to open up vastly.

Sites that have maintained and enhanced their relevance through clever work include Amazon and Google. Amazon, in addition to being the first major retailer to "trust their audience", also uses their audience's buying patterns to make recommendations to them. This causes enormous numbers of repeat sales, and the software to do this is now standard on virtually every shopping cart on the planet. Google does it a different way - every search you do is an avenue for them to show you links to something related. Gmail, their email service, shows ads based on keywords in your messages. This allows Google to tailor advertising to subjects relevant and important to the recipient. And notice, Google's ads don't shoutor blink, or jump, or cover the actual content. Google's ads work because they're relevant to what you're reading, and that's a good model to follow which should part of your online traffic formula.

About the Author:

Trisha Frauenhofer is an online marketing expert who enjoys teaching her most powerful online secrets including the Online Traffic Formula