Queen Bee Marketing’s Blog About Marketing, SEO, and Design.

Author: J. Chad Wolfe

Research says the first generation starts the business, the second generation builds the business and the third generation kills the business…As a first generation business owner all I know is the first generation feels the pain, and all they normally get is THE BIG PICTURE!!!
You are probably wondering what I am referring to when I say THE BIG PICTURE….You may think I am referring to the first generation understanding the macroeconomic trends that drove them into entrepreneurship or maybe I am referring to the unparrelled work ethic required to start a business from scratch. Although all of this is true those are not what I am referring to when I write the first generation really gets THE BIG PICTURE in business.
When I write THE BIG PICTURE I am referring to it in the most literal sence. If you walk into the plush conference room of a very successful multigenerational business you will inevitably notice that they all have a few things in common. The mahogany walls, the expensive antique office furniture, the newest inventions in office technology and a BIG PICTURE of Grandpa, in a borrowed suit, elaborately framed in the conference room!!
Although Grandpa had the vision to identify an opportunity in the market and the tenacity to build a business from the ground up, there are simply not enough hours in the day, days in the week or years in his life to truly reap the financial benefits of his hard work.
This is where a quality marketing approach comes in. At Queen Bee Marketing we understand the importance of a quality long term marketing strategy. As a small business owner myself, I also understand the reality of how a small to medium sized business owner is forced to wear multiple hats, and a lot of times the Marketing hat is at the back of the closet. Although most business that experience rapid growth have a strong foundation rooted in basic quality marketing. At Queen Bee marketing we believe we are different because we understand the needs of all sizes of business to have an effective marketing plan.

During our training session today, we spent about an hour learning the history of the internet. For many people, SEO is a tough nut to crack. But I was delighted to find out how interested our team was in learning the history of this amazing thing called the “internet.” We use the internet everyday, but few of us take a moment to stand in awe of how it (has) and (is) and (will) transform our lives.

I’ll make a long blog short, but here are a few interesting things about the history of this amazing thing called the “net,” that most of us use everyday; maybe every hour (or more:)

1) The net started when a guy named Ben Franklin started figuring out the properties of electricity. (but wait, there’s more…)

2) William Sturgeon (1825) figured out how to make an electro-magnet operate through wires with Ben’s Electricity.

3) Joseph Henry (1830) showed people how you could do basic communication by picking up and dropping magnets through wire + electricity.

4) Samuel Morse (1835) invented a language using this principle. Let’s call it “Morse Code.” Ring a bell? (Literally)

5) Alexander Bell (1876) used Ben and William’s (and Joseph’s) ideas to invent a mechanism that re-produced sounds. Alex made it big (by getting to the patent office first by a few hours…) by doing “voice sounds.” I.E. The TELEPHONE.

6) John Baird (among others) (1926) First T.V. Set. Now we’re sending video over these wires.

7) 1947-1991: Many really smart folk invented computers (from transistors to current chips) and then…

BAMMM: ARPANET was created. How do we protect ourselves during a nuclear war? We better be able to communicate, and this meant creating a “network” of computers that still communicated even if some (or most) of them were wiped-out during a nice big Nuke Party.

9) 1991 W3 (WWW), the first server side systems that start to link the rest of us!

10) Search Engines start to organize all the info.

11) Search Engines Come, Search Engines Go.

12) Yahoo. Search Engines Start to “Stick”. (1994)

13) GOOGLE. (1997 “ish”) Thank you Larry and Sergy. If only I’d thought of that idea…!

14) ??? The Million Dollar Question.

That’s how we left it today. We had some really interesting comments and questions. But one thing I noticed: history seems to be repeating itself. I.e: Google buying YouTube.com. We talked today about how it’s like “Google owns all the phone systems, so now they’re starting to develop the T.V. network.” Wow. Maybe!

Hope you enjoy!

Chris

A strange thing just happened to me on Digg. A story I submitted yesterday was made popular this morning and appeared on the front page. Here’s a screenshot I took because I was excited about getting on the front page. It’s the second story down about global warming.

A few minutes later I refreshed the page to find that my story was no longer there.

I figured Digg decided to drop it off the front page for some reason, so I checked my profile to see how it was doing.

Where did my story go? It’s not even listed in my submitted articles page. It should be right there above “Britney’s Hair on Ebay.”

Does Digg drop stories often? This has never happened to me before.

Cassi

It seems obvious to me why there is so much controversy over whether SEO is “bull” or SEOs are “snake oil salesmen.” To people who don’t know what SEO is it’s hard to tell what is ethical and what isn’t. I asked several non-search/web people how they thought Google works and here are some of the replies:

“…I love google. I do worry about it being shady though. If I’m not mistaken companies can buy their way to first search result… How does Google work, like how it runs searches? That I’m not sure about.”

“Google is primarily a major search engine, utilizing technologically advanced (and trade-secret) methods to search millions of web pages for terms, phrases and queries entered by users worldwide.”

“I have no idea how it works. I know what it is though– it is a search
engine used to find information on the web –but how it actually retrieves
the info is beyond me!”

“Through the use of META tags, servers that compare their relative value to the query, and search mechanisms that refresh on a regular basis based on new content. Paid advertisements are also featured on sidebars and top banners, ensuring good placement and higher click-frequencies.”

Obviously, there is mixed information out there as to how Google and other search engines work. And using this technology to promote a business creates even more uncertainty. It’s hard for people to trust what they don’t totally understand. This doesn’t just go for SEO - this happens in any industry, especially new ones. As an SEO I don’t take offense to the comments made by Jason Calacanis and many others. I would be skeptical of a new, and powerful, industry, too if I didn’t have a good understanding of it.

Cassi

I met with a great business owner yesterday; she was so excited to talk with us about internet marketing.  It’s always nice to meet positive, enthusiastic people.  Anyway, this business owner is really focusing on improving her web presence, experimenting with Adwords, and designing a marketing strategy. 

I’m writing this as  an example of how close you can be and just miss the “gold.”  Her Adword campaign has a really good click through rate (ctr,) and she is driving people to her site at a reasonable cost per click.  The ONLY thing she needs to do now is focus on providing her visitors with a really non-threatening way to “reveal” themselves as a possible lead.  It’s amazing how many websites create barriers (unintentionally) to contacting their company.  Usually, most sites have a “contact us” button somewhere, and often this leads to an email that may not even work correctly. 

We learned years ago to always provide a contact form on the front page of our sites.  (above fold if possible).   Provide an incentive for people to fill out the form such as “subscribe to our FREE newsletter,” or “Sign-up today and receive an instant 5% discount off your first purchase.”  We’ve also found that stating you won’t “share or sell any information” usually helps increase conversion.

 Anyway, it can become overwhelming how many variables exist to having a successful web site, but I guess I think it’s exciting that you can be SO close and make only one or two additional changes to start experiencing great success!

till next time…

Chris