Cape Futurex Show & How To Profit In Competitive Internet Markets

Seoza News October 4 2004 Number 417.  The first thing to mention is that despite the show being only a quarter or so the size of the Johannesburg Futurex show held earlier this year the interest in the Internet and its marketing capabilities was enormous. Frankly I cannot be sure if this interest was due to Cape capability or just a general indication of massively growing interest in the internet as a sales generation medium. Certainly the web can generate incomes and profits previously unheard of or imagined by smaller companies and even by individuals.

The banks, chain stores insurance companies were noticeable by their absence.

How To Compete In Highly Competitive Markets ... such as travel and tourism

Anybody just spending a few days in Cape Town cannot miss the impact tourism is having on the city and of course many people whom we spoke to were or wanted to get involved in internet marketing for their B&B or travel website. This prompted me to write about how to compete in very competitive internet marketing fields.

For certain ..... tourism and travel generally is highly competitive and to dream of getting number 1 on Google for the term Cape Town may always be just that ..... a dream. But frankly traffic that is just looking for Cape Town will probably not be a major money spinner anyway. You need to understand searcher behavior a bit to understand my comment so bear with me a little.

When a potential target visitor starts a search for a holiday in Cape Town area say she might well start with Cape Town as the search phrase but she is just looking at this stage and not about to buy. She is looking for information about Cape Town ... eg what are the beaches like, the weather, the people, the history or whatever it might be. Inevitably the first site will not provide all the comparative (another initial reason why people search ... not to buy but to compare) detail she is looking for and she will quickly broaden her search when she learns some detail.

For example she might see a picture of a fishing boat in Hout Bay and she will then start searching "Cape Town Hout Bay" as a possibility or "wedding venues Cape Town". Once this broadening of the search take place it is an indication that the shopper might just be getting to a point where a real interest develops ... not in Cape Town itself but something far more specific like looking for wedding venues in and around the fair Cape. She might decide to explore "wedding venues cape town hout bay" ..... don't worry about the capital letters because on Google it does not matter whether you use them or not.

A search that started as Cape Town finally devolves to "wedding venues cape town hout bay" and there is a BIG difference in competition here.

Competition for Cape Town is about 6 million on Google and only about 2,000 for ... wedding venues cape town hout bay (no inverted commas used in the search).

For the highly specific term "wedding venues cape town hout bay" (ie using inverted commas) there are ZERO competitors which means any web page specifically optimized for this phrase will probably rank number 1 on Google for even the more general phrase wedding venues cape town hout bay (ie without inverted commas) as well.

Searchers typing phrases like  wedding venues cape town hout bay are serious searchers who may well want to buy and this is where the savvy internet marketer becomes seriously involved. How?

The travel website owner who wants to succeed and make money does not want just traffic she wants targeted traffic ... ie traffic that is probably serious about buying. To sell to this type of searcher or shopper needs serious keyword market research which I have talked about in the past and the vast majority of keywords that REAL people are typing into search engines will never be guessed by website owners.

For those website owners (especially those who have attended our workshops) who do know how to research keywords and profitable market niches it becomes relatively easy to get traffic from highly focused searchers wanting to buy. Keyword and market research is undoubtedly the vital starting ingredient to successful on-line profits.

Offline market research

Here's an off-line way to do this research and it's available easily and readily. Just walk into any hotel or guesthouse and help yourself to a pile of brochures and then highlight the more important attractions in the different areas. You will amass a million clues that will enable you to create long lists of keywords and phrases that are able to be beneficially used. All you have to do to succeed in attracting good volumes of traffic to targeted areas or events is simply to create a basic web page focusing on that attraction or place. Starting your Internet marketing journey can be as simple as this.

Succeeding On-Line ... far easier than you think (after we teach you how to)

Internet marketing is not rocket science. It is the application of tried and tested tools and techniques that enable ANYBODY at low cost to drive traffic to their websites. It also involves a good degree of common sense, flexibility, and, like most things, hard work Once you have the traffic all that is left (saying this with my tongue partly in my cheek) to do is convince the searcher that she will benefit more by buying from you than anybody else.

BUT IT STARTS WITH TRAFFIC and being found on page 1 on search engines like Google. That's where we come in and it's what we teach

N_t=N_s ... never forget this formula which you probably know very well already

We are ethical South African search engine optimization practitioners based in Johannesburg, Gauteng. Internet marketing efforts in South Africa are still in their infancy.  Search engine marketing and search engine positioning is built around 3 basic concepts - organic search engine optimization, optimizing for PPC (pay per click) campaigns and site functionality. All three areas must work together to succeed.

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