Price increases? Days are numbered.

Why are so many shoppers visiting the shopping malls ... if it is not to buy or make some kind of purchase? 

Ask yourself again ... How well do your search engine optimization efforts rank on these top search engines?

Google's search engine averages well over 100 million hits per day. Optimizing for Google is by far the most difficult optimization challenge facing internet marketers. Google also now features local search capability.

The Yahoo search engine also averages close on 100 million hits per day.

The combined search engines of Google and Yahoo account for around 65% of all search engine traffic.

These search engine are driving customers away from traditional large shopping malls .. they are making shopping (should we perhaps say buying?) cheaper for everybody

Whatever your product - one requirement is paramount.

This requirement is independent of your quality, price, size, or standing in the community. If your web site is not found before your competitor's site is found then you will lose market share. To demonstrate this consider that this year from my location in South Africa I will sell (without ever seeing or buying the products) some $100,000 of specially targeted pond equipment to USA homeowners. Somebody has lost that market share to me some 8,000 miles away and they do not even know it.

The first challenge of any web business is therefore to be found first if at all possible or at least be in the top 10 findings in your chosen market niche. Competition for market share in every imaginable market niche will become more and more severe .... for the rest of time. If you have any kind of product you will only fail for two main reasons ... either there is no need in the market for your product or your site selling it cannot be found.

Think About This:

Quite recently I bought my very first digital camera.

It was a Sony DSC V1 Cyber Shot. My basic research was done through magazines because I was totally ignorant and the choice was overwhelming.

This particular model was recommended by two independent magazines as being a best buy in the class I was interested in. I then went to look at it in my local shopping mall in order to feel it and see how lightweight and comfortable it was. Of course I priced it too at around $1,000 equivalent in our local currency.

I then went home and logged in to www.shopping.com, typed DSC V1 in the search box and this is what I got

Sony DSC V1 Digital Camera ... "Price Range: $429.99 - $785.99 and available for comparison at 82 stores". In addition There were numerous reviews and lots of other useful information.

What did I do?

I asked a friend who lived in the USA and who was visiting our country to buy it for me along with extra 128 Mb memory.

I saved about $400 by NOT buying in any local store.

The only reasons more people are NOT doing this are as follows ...

They do not know about the Internet, shopping channels like shopping.com, or comparison search engines like Froogle (Froogle is Google's shopping and price comparison search engine)

They do not have access to a computer

They know but do not have the confidence to buy over the net

Of course you will see rapid changes in these and all other presently widespread constraints.

Fundamental change in purchasing behavior

Let's examine this absolutely fundamental change in purchasing behavior in a bit more depth.

During the last 30 years of my life shopping malls have become a major feature of the retail environment and retail outlets have provided more and larger ranges of products  - the one stop shopping concept - in an effort to lower unit overhead costs and sell more per consumer visit.

This approach made the small corner shop redundant.

This change was accompanied by a change in distribution and selling. Manufacturers were forced to use selling agents and distributors, who in turn took on larger and larger product ranges.

I believe the future will see a complete reversal of this trend.

The Internet in many cases actually does away with the need for traditional shop fronts, high priced fully stocked shelves and displays and high cost shop assistants who are not able to keep up with product information and change. All this is driving prices down in markets like the USA.

Manufacturers are now able to cut out all middle men and further reduce cost.

Nobody knows exactly what will happen next year and the year after. Your guess is as good as I mine I'm sure but we probably agree that change will be fundamental, enormous and rapid.

We have to be prepared and understand in which markets we want not just to participate but to dominate.

On the Internet this means we need to identify our niches using keywords and keyword phrases.

Never before was it possible to have a store that sold just hammers, or just electric drills or just submersible pumps or just a single book or a single CD. Now this is possible and there are already thousands of such stores, soon to become millions and millions.

Never before was it possible for any small company to employ thousands of sales agents selling just one or two products. Now this happens on a large scale every day of the week.

Suddenly the size of your budget is no longer the weapon it was. Now it is more important to be fleet footed and understand the electronic world wide web.

It is no longer who you know, it is what you know that counts

... and this means you have to fully understand your chosen market in a way you never have before.

Forget about paying others to do search engine optimization for you. Let us show you how to do search engine optimization yourself for low cost and high success rates.

Do you know what Google Adwords are? ... we run programs to make sure (1) you do not waste your money and (2) get great results from these Google Adwords campaigns

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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