Grow Your Online Sales: Practical Advice on Getting the Most of Your Internet Presence

The Internet has changed and grown over the past four years since this book was first published. The second edition has been completely updated with the latest information while retaining the original metaphor of growing a plant and comparing it to growing your online sales. There is still a huge misconception is that Google will drive traffic to a web site, and the best way to get noticed online is to be number one on Google. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. When you first start out, no one on the Internet knows who you are. They don’t know where to find you, and even if they did, they probably aren’t going to buy from you. It doesn’t matter what shopping cart you have, who your webmaster is, or what SEO firm you use. So contends Jameson in this sometimes controversial, but accurate account of how the Internet works. The way to get people to visit your web site is to do lots and lots of creative marketing to generate word-of-mouth. YouTube videos that become viral, emails that get forwarded, press releases that get picked up and blogged about, social networking links, newsletters and other marketing efforts that provide links back to your site all help to drive traffic. Then, once you have already become popular, Google and the other search engines start to notice you, and your position begins to move up. You don’t get to be popular by being number one on Google – you get to be number one by being popular in the first place! In other words, an Internet business is still a business and you are going to have to work at it to be successful. The good news is that small businesses can still compete with large business on the Internet. This book will show you how.