The last unconquered sector of the web • Hacker News Board

Re: The last unconquered sector of the web

#41

Post by gommm » Fri, Dec 31, 2010, 10:58 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #28

lloydarmbrust wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works a lot faster than you might think. Sure, if you're setting up a new site in San Francisco or Austin this kind of thing will be a much harder sell. But in small-town USA where no one knows what SEO means, it's actually really fast. We've had people jump to #1, #2, and #3, of target keywords in under a week (we don't advertise this, btw, because it's unrealistic), but 30-45 days is very common. There are milli…

This is directionally accurate in my experience. 90% of ranking for Ogaki Dog Care is showing up. (It is the same story as "American presidents bingo cards", essentially, except you'll have inlinks direct to that page.)

And that comment is now ranked first on Google for Ogaki Dog Care :-)

Re: The last unconquered sector of the web

#42

Post by Lucadg » Fri, Dec 31, 2010, 11:19 AM UTC

shogunmike wrote: post #40

Lucadg wrote: post #13

We are doing something very similar for apartments websites. My assumptions where exactly the same but after two months it turned out the the easy sales were those made with the advanced business owners, not the ones who never really wanted to be on the Internet. The tech savy ones saw immediately the wisdom of a dedicated website builder compared to the great but too general wordpress or joomla. The others were stil…

Luca, On your About page ( http://www.adormo.com/project/en/aboutus.htm ) you have a spelling mistake. "Wordlwide" should read "Worldwide".

thanks. Fixed!

Re: The last unconquered sector of the web

#43

Post by Lucadg » Fri, Dec 31, 2010, 1:25 PM UTC

jfarmer wrote: post #26

Lucadg wrote: post #13

We are doing something very similar for apartments websites. My assumptions where exactly the same but after two months it turned out the the easy sales were those made with the advanced business owners, not the ones who never really wanted to be on the Internet. The tech savy ones saw immediately the wisdom of a dedicated website builder compared to the great but too general wordpress or joomla. The others were stil…

Other (small) changes I'd make: 1. Don't say "sign up" -- say something like "Join free." In any case say something that indicates value to the consumer vs. signing up, which indicates value to the site owner. 2. For the signup button use a color that contrasts more strongly with the rest of the design, e.g., red or green (vs. blue) 3. Don't redirect me to another, context-free page when I click the signup button 4.…

thanks jfarmer, I really appreciate. We already implemented some suggestions and we'll see how it goes. What do you think? Happy New Year!

Re: The last unconquered sector of the web

#44

Post by Lucadg » Fri, Dec 31, 2010, 1:41 PM UTC

Even before launching our system in Beta in October, I did some trips in which I tried to sell it. I really needed to go out there and see what the market really wanted, not what was in my mind. In order to minimize risks, and because the system itself was not ready (and is not ready) for the big shots, I wrote emails to small business owners. I first did this in Morocco in May, during a two weeks trip (I mix personal travel and business all the time) and I wrote to Riads (local "garden" hotels) which are not apartments (my core business). I offered them "a riad dedicated website, easy to maintain and in 8 languages". I sold two, having sent maybe 40 emails and met 5 owners. One bought it because she was tech savy (did her own websites and so on) and immediately understood why it made sense, and the other one simply bought visibility. She wanted to be "first in google" and did not want to hear anything else. Did not care that she could edit her own prices and pictures, she could pay me for this. Did not care about 8 languages, she wanted to be first in google, that's it. I ended up selling her a "visibility results based" package and got the deal for a few hundres euros a year. First money on the project, I'd take any deal :)

Fine for me, but it made me realize that the less they know, the more they pay only for certified results. Make sense. As the system grew, so I could target higher, and it became much easier and profitable.

So, do I want to target the guys who "never wanted to be on the internet"? No, they will probably be go with a webdesigner who sells a joomla website for 2000-4000 euro (in Morocco they spend a lot, even more than Europe!) and then realize they are not "first in google" and spend 1000 more to be "first in google" with a local "SEO" firm. I have no time and no need to explain how things work to them, I better invest my time with the guys who, after 5 minutes, tells me "great idea, let's try it, how much?". There's many of them and they will appreciate my project more than anybody else.

Re: The last unconquered sector of the web

#45

Post by lloydarmbrust » Fri, Dec 31, 2010, 5:24 PM UTC

gommm wrote: post #41

patio11 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is directionally accurate in my experience. 90% of ranking for Ogaki Dog Care is showing up. (It is the same story as "American presidents bingo cards", essentially, except you'll have inlinks direct to that page.)

And that comment is now ranked first on Google for Ogaki Dog Care :-)

+1

Re: The last unconquered sector of the web

#46

Post by lloydarmbrust » Fri, Dec 31, 2010, 5:26 PM UTC

harryf wrote: post #25

I work as a developer for the online arm of a yellow pages provider in Europe. Thanks to regulated data and a more conservative populace, it's still a very profitable sector for a fairly simple and well known business model. None of "we come from the Internet" players, be it Google, Facebook, Groupon or otherwise has succeeded in making any real dent _yet_, although they're making progress. One point that article sta…

I read. Very well written.

"You need people on the ground." -- That's exactly why we have yet to sell this directly to consumers. We partner with newspapers who have the relationships in place, and the boots on the ground, to make the sale.

This last leg of the internet sale is not going to happen over the phone, it's going to have in person, and probably with someone the business trusts.

Re: The last unconquered sector of the web

#47

Post by troyk » Fri, Dec 31, 2010, 6:02 PM UTC

The majority of my family are small brick & mortar business owners and an interesting observation is how much they've become users of popular web apps like facebook and google (for personal uses) and how much that has impacted their openness to using the web more in their business. They are coming to a state of mind that opening a browser and clicking things is easy while their desktop apps are a major pain in the ass to use, maintain and backup.

Re: The last unconquered sector of the web

#48

Post by dasil003 » Sat, Jan 01, 2011, 6:29 PM UTC

ziadbc wrote: post #12

Local business is a huge opportunity on the internet. However, it far from the last 'unconquered' sector of the web. There will never be an end to vast opportunities on the internet, because new solutions create new opportunities that never existed before, ad infinitum. For example, and idea like grubwith.us would have seemed bizarre before Groupon, but now it seems like a straightforward evolution (and something lot…

AI is the last unconquered sector of technology.

I'm really glad to live in a time before AI makes programming obsolete. I shudder to think about the potential crisis of purpose facing the human race if AI develops to the point to automate all our needs. But that's okay, I'll die and make room for the generations to whom that is simply the unquestioned nature of reality.

Re: The last unconquered sector of the web

#49

Post by Abid » Mon, Jan 03, 2011, 5:33 AM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #23

Abid wrote: post #20

If people are finding out about these places using Yelp, Google, Groupon et al. is there really a need for a SEO friendly website? Many of these businesses don't care about a web presence because its effect would be negligible. I suppose you could justify the cost of building out a website for the local dry cleaner, but seriously, does that help it gain any new business? I doubt it.

It probably would. Remember that we're a very mobile society (in the US) and towns have new arrivals every day. If I just moved to a new town, I probably don't know where the nearest dry cleaner, or Thai restaurant, or carpet cleaner is. Rather than spend valuable time driving around searching, my first inclination will be to google it. If they get my business and do a good enough job, odds are I'll continue to patro…

If you Google it, you'll get a comprehensive list of dry cleaners/Thai restaurants with an accompanying map. And that list usually shows up at the very top rendering everything below meaningless. Try it.