Tech Industry: Boom or Bust?
What created the thrilling, and ultimately crushing, roller coaster ride of the late 90s dot com boom? An overzealous optimism that the world would readily embrace Internet technology, web site capabilities, on-line shoping, and more. Tech Companies believed the world would do this instantly, since the technology was not only available, it was affordable.
Yet it took some years for many to finally give in, quit cursing technology, and embrace it.
The infant Internet industry fell victim to bad business decisions, too. Many companies were over financed on speculative projects that didn’t produce projected income. Really, at the heart of it, I believe Wall Street financers wanted the dot com industry to fail. Why?
The tech industry was becoming a serious threat to blue chip stocks, NASDQ, and old school ways of doing business. The very core of traditional business methods was being eroded. Wall Street was financing ideas, rather than products and industries. Ideas are ethereal aren’t they?
Who was being left behind? Anybody who didn’t embrace the new Internet technology, would soon date themselves. The implosion for Dot Com companies came swiftly and surely on Wall Street, with shareholders taking their profits or losses and selling off their shares. And then it seemed like it was over.
Out of the ashes arose EBay, Amazon, Yahoo, and more. These companies thrived in spite of the Dot Com bust. How did they do it? Their business models were not so risky, and their web site traffic originated from real popularity. As these companies evolved, some became public offerings and were financed based on actual bottom line results, not a pipe dream.
Internet Gold – It’s 2007 — Stake Your Claim
Fast Forward to the Tech Boom now. Companies are making the same mistakes with over financing, and taking huge unnecessary risks, in order to be successful quickly. This boom mentality may take many companies down the same path to disintegration.
Tech companies with Etail web sites or multiple web sites to promote are investing large amounts of money in Pay Per Click Campaigns (PPC), without concerning themselves with organic SEO or web site content, at all.
PPC – Boom or Bust?
At first, the PPC generated income is an awesome relief. But then the Tech company becomes dependent upon this income stream. Unexpectedly, the first of many storms hits. A competitor begins to bid for the same keywords, and the price for PPC rises, or the company must withdraw their bids because they are unable to compete, and the company must sacrifice the market or niche they’re after. This leads to a reduced income stream.
Create Real Web Site Content
My advice to clients is to create real keyword rich copy for their web sites before entering the PPC arena. It is really necessary to construct a solid foundation first, before taking large risks with web site marketing. By developing real web site content with keywords, a company is staking its claim for some Internet gold. Then it’s just a matter of how persistent you are about digging deep down, over a period of say 6 months - 3 years, to steadily continue to use text based web site promotion methods, instead of or in addition to PPC. The interesting traffic on the web site will increase, the more content is pushed out onto a web site. This traffic visits for real information and – to buy goods or services.
Web Site Marketing with Speedy Results
If you need to generate immediate income or leads from a web site, do some keyword rich blogging, and couple it with a short PPC campaign with keywords that are carefully selected. Don’t risk the whole web site marketing budget on PPC. Why? Because when the money runs out, so do the click thrus to the web site. But with organic SEO, traffic surges accompany content updates, blogs, press releases, or articles. These text based methods of web site promotion can increase the keyword density on a web site and attract fresh traffic upon publication, and for years to come.
Don’t be a Tech Bust, Participate in the Tech Boom
Don’t be fooled. Building a tech company on PPC web site marketing ONLY is a bad idea. At some point, the competition will come out to face you, in the form of a bidding war. Look to organic SEO methods, such as web site content, blogs, articles, and press releases to provide the interesting traffic needed to make products or services most successful.
Elizabeth Kirwin
Partner & Co-Owner
Sidhe Communications
