|
In a recent issue, WepProNews provided a great article outlining
how bid-per-click search engines can generate new leads and
sales for your business. Mainstream sites like GoTo.com have
been able to use this bidding system as a source of commercial
revenue much earlier than their competitors, making them the
current market leader in the bid-per-click listing arena.
Considering they have also carved out almost 3% market share
(meaning they are used by 3% of all Search Engine Users),
this is a remarkable feat.
To compliment the article by WebProNews though, the important
issue to be stressed is that new opportunities are being created
daily for your business online. There are many other search
engines that are adopting the per-click tracking system based
on the highest bid. All of these have considerable less market
share than GoTo.com, but are still used by thousands of potential
customers interested in your business.
For the small to medium sized business, this can mean qualified
lead delivery for a fraction of the price normally commanded
by larger search engines. Depending on the services you provide,
staying alert to the entry of new search engines or policy
changes can provide a very cost effective way to generate
new business for your company.
Any successful businessperson knows that one of the secrets
to prosperity is to be able to read and predict what future
market trends will be. In the interests of free and open enterprise,
I thought I would share some of our own thoughts on a tightly
kept industry secret. Hopefully it will help to help improve
your ability to capitalize on future opportunities, and help
to explain why some of the search engines do what they do.
In the WebProNews article referenced, they also touched on how
search engines are using strict listing policies to prevent
spam. In actuality, this is a very clever public relations tool
being used by many search engines to help them substantiate
plans to detour from their current no-charge policy for URL
submissions. They have in some ways intentionally tainted and
undermined their own product through the media to provide perspective
on the benefit of paying for precise listings in the future.
Almost without exception, all search engines have been created
with the intent of positioning themselves to be paid anytime
and every time anyone clicks on a listing that is commercially
related. Most search engines that have a major market share
have not yet converted to this payment system for one reason.
Like many other dot-com companies who expected the world, riches
and success overnight, they underestimated the lack of revenue
they could generate from advertising related to their tremendous
user bases.
The online world is still very much in its infancy though, and
a combination of professional arrogance, mismanagement, and
financial miscalculations have left the search engine world
in a difficult situation: they may not financially survive the
necessary transition to a bid-per-click policy. This is one
of the key reasons that large search engines once commanding
up to 25% market share have been unable to benefit from further
investments and the glorious IPO's they once expected. Imagine
controlling 25% of the billions of requests entered monthly
by some 250 million Internet users. You would naturally imagine
that converting to per-click bids would generate a small (if
not large) fortune. The future goal of search engines is simple:
charge on a per-click basis while maintaining a large and definable
user base of financially qualified users.
>From a commercial consumer point of view, stay alert of
changes in the search engine industry. Be diligent in your research
of search engine activities and the style in which they choose
to manage their services. There will always be many first-mover
benefits available to business owners as search engines find
their footing and try new marketing techniques to improve revenues.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Davis is a media correspondent for Super Reports,
the leading
provider of market data detailing online consumer search habits
and
product location techniques. www.superreports.com
You can reach Robert via email at rdavis@superreports.com.
|
