I was surfing around and a question came to my mind.
Is there a Ten Commandments for Web Startups?Since I specialize in SEO business, my business model and 10 commandments may not be applicable to most people who intend to start a web business.
So, I started googling for the tips and guide on starting a successful business online.
I just discover this plugin that will enable you to add an Amazon link to your post quickly and easily. It allows you to search for the Amazon items within your editor and insert the picture and link by drag-and-drop.
This may not seem to be related to SEO or SEM but read on and you may agree with me that this new option introduced by Paypal may affect the way you optimize your web pages.
You can now accept Paypal payment in Singapore dollars.
And with the SGD expected to appreciate against USD over the next 12 months or so, accepting Singapore dollars may not be a bad thing at all.
What Paypal has done will help you to expand your market to those Singaporeans who do not want to risk exchange loss and pay the higher exchange rates charged by Singapore banks which issued the credit cards e.g. VISA, Mastercard and Amex. And I know there are a lot of such people in Singapore!
Now, let me explain why the move by Paypal is important to search marketing… go search where the money is.
First, it shows that Singaporeans are buying online using Paypal. And they must be buying a lot for Paypal to accept the SGD.
Second, Singapore is not as small as that little red dot in terms of e-commerce for Paypal to accept SGD.
Hey! why not accept Malaysia Ringgits or Thai Baht or the Korean Won? These are big countries with far larger populations than Singapore.
Third, shopping is one of Singaporeans’ favorite past-time. Online shopping will be the past-time for many men and women in Singapore. So don’t pray-pray!
‘Cos, they are too busy at work spending more than 12 hours from Monday to Friday and some even on Sat and Sun. So they need to de-stress when they are not working, right? By going online and SHOP. Sometime, I wonder if the other reason why they are so busy at work is because they are surfing and shopping during working hours!
Can You See The Money?
So, you have to target Singaporeans and make sure they can find your web pages when they are on a shopping spree. That’s what search marketing is about. Know what your target audience are searching and give it to them. You’ll need SEO ranking skills to make sure your web page is on the first, second or at least the third page in order for them to see your listing and come to your website.
Now, even though there are only 4 million of us in Singapore, if only 50% of the population spent just $500 SGD a year online, we are talking about $1,000,000,000 moving through the Internet.
Ok, you don’t agree that 50% or more of the population will spend an average of $500 a year. So, let’s say just 25% will go online to spend just $500 and we still have $500,000,000 flow through the Singapore servers.
You Can See The Money Now?
Still not convinced that you have to optimize for Singapore related traffic or Singapore derived traffic will bring you more business and money?
Never mind. I’ve already started 2 years ago - I kiasu mah!
(Words in italic are Singlish and targeted at Singaporeans only… not for ang moh!)
Earlier today, I met with a friend who has been in the business of Internet marketing for a couple years. He makes a living selling ebooks online. So I told him this “Internet Maketers Don’t Need SEO“.
He didn’t agree initially.
So I asked him if he’d built his list using any SEO related techniques i.e. his subscribers found him through the search engines’ organic listing. He didn’t answer. He believes posting lots of articles on his website is one of SEO practice. And he further explained that his articles bring him traffic and generate revenue with Adsense. Then he asked: “Are you trying to sell me something?”
Am I trying to sell him something? Of course not. It would be wrong to sell him my SEO workshop program if he has no need for it - at least not for the website which he makes money selling others’ ebooks and info-products. He does not need SEO because he has a sizeable emails list where he sells useful ebooks to his subscribers.
However, he would need SEO when he moves from email marketing or affiliate marketing or JV to expand his customers base and revenue. Eventually, when he find his niche, he will need SEO to help him sell to his niche through the search engines. SEO can help you to target your niche, position your product/service and convert sales.
So when I said “Internet Marketers do not need SEO”, I means people who peddle ebooks, softwares and info-products such as CDs and DVDs on making money on the Internet do not need SEO.
P.S. To many people Internet marketing means affiliate marketing using mass emailing. So from now on, I will use e-marketing (a subset of e-commerce) to mean marketing on the Internet.
I received an email from Eric this morning. Well, he has been trying to sell me something since I subscribed to his Eric’s Tips several months ago. I think he is a great internet marketer and want to keep track what he’s marketing.
These are the 7 steps I used to cancel my paypal subscription and I do that pretty often.
