Focusing on the essentials

Chris Thomas’ SmartCompany column last week suggested the latest Google search changes will see a lot of wasted Search Engine Optimisation investments, this saga illustrates a couple of peculiarities about the internet that all business owners should keep in mind.

The most important is that almost all the internet tools we use are privately owned. When we use Google, Facebook, Twitter or any of the myriad of other online applications, free or paid for, we are beholden to their regulations.

Nipplegate was a good example of this, regardless of how silly Facebook’s rules are regarding nudity it is their sandpit and if we want to play in it we have to agree to their rules.

This is why it’s important we have our own websites, so at least we have some control over our content and a central place for our customers to find us, regardless of other sites rules and problems. Although your own web address is still subject to the sometimes arbitrary whims of domain registrars and internet filters.

We also need to be careful of not getting too obsessed about the net. Often we spend too much time perfecting our SEO strategy, harvesting likes on Facebook or gaining Twitter fans. It’s like the days when we discovered desktop publishing and whittled away hours playing with fonts and the position of clip art.

Getting the fonts, web key words or Facebook page right is important, but we should never forget that it’s our product that matters. The best website in the world means nothing if we aren’t delivering a product our customers believe is value for money.

Big businesses are struggling with this because in the days of mass media it was possible to bury your mistakes under an avalanche of advertising, for smaller business without a corporate marketing budget they had to deliver a consistently better product or they’d be extinct.

Today, the tables have been turned, in that small businesses can afford to be distracted by the bling of cheap, easily accessible online marketing and lose touch with the people that really matter – our customers.

Paul Wallbank will be holding They Are Talking About You, a morning workshop for businesses on dealing with what’s being said about them online. The session is being held with Reputation Australia in North Sydney on November 26.