Metafluence

Web presence and site traffic

It used to be the only way to put information online was through one’s own website. Today it’s possible for an individual or organization to have a great deal of information about themselves on the Web and not even have a site. Sites such as MySpace, CitySearch, and more offer profiles that can contain information that ranges from basics like hours, location, and prices to sophisticated options like photo galleries, blogs, and even ecommerce.

At a Webmaster World conference a couple of years back, Alexa made a presentation on the changing landscape of how people find sites they are looking for. In the late 90’s the overwhelming majority of people found sites through search. Now, while search still represents the largest single piece of the pie, the overwhelming majority has stratified into a growing number of channels. The presenter offered that the change in trend is due to the maturation of the Internet. In the beginning, no one knew where to go, which made search the only real option for finding sites. Internet users today have some familiarity with the sites on the net, and prefer to find sites through their known and trusted channels. For example, users would prefer to browse through CitySearch to find a new restaurant vs. a Google search for “local restaurant”.

The other part of the Alexa presentation that really caught my attention was the notion that people spend a finite amount of time online. While there are more and more users coming online everyday and the existing users are spending more and more time online, many of the early Internet adopters have reached their time plateau. It’s logical to understand that eventually all users will hit a limit for how much time they spend online. Alexa’s traffic analysis indicates that people spend the majority of their time on a few websites and a comparatively small amount of time on all other websites. It’s pretty understandable that a user will spend a lot of time on sites like Hotmail or MySpace and a small amount of time checking out a dry cleaner’s site. Essentially, that means people are developing preferences for where they want to spend their time online, leaving a small and finite amount of time for the billions of other Web pages to compete.

What I took away from that presentation was that if an entity wants to promote themselves online, then they’ll need to have a presence that extends far beyond their website. In fact, the most effective Web presence would be one where a user could have a partial or even complete experience with an individual or organization without setting eyes on their own website. For example, a restaurant could have a great profile on CitySearch that leads to a visitor becoming a customer. A bowling alley could have their information listed on Google Maps that leads to a visitor finding their phone number to ask about hosting a birthday party. A plumber could see the majority of new business leads coming from their rating on Angie’s List. If the point of being online is to acheive relevant goals, who cares if it’s your website or someone else’s that does the job?

Now, this doesn’t mean having your own website has been rendered useless. The most effective Web presence is one that is anchored by a website. While some people may act from a listing on CitySearch, a significant number will still want to see a website. People use website’s for research and to make determinations about the site owner. Additionally, an organization’s most deeply interested and loyal patrons will want to connect with them deeper at a website. A website is a place to foster long term relationships, and those relationships often represent the heavy half users.

So now the question is how does one build their online presence and how do they drive traffic from their presence to their site. Part of developing a Web presence is within one’s control, another part of it is about making friends and having influence. For example, listing your business on Google Maps is simply a matter of doing it, however, being written up on TechCrunch requires relationship savvy. Additionally, while there are things one can do to improve one’s representation in the search engines, it’s a mixture of control and influence that produces the best results. Really maximizing one’s Web presence is about pursuing all of the cracks and crevices until it hits a tipping point and begins to generate it’s own momentum.

I have compiled a list of channels to target for Web presence development. The list is broken down into two main categories: Information Channels and the Social Web. It is by no means an exhaustive guide, but if someone tapped all of the channels, he/she would have a world-class Web presence exceeding the reach of many Fortune 500 companies.

As I am developing a reputation for making posts that are too huge to digest, so I’m going to break this post up into pieces. I’ll release one post a day for as many days as it takes. I have 17 sub-categories including:

• Search
• Local
• Blogosphere
• Recognition Sites
• Contribution Sites
• Internet Yellow Pages (IYP)
• Classifieds
• Rating/Review Sites
• User Validation
• Cool Link Directories
• Marketplaces
• PR Wires
• Directories
• Social Bookmarking
• Social Networking
• Social Asset Sharing
• Online Communities

My goal is to provide a description for each category, a list of specific sites within that category, and tips on how to find more that may relate more specifically to your target market. As I haven’t written the posts yet, I’m not sure how many I’ll end up with, but I will edit this post each time I release a new one to serve as the master link list. Please know that the information contained in this post and the coming posts is probably some of the most valuable information you’ll find on this blog.