Early in the history of the modern Internet, the need for order was realized. Authors and users both wanted some way to connect and that is still true today. After many ideas were explored and tested on the live Internet, the best solution came in the form of a computerized searching tool - The Search Engine.
It’s generally agreed that the first modern search engine was Archie back in 1990 which was soon followed by Gopher. These early engines were pretty good at cataloging and indexing files and file contents found on web-servers around the world. Many engines based on similar technology followed and were the popular ways to find things throughout the 90′s. But, what really propelled the use of the Internet by the masses was the concept of PageRank based on Relevance. This was a new idea first introduced by the 2 year old company called Google in 2000.
As search engines refined their abilities to deliver relevant results to people searching for particular things, the art of ’search engine optimization’ came into being. Commonly known today as SEO, search engine optimization was the practice of writing web pages so that the content was easily understood by the search engines and indexed and cataloged accordingly. This practice soon turned into an abuse free for all as website authors learned how to trick the search engines to deliver pages that had no relevance to what the searcher was looking for. SEO picked up a bit of a bad reputation due to the exposure of this practice.
Now, in order to be a viable search engine, relevant pages must be found using more than the ‘on-page’ content. ‘Off-page authority’ has become the source of page relevance that the most successful search engines use today. Why? Because it’s really hard to fake! Today’s successful SEO professionals understand this and work hard with their clients to create off-page authority. SEO is quite a different art than it started out to be!
So what does all this mean in today’s world and online-success? And, how does it relate
to a three legged stool!? Especially when we’ve really only discussed two legs so far:
1.) Getting a website and
2.) Getting search engines to deliver it.
First let me define modern ”online-success”. In the business world and beyond, online success has evolved just as the web has. Originally, online success meant that you were successful in acquiring a domain and publishing a web page… Tada! that was it… Whoopee do!
As more and more web pages came online, online success became more than just having a web page, it was now all about positioning that web page so that it could be found… SEO enters the picture.
In its first generation, it was possible for a seller of GREEN BOWLING BALLS to be positioned #1 for someone searching for Bowling Green, KY! Regardless of how many green bowling balls were sold, if any, it was deemed that being able to ”SEO” that position was online-success. The thing was, in spite of occupying that position, true business success wasn’t really attained at all.
Finally, online success has become a summation of 3 elements (here comes the three legged stool analogy) 1.) Having a website, 2.) the site being seen by relevant visitors and 3.) by a marketing term called Conversion.
Conversion is when an anonymous visitor finds a page, relevant to what they were looking for and becomes, or converts into, a customer, donator, member, contributor or whatever the goal of the web page was to begin with.
Successful online marketing incorporates all three of these elements. In fact, it’s really impossible to eliminate any of them and still be successful. As a business owner, it’s easy to get caught up in web designer world where all you think about is the site itself. A website occupying a URL does NOT an online success make! Some SEO companies will say over and over again that “it doesn’t matter how great your site is if no one sees it.” And that is true to a point. To these companies, ”getting found” may still be online success. But a complete online marketer goes one step further and includes conversion as an equally important element in REAL online success.
