Let Google Be Your Guide
Google, which started as a small technology project of two college students at Stanford University, has grown to become the darling of the American economy. As the 18th largest publicly traded company in the U.S., reaching that milestone in less than 9 years of existence, they obviously have done something right.
Being a website that is open to all, it is a great opportunity to study their methodology and apply whatever you can to your business. The steps they have taken to succeed can be easily adapted to fit into your world, and can prove to be a winning strategy for your online business.
Each of the following items are detailed in separate articles, but the main points are summarized here:
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Provide lots of free, but useful content: Google’s free search engine was up and running in 1998, a full two years before they even began placing some ads on the side of the results. That is, they first worked on having free and compelling content for their users before trying to sell anything. The lesson is, make sure your site has plenty of free and useful information that can attract and retain loyal visitors.
- Ignore the easy money: Google’s AdWords sometimes makes you wonder if they are even trying to make any money. The company’s policy is to refuse to run ads that are not super relevant to searchers, even if the advertiser is willing to pay top dollar for that click. Similarly, if someone else’s ad receives more clicks than yours, their ad rises to the top even if they are bidding less per click than you are. In order to remain useful product to users, they weed out the non-relevant advertisers - even if they lose the advertising revenue in the short term. The lesson here is, don’t jump for the easy money. Always measure if this strategy is good for your business in the long-term.
- Don’t be discouraged from failures: Google has had it’s share of successes, and failures. The Google graveyard is full of projects they worked on, and went nowhere. That is just fine. Employees are encouraged to devote time for work on projects that they love, and that is how they have developed many of their most popular applications. However, that is not to say that they have a 100% success rate. Sometimes, after testing a product, they just let it die. Other times, they leave it in beta mode, never releasing it to the surface. The lesson to be learned - the road to success is never a straight path. Never let failures discourage you from developing your biggest winner.