Are American Websites Dying?

Are American websites dying?  One obvious sign of this death comes from the national brand companies.  After pouring millions of dollars into their websites, they have seen a steady decline in visitors over the past three years.  In this post, I will offer my comments on the death of the American website!  Enjoy and prosper.

What is causing this death?

Globally, we have a surplus of websites.  They number in the billions.   Hundreds of thousands are added each day.  How can anyone compete for attention in this crowded environment?

With the glue of websites, scam websites flourish.  They hype their exaggerating claims.  Who can you trust on the internet?

Websites provide information overload.  My wife says to me, “I want a chicken soup recipe.   I don’t need 10,000 recipes!”

American Buying Ingenuity

Faced with these realities, the American shopper has found a different way. Buyers will not be stopped.

Social media sites have become an important piece in the buying process.   Facebook has over 300 million participants.  More people use Facebook each day than email.  Twitter is growing at a rate of 3500%.  Youtube gets one billion hits per day—more than the number of Google hits per day.

Buyers want a more personal approach to their business of buying.  Social media sites let them to get to know like and trust the business owner.

Today’s shopper wants to hear directly from other customers who have actually used the product so they can learn from their experiences.  Social media participants share their experiences.

Buyers are tired of the shouting and hard sell methods.  They prefer the softer selling that has become the standard on social media sites.

Shoppers want immediate input.  With a real time program like Twitter, if you need that chicken soup recipe, ask for it in a Tweet.  Within minutes, you can have five recipes.  Compare this to 30 pages on a Google search.

Conclusion

Are websites dead?  Business card websites that feature hard sell are being ignored by today’s shopper.  Being ignored is a form of slow death.

Ask yourself, how you are going to position your business on the internet in 2010 to match these new customers buying habits?

To be continued, your comments are welcomed…

Al Hanzal

PS

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