Published: April 15, 2008 09:55 am      

Commentary: As the Web moves forward, don't get left behind

How can I prepare my business for the future of the Internet? This is a question that all business owners should be asking themselves.

To address this very question, you should examine the past and understand the explosive growth trends that have happened over the years so we can foresee the future and integrate new and existing business into it.

The commercial Internet began around 1990 and slowly started to grow. At this point in time, most people felt it was a novelty or a fad and did not consider it as a value added for their business.

Through the mid- to late- 1990s, Internet service companies began offering dial-up Internet access at more affordable rates. Millions of people started surfing the Internet, which created a virtual marketplace for business products and services kicking off the first big Internet revolution.

Web sites were very basic at this point in time because Internet access was very slow, but that was about to change.

Cable and phone companies started to offer high-speed Internet access, which enabled Web sites to reach a whole new level of interactivity. Computers got faster, cheaper, screens got bigger and high speed Internet became less expensive and available to more people.

With technology advancing so quickly, and this new high-speed Internet audience, businesses are now able to easily add rich content to their Web sites and also incorporate online selling. This was only the beginning of the second big Internet revolution, “The Internet is here to Stay.”

The Internet is due for its next explosive growth spurt and I am going to arm you with some information so that you and your business are prepared, not left in the dust.

Let’s say you have a Web site and everything was going well, but Web sales and Web visitors have just leveled off or are going down. What’s wrong? It’s not your business, its your Web audience and how your Web site markets to their changing needs and wants. Let me explain this new audience and show you how to fix these issues.

The new audience of the future will be a “watch not read audience” with high speed connections 10 times as fast as now and mobile devices with wireless connectivity – cell phones, PDAs, Tablet PCs and satellite phones – giving us connectivity to the Internet just about anywhere.

With this type of mobile connectivity, your online business now has opportunity to tap into an audience of billions of people.

Now let me show you how to prepare for this new Web audience of the future in four simple steps.

n Understand your current Web visitors with statistics. If you have a site, then ask your developer or hosting provider to provide you online access to view your Web data.

Here at digital.iway we always have one year of Web traffic statistics available for our clients to log in and review. This data will show where in the world your visitors are coming from, what technology they used to visit you with, what pages they liked most, and also if they were a return visitor and how long their visit time was.

With this type of information you can tailor you site to new technologies and insure you reach the largest audience possible.

n You must be aware of the “watch not read audience.” Since high-speed Internet is becoming faster and more accessible/inexpensive, Web browsers are now going to want to watch your content and not read text. What does this mean?

It means you should investigate the possibility of shooting multiple videos explaining your product or service and making it available to your Web audience. If your competitor has videos and text and you have only pages of text, then the future of your site will be nongrowth and it will level out.

n The Internet is getting smaller and I do not mean numbers, I mean screen size. You will need to start implementing more and more areas of your site that will allow easy access to small mobile devices. Start out by just displaying content in a smaller size then move to selling and videos on these mobile devices.

n Do not ignore e-commerce (online selling). More people are getting comfortable with purchasing products and services online. It is convenient, easier, very secure and less expensive. Start phasing this into your site slowly and when talking with your Web developer, keep in mind that there are many ways to implement e-commerce so ask a lot of questions.

In conclusion, over the past nine years I have been running my own Web development company – digital.iway – and I have educated many businesses on the importance and power of their own business Web sites.

There are ways to gain a competitive advantage in the future of the Web.

Nobody knows your business better than you. If you take a little time to educate yourself on the Web trends, the future of the Web will be yours.



Mike Danchanko is president of digital.iway.