To all those of you blogging and content generating in hopes of gaining a profit on the Internet, let me ask you the most important question pertaining to your goal:
Where do you see your site’s content in 10 years?
No, really though, where’s it gonna be? Do you think your keyword-targeted content will still be in the third place spot on the first page of Google search?
Let’s take a look at some facts about how we understand the Internet so far:
1. Search Engines Rule - The number one way people find new and old content online is by search engines. At least up until now there is no other alternative that even comes close to matching the amount of traffic search engines bring a site other than offline advertising like magazine and tv commercials.
2. Dot Com Domain Names Dominate - Although at the moment dot com domains may not be any stronger than dot net or dot org in search results, dot com domains are desirable for their type-in traffic and real estate value alone. Every word in the english dictionary has been bought with a dot com, and are selling averaging thousands of dollars for the name alone because of the potential traffic and customers a developed site could make with it in the future.
3. Continuous New Content - The number of pages created everyday on the Internet go well beyond 7 million, which is the 2003 estimate. This means competition for your pages is growing non-stop every minute of every hour of everyday.
How can your content last 10 years?
The sad truth of it is, it may not be possible. The post you wrote on your blog last night will be apart of the invisible Internet, existing but never seeing the light of day for eternity. It seems that news sites have a very good chance of keeping their old content viewable to the public, since they can keep their audience and viewer base by reporting on current events. Sites that display facts, or purely informational sites about a specific topic will be rampant with so much competition that only the best will beat out the rest and be displayed in the first number of results.
What is the order of the demise?
1. Good Domain Name Keywords claimed (Done)
2. Webmasters look for Alternative Keywords (Where we are now)
3. All Profitable (no matter how small) Keyword Domains taken (Future)
4. With all domains taken, comes the Era of Development and Content Generation (Future)
5. Alternative Keyword domains become as competitive as Good Keyword domains in search results (Future)
6. Only good keyword domains and successful alternative keyword domains remain in search results (Future)
What does it all mean?
Basically, what this means is, if you are making money off your glow stick website and feel very comfortable about staying in the top search results because it is a uncommon or unusual keyword, later on there will be thousands of competing websites competing for your same keyword so you better make yours good if you want to stand a chance in the future.
Is there still a chance? (Chance ga aru?)
We are actually pretty lucky because even though we may feel that we missed out on the keyword era we still have the opportunity to plant ourselves into the Internet and have strong and deep roots where we cannot be buried out by new competition easily.
This look into the future is seen through a blogger’s perspective who generates income from their websites by advertising.
See you at Article Catcher!