So your in luck it’s a double header on the True Tales. I love and hate the internet. I love it because now I can waste countless hours watching cats on youtube, doing stupid things. I hate it because online printing companies have eroded margins to all time lows.
So I have a buddy who just start some internet marketing company. He is telling me he is going to be the leading Denver SEO company this time next year. “Uh, sure, what ever floats your boat,” I replied to him. Anyways, we start to chatting about internet marketing and how a lot of these online companies killed the mom and pop printers.
He tells me, the big boys Vista Print, Next Day prints and couple others ones, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in SEO marketing every year. He asked me, “Do you know how many times people search the word “business cards” in Google every month.
Being a smartass, I said, “more then 10 less then a 100”.
“Nope, not even close, try about 450,000 people a month search for that,” he chimes in.
As he says this, my mouth hits the floor. I think to myself, “hell I hated business cards, but if could have retired early if I sold 20,000 business card orders every month for a year.”
He goes on to tell me how my company really missed the boat when it came to online printing. He says back in 1999, SEO was easy. I told him in 1999, I didn’t even have email and our company didn’t have a website.
He explains further, how these online companies work feverishly to keep the website on the first page of Google for all these key terms. Getting knocked off page one of Google can cost companies thousands of dollars a day in lost revenue. So they hire the top SEO companies to make sure they stay on top.
So after we finish our conversation, I figure what the hell. I open up Google and type in “business cards” The first 10 results online companies, VistaPrint, Overnight prints, etc. The last one showing, is a local printer and this is why I hate the internet.
All the other local printers are not showing up for a basic search term, that should show nothing but local printers. This is costing local companies millions of dollars a year in lost sales.
So back to the point of my story, coming full circle. Here is what happens, these big online companies take printing out of the local market. So the mom and pop printer is not getting their full of business card orders, so they go into survival mode and start selling everything else under the sun. While doing this, they start basically printing things for their cost. Now, we have mom and pops going after the big boys business. The big boys, need to eat too, so they start price matching. Now no one is making any money. The next thing you know, there isn’t going to be any more local printing companies.
Ok, I admit this is a bit extreme, but you get the picture. VistaPrint and the likes need to stop doing their SEO trickery and Goolge needs to focus on getting me more funny cat stuff to watch.
So I have a buddy who just start some internet marketing company. He is telling me he is going to be the leading Denver SEO company this time next year. “Uh, sure, what ever floats your boat,” I replied to him. Anyways, we start to chatting about internet marketing and how a lot of these online companies killed the mom and pop printers.
He tells me, the big boys Vista Print, Next Day prints and couple others ones, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in SEO marketing every year. He asked me, “Do you know how many times people search the word “business cards” in Google every month.
Being a smartass, I said, “more then 10 less then a 100”.
“Nope, not even close, try about 450,000 people a month search for that,” he chimes in.
As he says this, my mouth hits the floor. I think to myself, “hell I hated business cards, but if could have retired early if I sold 20,000 business card orders every month for a year.”
He goes on to tell me how my company really missed the boat when it came to online printing. He says back in 1999, SEO was easy. I told him in 1999, I didn’t even have email and our company didn’t have a website.
He explains further, how these online companies work feverishly to keep the website on the first page of Google for all these key terms. Getting knocked off page one of Google can cost companies thousands of dollars a day in lost revenue. So they hire the top SEO companies to make sure they stay on top.
So after we finish our conversation, I figure what the hell. I open up Google and type in “business cards” The first 10 results online companies, VistaPrint, Overnight prints, etc. The last one showing, is a local printer and this is why I hate the internet.
All the other local printers are not showing up for a basic search term, that should show nothing but local printers. This is costing local companies millions of dollars a year in lost sales.
So back to the point of my story, coming full circle. Here is what happens, these big online companies take printing out of the local market. So the mom and pop printer is not getting their full of business card orders, so they go into survival mode and start selling everything else under the sun. While doing this, they start basically printing things for their cost. Now, we have mom and pops going after the big boys business. The big boys, need to eat too, so they start price matching. Now no one is making any money. The next thing you know, there isn’t going to be any more local printing companies.
Ok, I admit this is a bit extreme, but you get the picture. VistaPrint and the likes need to stop doing their SEO trickery and Goolge needs to focus on getting me more funny cat stuff to watch.