The Internet is a unique animal in many respects, but particularly in regards to the many ways you can use it to build and sustain a successful profit-making business. While it is true that the Internet’s inherent “instant gratification” nature can sometimes be a problem, since having so much information instantly accessible has likely contributed to the majority of people now having a very short attention span, that certainly isn’t reason enough to rule it out as a viable source of steady income.

You have all heard the statistics about how many seconds you have to grab someone’s attention when they first land on your website – 15 seconds? 10 seconds? Perhaps it is even less now. It also sounds incredibly discouraging at first. After all, those few seconds add up to a tiny window of opportunity for you to catch someone’s attention, and hold it long enough to keep them around to make a sale, don’t they? But take heart – there is a way to get around Internet-induced short attention spans, and even use them to your advantage in your online marketing campaigns.

The way to overcome those short attention spans is a two-part formula:

new stuff + interaction = holding the Internet’s attention

Sounds simple, right? Well, it is. Let’s take a closer look at how it works, and how you make it work for you.

New stuff: The popularity of blogs on the Internet is not a mystery. Think about the blogs you enjoy most. Chances are that they are updated at least once a day, and probably more than once a day. They are always providing readers with a steady stream of new stuff to read and look at. Someone can have a blog that contains the secrets to eternal youth, but if he doesn’t update his blog regularly, he’s not going to have much of an audience. It’s not because he doesn’t have something valuable to say, or even that he’s a bad writer, it’s just that if he doesn’t keep it current, people will forget about him in favour of someone else that’s always got something new to offer. So, that’s the first part of the formula: new stuff.

Interaction: This is the second part of the formula, and it is just as important as the first. Aside from the constant updating, blogs are popular because they allow the author to interact with the readers. The best method for interaction with reader is via the blog’s commenting system. It gives people a place to instantly react to whatever has been posted. They can immediately respond to what’s been written, offer their opinions, ask the writer a question, tell a story of their own that relates, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And even better, the author can then react to those comments, whether it’s to answer the question, offer more information, or clarify a point. This is what offers the readers the interaction portion of the equation.

So you combine new stuff with interaction, and you end up with an effective, interesting, and fun way to hold the attention of people surfing the ‘net. “Now, what’s this got to do with online marketing?” you ask. Watch:

Company X has widgets they want to sell online. Company X knows that the way to sell these widgets is to get people coming to their Widget Emporium website, where the people will be blown away by how great the widgets are and immediately purchase a pile of them to give as gifts to friends and family.

So, Company X spends a lot of time focusing on SEO and Pay Per Click ads. They find that this method is effective in driving traffic, but they know that there are millions of people out there that would want to buy a widget if only they knew the widget existed, so they want another channel to use to get more traffic.

Then Company X has a great idea – a blog! People love blogs. Company X implements a blog on their website, where they post several times a day about the wonders of widgets. Their posts are informative, and because they’ve linked back to their Widget Emporium store where people can buy the wonderful widgets mentioned, they make more sales that way. Further, because the commenting system on the blog allows them to talk with the readers, answer questions, and put a face on the company, the interaction aspect fosters confidence in Company X’s abilities, and makes them even more sales.

The more Company X posts, the more the traffic rolls in, because the search engine spiders just love new content and will therefore spider the site more often. Eventually, Company X’s blog has provided them with enough business to open a new division of the Widget Emporium, called the Whatnot Warehouse, and they all retire and move to Tahiti.

new stuff + interaction = holding the Internet’s attention

So now you know the secret to holding the attention of your audience and the power communicating with them personally wields. This isn’t a technique that only works with blogs, though blogs are the easiest way to achieve it. You can also produce the same effect by consistently updating your website’s static pages. Regardless of the way you choose to go about doing it, it can only serve to boost your online business by adding an extra dimension to your marketing campaign.

Related posts:

1. Search Engine Marketing and Social BloggingWhat is a blog? Where did it come from, and...
2. Online Marketing: A Continuous Endeavour for Any Online BusinessMany companies focus their energies towards search engine marketing because...
3. Maximising Website Traffic with the Use of Online MarketingThe primary objective of any business web site is to...
4. Online Marketing and E-mail E-mail communication is an often misunderstood concept. With so...
5. Pay Per Click: What Does an Online Business Pay for each Click?Two of the most utilised methods on gaining targeted search...