My Business Online – For NON-Computer Geeks

The world is a wonderfully eclectic place full of difference which is a marvellous thing. Depending on what sphere you move within will influence how you think about the internet and internet business. Is the concept of ever having my business online, a complete fantasy or some desired reality for you? And how capable are you to participate in the world of internet business?In the space of one week I discovered two conflicting views about where business is at in terms of internet presence. I read an article that proclaimed every business today was aware it needed to have an internet presence to survive and most had developed that. I also spoke with a business coach and consultant based in a regional area who said that for most business owners, the internet simply wasn’t in their head space. He was involved in the delivery of a business course locally and there was absolutely no mention of the internet in any of the course materials. He admitted that it was becoming necessary and internet content would be included in coming years. So who is right?In the regional area in which I live, the concept of the internet business is very much in its infancy. Many people purchase online and the number and quantity of online purchases is growing all the time. Particularly for regionally based populations, the internet is one giant department store where anything is instantly available. However, when it comes to considering putting their own business on-line, many people are not quite there yet. Some businesses with a retail shop front will sell on eBay or have some form of internet element to their business. By far the vast majority of regionally based businesses would have very limited knowledge about how to go about optimising traffic online. Very few would have any idea about how to conduct market research on an idea or business to ascertain whether or not it could compete online.From my initial observations it appears there are three very broad categories when it comes to people and online business.There are computer geeks who speak a foreign language and who have the innate ability to write code hard-wired into their genes. The internet is their world. They rarely see the sun and have difficulty being understood by the rest of the world., Then there are the non-computer geeks who want to participate in the commercial world of the internet business. These are the questers. They know there is a whole lot of stuff they don’t know and they are constantly educating themselves but it’s a challenge and mentally exhausting. Most simply do not know where to start looking. They might attempt a blog or develop a website but without any knowledge of how to get to page one on Google, they remain forever in the far reaches of cyber sphere occasionally clicked on by some lost or wayward internet search gone wrong.And finally, there are the twiddlers. They like to look but they do not put their own content on the net. The internet is a foreign place. It’s interesting to be a spectator on the train as it flies through the terrain but they would never step off for fear that they might get lost or get too close to something that might explode.I am a self-confessed quester. Luckily, I know some computer geeks quite well and when they finally got sick of me asking stupid questions like:- Do you think a subscription service for tampons would go well on the net?; or How do I find out how many searches there are for red wax candles?, they politely pointed me in the direction of some internet based training. Now, having fought my way through the jungle of internet keyword analysis, search engine optimnisation and authority backlinks, I can now see how ridiculous my questions were.But I also now have the tools to answer those questions for myself. Knowledge is empowerment and I feel much more empoweerd having gone through the learning process myself than having outsourced it to a computer geek!