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The Birth Of The Internet And The Ensuing Jobs And Roles It Produces
It’s still a rather new innovation, at least as a way for public use, but the Internet continues to make life an irritation. When the telephone came into everyday usage, equipment was quite expensive, getting connected took ages and the service was patchy at best. The phone took pride of place in the house – usually in the entrance hall so that people calling round would see that the house had one (and it almost always was just one).
In the mid-nineties, it began to be possible to have access to what was called the Information Superhighway – a phrase that no one actually understood, particularly those who made TV programmes about it, but it became common knowledge that there was a Thing that you could connect to if you had a telephone, a PC, a modem and an Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as Compuserve, AOL or Demon. In the beginning, the ISPs had their own platform upon which users could conduct their online business. It was possible to buy flowers from Interflora or a small number of collectables.But that was about it until the advent of the world wide web and organisations began to learn how to put their goods and services onto the net once it became easier to use card payment facilities.
Thus was Online Marketing brought about, as organisations tried to find the best way to be noticed, get people to their site with a view to shopping. A group of Californian students shut themselves away in a house and, sponsored by Microsoft, tried to find out if it was possible to get everything they needed from the internet. It very nearly was, and while this was taking place, the word was that the entire method of doing business was changing. Professionals and other people who didn’t know scrambled to get in on the act and find those who were going to lead the way. It was eventually realised that all the Internet was ever going to be was a very clever sales outlet, albeit one with huge numbers of potential clients.
As the world calmed down, the recognition that the crucial thing to do was to get customers looking to spend money on the site rather than try to change things altogether. All this time, the main search engines were Webcrawler, AltaVista and Yahoo. They were rather unsophisticated and output was random. To get on them, you had to tell them you existed, they would analyse the site and catalogue it. The problem here, was that a critical mass had built up and the searchers couldn’t keep up. But into the mix came Google giving super fast results and better geared towards accurate, appropriate searching. The engine was also the major product, paid for by advertising and so Search Engine Placement became possible by paying for pertinent words to be displayed above other results.
The technology continued and continues to expand so that now Online Marketing is a big business and often a dark art as different approaches became possible. It was discovered that the search engines themselves could be used to give an advantage in getting a web site seen by helping them spot appropriate links, words and phrases which would marry up search requests with results. Thus Search Engine Optimisation has become a feasible option as an choice to Search Engine Placement as it meant the user viewing the site didn’t cost the host anything should the visit be a short one with no purchase made.
As long as it done ethically, by a Website Optimization Company, it is an good and cost effective way of getting a company’s online products and services noticed by users looking through search engines. It should cost no more than ‘click through’ ads and users are often more likely to go through an ‘organic’ search result rather than an obviously sponsored one.
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