So, Ben Collins IS "The Stig"; which is very strange because my 10-year-old son has a T-shirt which says "My Dad is The Stig". If you don't know - "The Stig" is the mysterious test-driver on BBC TV's "Top Gear". He appears in all-white and has never removed his racing helmet. For ages, it has been a mystery as to who was behind the mask - but now we know. And that's a real shame.

Part of the excitement, the fun and the enjoyment of Top Gear is NOT KNOWING who The Stig is. We love mysteries - we love knowing there is some kind of secret that only a select few know the answer to and that we can try our hardest to find out. Mystery, detective work - it's all part of human nature. Indeed, as children grow up they engage with the world as mini-detectives - working out the clues that surround them, connecting all the mysteries together so that they can begin to make sense of the world. We are all brought up trying to solve the mystery of the world around us, so is it any wonder we like a mystery?

Knowing that "The Stig" is a professional racing driver has destroyed the mystery and made the program less alluring for many of us - a point well-made by a rather angry producer of Top Gear...!

But is mystery really something we can utilise on websites? In some situations, it seems we can. YouTube videos that purport to be one thing, but end up amusing us by being something different - they are amongst the most loved video clips online. Similarly, people enjoy "surfing journeys" where they click on links, wondering where they will be taken next. Indeed, Google exploits this mystery dimension of our behaviour with its "Feeling Lucky" button beneath its standard search box. And we love exploring and finding new things out on the web - new services, wonderful products - the excitement of uncovering that mystery is something which people love.

However, there are times when we detest a mystery. For instance, how often do you want to know the price of something on a web page but cannot find it? Some marketers will explain that the mystery of the price is what is alluring and keeps people connected. Wrong. When we have made up our mind that we are really interested in something our immediate question is "how much?".

Similarly, when you have bought something do you want the mystery of knowing when it is going to be delivered? Even knowing it will come in the next 24 hours is sometimes too much of a mystery. Will it be morning or afternoon? After all I have to plan my day - so I need to know; I don't want the mystery.

Being mysterious can help in marketing - but it can also lead to a reduction in engagement if you take it too far. Indeed, new research published by The Royal Mail today shows that companies are losing almost £3bn a year in online sales because of the mystery of delivery for many shoppers. Shopping carts that don't explain that there will be a delivery charge - keeping it a mystery until the last minute - are a bugbear. So too is the mystery of not knowing where the products you have bought are - have they left the warehouse or are they still waiting for someone to get off their butt to process the order?

When we buy things online, mystery can help - it makes the products and services attractive as we explore and increase our desire to purchase. But once we have made that decision to buy, all mysteries must be removed. When we want mystery, we love it; when we don't want it and we get it, we depart quickly. Maybe many websites which don't get the sales they want are using mystery in the wrong places?

Which only leaves one mystery to be resolved...how will Top Gear replace The Stig...?

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Scientists at Cornell University have a lot to answer for. Back in 2006 they studied the click through rates according to the position of a website in the Google Search results page after you have typed in a keyword. Their research showed that pretty much no-one was interested in your website if it was listed below the fifth position on Google. Subsequent, more recent studies, have largely confirmed these findings by Cornell, though the precise figures vary. Overall, the evidence points to the fact that unless your website is in the Top 5 on Google, you are nowhere.

So, up has sprung a massive industry for Search Engine Optimization, helping you get your website into that elusive Top 5 position. Indeed, if you search for the term "SEO" on Google you will find over 130m pages on the topic, which rather dwarfs the mere 90m you will find for "CEO". Almost half as many pages again - yet the subject is considerably younger than the topic of Chief Executives. Has the world gone SEO mad? It seems so - after all, any business owner you ask these days will say they are trying hard to get a better Google ranking.

But an intriguing couple of graphs from Hitwise suggest we may all be barking up the wrong tree altogether. What Hitwise noticed was a sudden and almost exponential increase in traffic for The Physio Room. It transpires that almost all of this extra traffic was coming from one source - the Telegraph Fantasy Football site. It seems that The Physio Room was publishing a list of Premiership players who are out because of injury. That is useful content to any Fantasy Football participant and hence the increase in traffic.

All fair enough. But the two graphs from Hitwise tell another story. As the proportion of page hits from Google went down the readership went up. In other words, the site achieved significantly MORE readers when it had LESS referrals from Google. Even though you might expect the Telegraph traffic to raise the readership of The Physio Room, the increase was massive - overcoming the reduction in traffic inevitably brought about by almost a 50% decline in Google derived visitors. Even if the Google traffic remained the same (possible as the graphs are about proportions, not actual numbers) then the massive rise in visitors from The Telegraph is still significant.

Simply by providing useful content, The Physio Room has demonstrated that it does not really need Google that much. Neither do you - if you provide content that people really want. Sure they have got to find it, which is why people spend so much time trying to get Google to rank them highly. But The Physio Room story tells us something else too. Rather than having to spend weeks trying to improve their Google ranking, they allowed their Google traffic proportion to fall and saw an exponential rise in readership immediately they started to provide their content on another site.

In other words, if you provide useful content and make it available in places where people already visit, you will get much more traffic - and you won't have needed to bother with all that SEO stuff.

True, SEO is potentially valuable and you should not ignore the people it will bring you. But focusing on Google may be bringing you fewer extra visitors than you could achieve than if you provided good content in other places around the web. That is much more likely to bring you the return you need. What The Physio Room example demonstrates is that considerably more readers arrive on your website if you provide content, than if you work at SEO. Being top of Google does not equate to having the traffic you want.

It all points to the fact that SEO should be much lower in your website priority than you might have it at the moment.

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Intel is on a bit of a spending spree at the moment. Last week the company announced it was buying computer security giants, McAfee. Today they have confirmed they are buying the wireless part of the German chip maker, Infineon. It seems that the company is continuing its trend of getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But does that really work? Ten years ago the Intel share price was almost $73 now it is just $21. Getting bigger does not seem to be getting better.

In the past it was always thought that bigger was better. Google assumes that to be true today - bigger websites generally get higher ranking than smaller websites. And we will pay more for bigger things than smaller things. Consider a pot of face cream. You can buy 50ml of the stuff in a giant pot and pay some ludicrous price to get rid of your wrinkles. Or you can get the same kind of cream in a small tube and pay much less. The only difference is the size of the container - you still get 50ml of face cream. Similarly we pay more for a thicker book than we do for a small, thin one. Yet, with careful use of layout the bigger book only has the same number of words as the smaller one; we end up paying more for the same thing simply because it is bigger. We value bigger things than smaller things.

So it is no surprise that it has always been thought that big cities are better than small towns. Indeed, economists have pointed to the fact that financial power is linked to the size of a city. But, perhaps those economists have been blinded by the bigger is better argument. New research shows it is not size that matters, so much as interconnectivity - networks. This study found that small towns and cities have emerged as powerful economic forces because of the connections they have made - both physical and electronic. The more connected a city, the more economically powerful it becomes. The research suggests that in the past it was not the size of a town that really mattered. What was happening was that the population size enabled greater networking. Size only mattered in that it afforded more connections between people which then generated more financial power.

These days, of course, cities do not need the population in one place to be able to network. Thanks to the internet, those economic networks can be established even if your town is only small. Big is not best, it seems. Rather, connected is best.

So, what does this imply for your blog. Too many people appear to be chasing traffic, subscribers - sheer size. Indeed, blog popularity lists are based on numbers of subscribers or readers; you can even get badges to show off your size. Whoopee...!

But remember Intel and their share price. Perhaps size is not better. Perhaps your blog would do better if you simply had it more connected. Establishing connections between your blog and other blogs would be more beneficial than chasing numbers. Perhaps working together with other influential bloggers would do you more good than trying to get another 50 readers today. Perhaps the size of your blog doesn't matter as much as WHO reads it.

Focusing on size may be taking your blogging journey in the wrong direction. Concentrating on networking your blog - enter social media - is much more likely to produce success.

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The image of a sad, lonely individual almost tied to their computer for 18 hours a day and making money from some Californian bedroom is great if you are from the Daily Mail and want to bash the internet generation. But in reality, it seems that such people are most unlikely to be able to make any money online at all, because their brains are literally shutting down. Sadly for the Daily Mail's editors, it is not the computer or the internet that is causing the problem.

New research has found that our brains start shutting down the connections we have built up simply when we are sedentary. Much of our ability to think or to solve problems comes from the complex web of interconnectivity between all the different regions and operating centres of our brain. This is achieved with a neural connection system known as the "Default Mode Network" (DMN). But the new study from researchers at the University of Illinois has found that when we slow down and do less physical activity it is the DMN which starts switching off. The very system which our brains use to make us really brilliant as people is the very system which disappears first when we "give up". It seems that this may well be one of the reasons for the symptoms of many psychological illnesses of old age - our brains stop working so well simply because we slow down physically.

Many business people I meet complain they don't get time to move much - they say they are "chained to their desks". Well, actually they aren't. Tying people up in chains and forcing them to work came to an end in Britain in 1807. Nowadays, you are free to move around...! So, when it comes to trying to find the right way to create a new money-making website and you are stuck for ideas - take a walk. When you are confused by the plethora of social networks - move away from your computer, perhaps go for a swim. And when you simply can't face answering any more emails, why, rush out of the house and jog your way around the park.

This new study confirms that the merest trickle of physical activity will set that Default Mode Network back into action, enabling you to think more clearly and to work out solutions to your business problems. Sometimes, the answer to creating that new website does not lie inside your PC or on the net - rather the answer is already in your own brain, but you need to start moving to connect it all up.

There is another psychological advantage to physical movement as well; depression and anxiety are relieved by physical activity. So if work is getting you down, a walk is often all you need to cure your ills.

When you find it tough to run your online business, the answer is simple. Switch off your PC and go for a walk. When you return to your desk, those re-built networks in your brain will have found the solution - and, bonus, you'll feel good as well. Plus the chances are you'll find a way of making more money than those sedentary youngsters in their Californian boudoirs..!

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Well this week will be somewhat different; there's a public holiday to contend with and the children go back to school later in the week. Since this is the last holiday break for some time, perhaps people will now return to work fresh and ready for action. Of course, they may be planning to take it easy once the Autumn Spending Review happens - which will signal significant financial cutbacks in the UK. That could mean many organisations - particularly public sector ones - will be looking to spend money between now and November, before the cuts bite. If you want to be sure of earning some money this Autumn, time to target those sectors who could face financial meltdown come the Chancellor's statement in a few months time. But, as ever, that's not the only thing we should be thinking about this week.

Planning: Keywords are an ever-changing landscape on the internet. Indeed, Google says that each month some 50% of the keywords typed in are words and phrases they have never seen before. You might think that with the vast amount of online activity there would be some stability in keywords, but that does not appear to be the case. They are constantly changing. And that means you need to always update and be aware of new keywords and phrases which you will need to use in your marketing. With the Christmas shopping season about to begin in earnest in the coming month or two, new keywords will arise. If you produce content that includes those keywords, you will make more sales. But, you need to know what those keywords are. So it is time to do some new keyword analysis and planning. One of the best tools you can use is Market Samurai. Not only does this help you perform the keyword research, it will also locate useful content for those keywords - and upload it directly to your website for you.

Content: Expect a flurry of football headlines this week as the soccer transfer window closes; perhaps you could write something about deadlines within your industry and the impact they have on your work. Tony Blair's book, The Journey, finally hits the shelves this week - will you buy one? How many will be left in the shops unsold? Perhaps an article on hype and its place in marketing could be useful? No doubt the book is being published to coincide with the political party conference season which gets underway this week with UKIP hosting its meeting in Torbay. New advertising rules are introduced in the UK this week, which should make for interesting analysis. But if you want something lighter, it is the Miss England contest on Wednesday. Birthdays this week include Warren Buffett who is 80, Cameron Diaz who reaches 38 and tennis star Jimmy Connors who is 58.

New features: OK, this is not an essential new feature for your business, but it is cool...! How about a case for your mobile phone that is also your business card? All you need to do is use the graphic design of your business card as the custom image on a "DIY Custom Case" for an iPhone, Blackberry or even an iPod. By using your business card graphics you will be able to identify your phone amongst many others - and if it is lost, well they know where to send it...! Plus it will be a novel way of handing out your business information to people - just ask them to copy it from your phone...! The cases are made by Case-Mate and cost less than $40. Fun, but hey, it is the end of the summer hols, so why not?

Reading: Nicholas Carr is stirring up something of a controversy with his latest book, The Shallows. This book is about the way the internet is changing the way we think, read and remember. According to Mr Carr, the web fosters ignorance, making us all rather shallow. Considering the internet has spread more knowledge to more people in fewer years than any other technological change, that is something of a claim. The book, though, is well researched and thoroughly referenced. Having said that, however, some of the claims in the book appear based more on speculation and conjecture rather than any solid evidence. Even so, a fascinating read.

So, that's it for another week. Have fun.

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