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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Prime Minister David Cameron and Business Secretary Vince Cable are in India right now doing deals. True, they are encouraging inwards investment in the UK from one of the world's fastest growing economies, but while they are in the country, they are doing a deal or two.Some £700m has been agreed for the BAE Systems Hawk jet, for instance. Not bad for a day's work is it?

The rhetoric and posturing is all well and good, but it is the deal that is what both sides are really after. India wants the jets and we want the money. So there's no point in pussy footing around - just get on and do the deal. And your website visitors are not much different. They know you want to sell something to them, they are not daft. So just get on and do it - offer them a deal.

The deal, of course, is something whereby your customers reckon they have "beaten you" in some way. In India, the Air Force is probably delighted at only paying around £12m per aircraft - a comparative bargain in today's aeronautics world. On your website people also want a bargain, a discount, a two for one offer - it matters not how you dress it up, just "do a deal".

New research confirms the necessity for making online deals. The email marketing company Exact Target has identified 12 online personas and amongst the data is revealed the number-one reason why anyone wants to connect with your business - "to get a discount". That's right, they are not just interested in your products or services, but really rather more concerned with "getting one over" on you. Two thirds of people cite this factor as their main reason for signing up to mailing lists.

The research also shows that the second most important reason is getting something free. The concept of the "squeeze page" where you offer a free report or other download in return for an email address is so valued by the internet world that over half of people cite this as THE reason for signing up.

In other words, if you offer people something free on your website AND you then given them some kind of discount or bargain offer as well, you will have them well and truly hooked. And once you do that, they will want to show their appreciation. The market research company Morpace has found that the main reason why people sign up as "fans" of a company page on Facebook is to demonstrate to their friends that they like your products and services.

This means if you have a free offer on your website, if you then follow that up with a discount deal and you also have a fan page on Facebook you are venturing into the territory that online consumers want you to be in. These are powerful motivators for your customers and potential customers and should not be ignored. So all you need is a simple three step process:

1. Offer something free
2. Provide a discount or some other kind of "deal"
3. Encourage people to join your Facebook fan page

Do these three things and you will find more people wanting to join your mailing list, become fans, encouraging more list joiners as a result and so on. Gosh, it's almost like perpetual motion...!

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Social networkers are a savvy lot - that means you and me and you and all your customers and potential clients; everyone, in fact. According to a new study by LinkShare almost all forms of advertising fail to attract anything much in the way of engagement or usage. The banner adverts, so common around the web, were only of interest to 6% of people in a study of 2,000 consumers. In other words, 94% of us ignore them. This confirms a similar study in 2009 which also showed that online advertising is a waste of money.

The new study did, however, also underscore the fact that email marketing is much more valuable. Some 22% of people in this LinkShare study said that emails they received from advertisers were useful in helping them make purchasing decisions. This backs up earlier research which shows that email marketing is much more likely to produce sales than web marketing.

According to LinkShare, adverts in general - including the presence of a brand on Facebook - is only of interest to around 2% of people. In other words, 98% of people ignore ads. Clearly, you should not be wasting your money on them. Not good news if you are an advertising agency of course.

That is, unless you look at the one thing this new study shows people really do like. Just under 50% of people on social networks say that vouchers, coupons and other similar special offers are useful when making purchasing decisions. In other words, ordinary advertising doesn't work online, but "special offer" advertising does.

This is nothing of any real kind of surprise. Coupons and vouchers have been a staple of advertising for decades; all the leading retailers use them, so clearly they work. There are several sites offering you the latest coupons and voucher codes but what is interesting when you look at the lists of companies involved is the fact that the vast majority are old, bricks and mortar, long-established brands. In other words, coupons and vouchers are entrenched in the company marketing culture.

There must be a reason for that. And the reason is they have discovered over the years that vouchers, coupons and special offers work. Customers like to think they are getting something special, that they are forcing the company to give up some profit, that they have something "over the company". It is, of course, complete tosh; deep down we realise that the savings are not real, that they are built in to the company's overall system. But we like them anyway.

So, if established retailers use them, if we all know they work and if the latest research about online advertising shows they are the only form of advert that really works online, why are most internet businesses ignoring them? Giving high profile to your coupons and special offer vouchers, particularly in email marketing campaigns, is an activity that is highly likely to bring you extra sales. It has worked well for traditional business - and the latest evidence shows it is the best thing for online companies as well.

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Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin. British people of a certain age (my age...!) will remember those words fondly. They are the words used at the beginning of the children's radio programme, "Listen With Mother", which the BBC ran on its "Light Programme". Being comfortable is important and merely mentioning the words probably got children in the right frame of mind to listen because they "felt" right. All these years later, new research from Harvard University confirms that the physicality of our world has significant impacts on our perception. Indeed, the study demonstrates that our decisions are influenced by the physical sensations we are getting at a specific moment in time.

For example, when people were given a résumé (curriculum vitae) on a hard, thick, clipboard they judged the candidates as better qualified than when the same people were presented on a softer, thinner clipboard. Similarly, when people were given a jigsaw made of roughly cut pieces they judged a social situation described to them as harsh. But when a jigsaw with smooth edges were being used, the same social description was judged as much softer itself. And when people sat on hard chairs they changed their patterns of negotiation when compared with sitting on soft, easy chairs. They were much less flexible on the hard chairs; the people in the soft chairs were open to persuasion.

The researchers argue that the physical sensations we receive are causing our minds to react differently. They equate it all to the soft embrace we had when we were born - the loving, tender touch of a mother, compared with the hardness of a mat or cot in which we were placed, away from mum. All nice in theory, but how is it going to help your online sales?

For years, retail psychologists have specialised in creating the right mood. The lighting in the store, for instance, or the music playing in the background all help us have good, positive and "buying appropriate" feelings. This new research adds to what we know already by confirming that is not "feelings" that help promote sales, but probably "feeling" itself - touch, sensation and the physicality of the world we are in.

Online, of course, you have no real control over the situation. You might want to make your audience feel positive towards your website offering, but you can hardly say "before you read this website go sit in a comfy chair". But what you can do is help people recall the physicality of their experience with you. So, for instance, when you send out letters in the post are they printed on "ordinary" paper, or is the physical experience good? Equally, do you provide other materials which have a physical sensation which embodies your principles and your work - and which you could remind people of online? When you hold meetings ore events, do you care about the chairs, or just use what's provided? All of these real world physical factors will have an impact on how people interpret your business - and if you remind them of those physical facts online, you could reap some benefits.

For example, when I speak in public I usually provide handouts, like many other speakers. In the past these were printed on 100gsm paper. Now I print them on 220gsm card - and for the first time ever people are saying things like "nice handouts". They are the SAME handouts - no-one ever said they were "nice" when they were on paper...! I've even stopped calling them handouts, I say to people "I have some cards for you" - to emphasise the physicality of the materials.

Online, you can use physical words, you can show images which make people remember physical feelings. What this new research shows is we should not underestimate the impact of the physical, even in a virtual existence.

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The Prime Minister, David Cameron, was cheered by troops in Afghanistan yesterday as he thanked them for the work they are doing. Of course, in reality, his policy is the same as the previous Labour Government's. We are hanging on the coat tails of the Americans. But the British soldiers do not care; what they greeted so positively was the simple presence of the new Prime Minister, just showing his support. Merely his being there is enough for much of the military.

Politicians - whatever you say about them - are not that daft. They understand that half the battle in getting support and votes is visibility. Your local MP will be all around your constituency this weekend, glad-handing people, kissing babies, opening fêtes or attending meetings. They will get their picture taken dozens of times and will feature in your local paper on several pages next week. The result - they are visible and everyone thinks they are "doing a lot". More votes in the bag for next time.

It's the same for the Prime Minister. Just being seen by the troops in Afghanistan is enough. It even worked for Gordon Brown.

Now, new research on telecommuting confirms the importance of real world visibility. This study found that people who worked from home for a company were perceived as dependable and reliable if they turned up at the real office from time to time. Even if they did nothing when they got there - if they were just "visible" - they were perceived more positively than other home workers who just got on with their job.

What the study confirms is the fact that we need real, face-to-face time with people to form a positive view of them. The research has important implications for people running a web-based business.

Having real world visibility, compared with a mere virtual presence, is likely to make people view your company more positively. Getting "out there" and being amongst real people in the real world - not doing everything virtually - appears to get people to ascribe more positive factors to you. It suggests, for instance, that for sole traders and small businesses, being at meetings, going to networking groups and simply being visible, face-to-face, is enough to get customers and potential customers to think more positively about your online business. If you are a bigger online entity, it's about being "present" in the real world. It is no coincidence that the likes of Google go to exhibitions and conferences just to mix with the hoi paolloi. Simply being seen, makes us think more positively about them.

So, in your business what is your strategy for being visible in the "real world"? If your business is mostly conducted online, what tactics do you employ for real world visibility? This new study suggests that having a real world presence for you and your staff is fundamental to people thinking good things about you. Whatever you might think of David Cameron, he is clearly doing the right thing to get those soldiers to like him. What are you doing about the real world visibility of your online business?

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Most Facebook users simply don't see the advertising the site serves up to them. That's a conclusion you can draw from a new study on "social advertising" - the fancy name given to placing an advert on a website...! Indeed, anyone running even the smallest business could work out that Facebook is a financial failure. Valued at over $10bn the company is only breaking even - in spite of being the busiest, most populated website in the world. If you ran the busiest, most populated website in your sector and you only broke even, wouldn't you question your tactics?

According to Quantcast, Facebook is getting around 250m users each day from the USA alone. Alexa tells us that Facebook is reaching one in every three internet users worldwide. And Compete shows that Facebook is getting 3bn visits each month. Yet, in spite of all that usage, Facebook is not making a profit; it is deriving a handsome income, of course, but only enough to finance its operations. The only source of that money is the advertising, but most of us don't see it.

The latest study form Nielsen and Facebook themselves shows us why. And once again, the study confirms something which the advertising industry does not like to hear. So, let's say this quietly....sshhh...."People don't like adverts". There, it's been said; advertising - particularly online - is something we screen out. Google makes a handsome ($24bn) income from advertising, yet 75% of us ignore it. The new Facebook study shows that around 90% of us ignore the ads shown on the social site.

Google is currently getting very similar visitor numbers as Facebook; yet it makes money from adverts which are seen and used only by the minority, whereas Facebook doesn't achieve the same. Here's why; Facebook doesn't have enough advertising.

For Facebook advertising to be noticed as much as Google's and for the number of people to engage with it to increase, there is only one option for the company - more adverts. When you log into Facebook you'll see only a couple of ads; when you search on Google you'll see up to 13 at any one time. The more ads there are, the more we see them.

The only option for Facebook is to increase its number of adverts. But they face a problem; people dislike advertising. In spite of the advertising industry producing data on the number of click throughs, the numbers who intend to purchase following an advert and other fancy bits of information, the truth is most of us ignore it - more so online than in print or on TV, for instance.

On social networks there is another issue - at the moment we accept the low level of advertising on Facebook because it does not intrude on our networking with our friends. We don't mind the intrusion in search at Google because we only look at the page for a few seconds; on Facebook the average time we are there is 34 minutes. Any increase in advertising will be viewed negatively. No matter how hard the advertising industry tries to tell their clients advertising works, it will not solve the problem facing Facebook.

The new research is also a signal to website owners. If you advertise your products and services you are only reaching a minority of users on the web. You could well have more cost-effective methods of getting to your audience than adverts. After all, if you advertise on Facebook, 90% of the users of that site won't even know your advert is there. Does that seem worth it?

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Do you remember those dreadful adverts that used to appear many years ago in newspaper columns and classified listings? They said things like: "SEX: Now that I've got your attention here's our latest set of spanners for your workshop". Similarly, there used to be adverts of scantily clad young women leaning on a car, in the hope that this would make you interested in a rather ordinary box of metal and plastic. But new research suggests that these adverts were potentially brilliant.

Psychologists at The University of Amsterdam looked at the mental processing that happens in our brains when we are either primed to think about sex or given information that makes us think of love. The research found that when people are given material that makes them think of the concept of love, they tend afterwards to focus on the "big picture". However, when people were primed to concentrate on sex, they then looked at the fine details in the immediate period afterwards.

What the study suggests is that when we think of love and sex we are using different kinds of brain processing. Thoughts of love makes us consider things in the round, whereas thoughts of sex make us think of things in detail. It implies that marketing which focuses our minds on sex enables us to focus on the details of the advert, whereas advertising which has a more romantic feel helps us consider the overall impact and the big picture.

The theory behind all this is relatively simple. Love is associated with the long term (hopefully...!) and therefore our brain starts processing information with that in mind. However, sex is associated with the short term and consequently our brain goes into detail mode.

It means that - should you wish - you could use love or sex to enhance your marketing messages. For instance, if your advertising, or your web page, or blog post, has a romantic feel - using colours, imagery and the right words in the headlines - you are going to be able to get your visitors to focus on the big picture and the longer term. That would be great for material where you want a long-lasting relationship with your customers - such as in consultancy work, or on membership sites.

However, if you want to sell a product now, right now, without the desire to create any kind of long-term relationship with the customer, then using images or words that have sexual connotations could be more likely to get people thinking of those short-term benefits they'll get from buying your product or service.

Perhaps that's why the bikini-clad girls adorning cars never really worked. After all, a car is usually a long-term purchase and so those romantic adverts for cars where you are imagining driving past fields of sunflowers with the wind in your hair are the ones that actually are more likely to work because they suggest love and get the brain into long-term focus. It's also why those "SEX: Now we've got your attention, would you like to buy some spanners" adverts never worked either. Spanners are not short-term purchases either - how many have you bought this month? But sex and washing powder, biscuits, office stationery or pay per click advertising - things you buy for short-term gain - well, there's an opportunity....!

Of course, there is one significant consideration you need to adopt here; if you do decide to use love or sex in your marketing, you need to consider its appropriateness for your audience. It might achieve the level of brain processing you want, but at what cost? Only you can decide based on your audience - and your morals.

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