Popstar Cheryl Cole has more in common with Toyota boss Akio Toyoda than she might think. Today, the 26-year-old X Factor judge revealed that her marriage to Chelsea footballer Ashley is on the rocks. At the same time, reports surfaced that the 53-year-old Toyota President admitted that safety problems within his company could have arisen because of rapid growth in the firm. Both of these situations have remarkable similarities, which present a warning to anyone running an internet business.

Relatively sudden fame and wealth, a rapid change from an "ordinary lass" into an international star is difficult to take. Frequently, people with a rapid rise to fame and fortune find it difficult to cope. Indeed, lottery winners often don't enjoy their instant fortune and many of them subsquently lose their cash. The goldfish bowl existence of Ashley and Cheryl cannot have been easy for either of them. Equally, the meteoric rise of Toyota from a Japanese manufacturer, to a global force that become the worlds' Number One vehicle manufacturer was very fast. It took 62 years for the company to establish itself as the leader in Japan, but then less than a decade to become the world's top car maker. Such a sudden change in fortune could well have been difficult for the company to take.

Whether it's a business or a relationship, rapid change is something we cannot easily cope with. Even today, Apple has revealed it has a flaw with iTunes. The company changed its policy and removed 6,000 Apps which it deemed unsuitable for youngsters who use iPods and iPhones. You could argue that the dramatic rise in popularity of the iPhone and the exponential increase in Apps, caught Apple "on the hop". A slower rise in fame and fortune would have enabled them to deal with this issue with less of a sledgehammer approach. It is the sudden and massive availability of nudity in iPhone Apps that caused the issue - together with a clear weakness in iTunes itself (the lack of age restrictions on the "front end").

Sudden growth is clearly difficult to handle. If it's the fame and fortune of pop stardom or a footballer's wage, or a significant rise in market share of a company, problems arise. Yet, everywhere you look on the internet there is advice on how you can grow your business "overnight". You can download ebooks that promise to help you double your conversion rate or steal market share. The attraction of large rises in your company fortunes or your personal wealth sound interesting. Yet, even if those hyped up promises can be achieved, what happens afterwards?

How will you cope with double the market share? What will you do if your conversion rate goes through the roof? What will your relationships be like if you have sudden wealth that you spend on worldly goods? People who grow rich slowly learn to cope with the pressure that the additional wealth brings. Companies that gradually increase their market share discover ways in which they can accommodate the new business.

When things happen quickly, mistakes are almost inevitable. So, your online business is most likely to fail in the long term if you seek rapid growth. Remember the Dot Com Crash? Companies that ballooned overnight are no longer with us. Companies that grew gradually online, including Google and Yahoo, are still around. The tortoise and the hare anyone? Don't try to be an instant success online - whether it's with visits to your website, readers for your blog, or clicks on your PPC campaigns. Instead, go slowly but surely - it's the best way of succeeding.

 

The website of top author J. K. Rowling is "rubbish"; they are not my words, but those of Joanna Penn, the author and book marketing expert who said so in a recent podcast. In Joanna's view, the Harry Potter millionaire's website is not up to much. But, according to Joanna, that doesn't matter too much because J. K. Rowling is already well-known and established. The podcast also said that if you were as well known as someone like horror writer Stephen King, you too wouldn't need to worry about your website either.

The point being made by Joanna is a good one; websites do not have to be perfect if you already have a huge offline following and are already well-established. But, if your business is not that well-known, if you are trying to establish yourself, then your website needs to be pretty darn good to stand out amongst the competition. Is that right? Can you get away with a rubbish website if your business is so well-known?

Perhaps. Both J. K. Rowling and Stephen King enjoy roughly the same online success.  They both appear at around the 100,000 level in the Alexa rankings and Compete.com shows that, apart from book or movie launches, the two authors run side-by-side in the internet stakes. In other words, the evidence suggests that they are both doing quite well online.

So what do their websites look like? Well, Joanna is right; J. K. Rowling's is poor. In fact so poor I can't access it. That's because when you go to the home page you have to choose your country by clicking on black and white flags which are all tinted green. So, picking out your preferred starting point is already difficult as flag recognition really only works in colour. But if you do manage to see your flag, you might not get any further because having then reached your second page you will almost certainly be presented with the message that the site requires you to switch off your pop-up blocker for it to work. I didn't venture any deeper into the site because I was already annoyed.

Stephen King's site, however, is well-made, clear and easy-to-use. But here's the problem for him. In spite of a well-made website, he doesn't really do any better than Harry Potter's inventor online. One rubbish website, one very good website - same results. In other words, the website itself is not related to the online effectiveness of these two authors. Something else is happening.

In Joanna Penn's Creative Penn podcast there was a clue; if your writing is not well-known you need a good website, she said. You can translate that into "if your business is not well-known you need a good website". Alternatively, you could say, "get well known first and then you don't have to have a good website".

In fact, the J. K. Rowling example is more evidence that even in the internet age, offline marketing is still much, much more important. Get yourself established offline and you can get away with being second-best online. Get an offline following and people will still flock to your website, forgiving your poor design or your technical inaccuracies, simply because they already like you. Penny Power's book "Know Me, Like Me, Follow Me" makes a similar point about social networking. In order to get people to connect with you online, they first need to know you and like you. It is the same for business websites, your customers and potential customers need to know about you first, then they need to like you and then they will engage with your internet offerings.

Online businesses owners are largely focused on search engine marketing. And when they are not worrying about that, they are concerned with either website design, or the new fashion for "widgets", or some other technological enhancement. And whilst these all have value, they pale into insignificance to simply "being known". The place you are most likely to start getting known is not the internet. The offline world is where you need to start.

Get an offline following and you too can have a rubbish website like Harry Potter's mum. But if you can't afford as much offline marketing as you need to get well-known, then you have no alternative but to have a brilliant online presence. In other words you have a choice; either spend your money on establishing your brand using good, old-fashioned, offline marketing and PR techniques - or put all your efforts into making your website much, much better than J. K. Rowling's. That would be a wizard move.

What does Amazon sell? OK, books, DVDs, shoes - in fact almost anything. But everything they sell you can also buy down your local High Street. And that's where most people go to get the stuff that Amazon sells. In spite of Amazon's significant online success, they are a minnow in comparison with the total sales in physical, "real world" stores. The same is true for almost all online retailers. What they sell online, sells in far larger amounts in the offline world.

But what does Google sell? Sure, it sells advertising. But the kind of advertising it sells is unavailable anywhere else; it is only available online. You can't go down to your local corner shop and buy an AdWords campaign. You can only get it online. Apple is in a similar position with iTunes. Even though it is possible to buy music in physical form down at your local HMV, you can only get digital music online.

It's somewhat crazy, but the vast majority of businesses online are selling stuff that people can already get in the "real world". The massive successes online are those which sell things that you can ONLY buy online. So, it begs the question, are you trying to sell products and services online which people can already buy using offline methods? If they can, you are potentially missing out.

Even if you are a business consultant or an accountant selling your services, people don't need the internet to buy from you - they can pick up the phone or visit your office. So, whether you are in the business to business market or the business to consumer arena, the lack of "online exclusivity" could be hampering your sales.

Here's what to do: create something that is ONLY available online. Produce something that people cannot buy from you in any other way. For instance, if you are a consultant of some kind offer an aspect of your consultancy only online, such as in webinars or by using a membership site. Equally, if you run a bookkeeping service you might be able to use something like Google Docs to set up all the client records and get them to upload their information directly to you; in other words the entire service is provided only online. Similarly, if you are an expert and you have some books you have authored, make some of them only available as ebooks, with no print versions at all. With a bit of creative thought you can probably come up with much better ideas.

The overall aim, however, is to produce an aspect of your business which is exclusively digital and solely available online. If what you provide is available, either from you or competitors, in the "real world", then you potentially lose custom as your prospects find alternative suppliers. If your product or service is ONLY available online, then you reduce the competition. After all, how many companies that compete with you actually offer something that is exclusively an internet service or product that can only be found online? The chances are most businesses are merely using the internet to market existing "real world" products. Perhaps it's time to think of things from a different perspective; find out what you can provide that will only be digital. You could clean up.

As predicted, Apple's Steve Jobs yesterday proudly announced the company's latest invention, the iPad. Whether or not you think this is a great idea, whether or not you want one and whether or not you think it's going to be too expensive, there is little doubt that Apple will eventually only have a tiny share of the marketplace for such devices. That's even if it can get the product off the ground - since the name "iPad" is actually a trademark belonging to Fujitsu. Plus, financial analysts have backed Amazon in the handheld computing war about to begin, since their stock rose on the announcement of the Apple device.

Probably, though, Apple doesn't care. The much-loved Macintosh has never had more than 5% of the world's computer market. Even the lauded iPhone only has a 2% share of the total mobile phone market, with analysts suggesting that Google's Android phone will push the iPhone into second from bottom place in the smartphone sector within a couple of years. The chances of the Apple iPad being the device we all have in our hands is negligible. Many people will buy it, but most will not. Once again, Apple will be sidelined in terms of market share. Even so, it will still make money; Apple has just reported its highest ever first-quarter financial results. So it must be doing something right.

Here's a clue; it is not trying to be "number one". Here's another clue; which company is "number one" in the search business? If you said "Google", you lose the prize. To check, just type the word "search" into Google's own search engine - OK, I've saved you the bother. Number One is "Bing", Number Two is "Search.com". Then comes AltaVista, Dogpile and then Yahoo. On Google.com, Google appears at the Number Six position for the word "search"; on Google.co.uk it doesn't even appear on the first page. Yet, there can be little doubt that with around 60% of the world's search market, Google is the dominant player.

Do you notice a coincidence? Google is not listed in the world's "Number One" search engine as being the Number One in search and at the same time, the world's most talked about computer company is actually a tiddly bit-part player in the whole technology game. Clearly for both of these companies being "Number One" is not that important.

The world over you can find consultants helping you to get to "Number One" on a Google search page. Companies are paying millions of pounds to "SEO Consultants" to get them to that coveted "Number One" position. Yet, the world's leading search engine provider isn't itself "Number One" for its core business. Equally, telephone companies like Nokia and computer firms like Dell are battling hard every day to retain their "Number One" market position. When was the last time the world's media jumped up and down for either of these companies? When was the last time pub conversations were dominated by their technologies?

The truth is, being "Number One" in market share or in search engine rankings is nowhere near as important as we like to think. For Apple there is a much greater currency they are being paid in, rather than cash. It is influence, legacy, power. The rest of the world's computer firms will now be chasing the iPad notion. But who led them there? Who will go down in history as the "leaders of the revolution"? Will it be Dell? Will it be Levono? Will it be Fujitsu? Come back in a hundred years and read the history books; my guess is the name Steve Jobs will feature on many pages.

Equally, in your business sector, whose name will dominate the history books? Will it be the people running the "Number One" - whether that's first on the Google ranking or having the biggest market share? Or will it be the company that has ideas, drive, energy and which everyone talks about?

Having money in the bank is one thing. Having a turnover the size of Dell may be what the Apple accountants aspire to, but to achieve that they would have to dispense with the other currency they trade in - influence. It's no good being the richest person in the graveyard; but being the most talked about individual....? You see, when you are long gone your money will just be accounted for and if there's any left over your sons will spend it on fast cars and loose women. But if you die with no money in the bank, but a pile of influence that will live on after your departure, that's very different.

Google is not bothered, apparently, at being Number One on its own search engine ranking, but its influence on the search business is enormous. Apple is nowhere near number one in the computer or phone market place, yet it is the most influential business in both those sectors. So, ask yourself this question: are you chasing being Number One on the search engines or in your market place at the expense of being the most influential? The chances are, unlike Google and Apple, we're all chasing the wrong thing.

Partners at Goldman Sachs are going to have to "make do" with just £1m for the past year. Their pay has been capped at this seven-figure sum, reducing their take-home income by almost two-thirds. That's a big hit for a multi-millionaire. But compared with David Beckham, who'll earn an estimated £30m this year, those City bankers are paupers. And while the world is jumping up and down about the income of banking professionals, Larry Page and Sergey Brin - the founders of Google - are to cash in shares and earn a whopping £1.7bn each.

The reaction to each of these financial revelations is different. In the case of Beckham it's largely jealousy - all that money for just kicking a football? Gosh - we can all do that. Well, actually, we can't - we don't have his talent. As far as the Google couple are concerned, the reaction has been somewhat muted - they deserve it, we say. After all they came up with this clever invention that now helps run the world. But the bankers? Goodness me - they still want a million? Who do they think they are?

Here's the difference - we like Sergey Brin, Larry Page and David Beckham. But we just hate bankers.

Wherever you look, if we like someone we don't mind them getting paid. If you like your boss, you don't mind them getting more than you. But if you think your boss is a waste of space you reckon they don't deserve their salary - even if it's not much more than yours. Similarly, if you like Tom Cruise you don't mind him getting £10m a movie, but if you think he's a wooden actor you reckon you could do better for half the money.

So, what do your customers think of you or your sales staff? Do they like you or do they have you on their hate list? Perhaps they are just indifferent. Either way, if they dislike you or have no feelings either way it makes it much easier for them to challenge your prices and attempt to negotiate with you. The trick to being able to charge more and to have people simply accept your pricing is to be immensely likeable.

But how do you do that? How come Page and Brin are "likeable" when we don't even know them? How come many people like David Beckham - even if they don't support his team? And how come we simply dislike bankers? There is a significant difference between the likeable and the hateable. The people we like are doing whatever they do for us; the people we dislike appear to be doing it for themselves. That's it.

David Beckham is doing whatever he does to give football fans an enjoyable 90 minutes; when he fails at entertaining them, boy does he know it from the boos he gets from the crowd. Similarly, the Google founders have produced Google for us, not themselves. Now, who do you think the bankers are working for? That's right - themselves (or so it seems). And that's why we don't like them. And that's why we begrudge them a mere £1m.

If you want to be able to charge high prices, and not get them challenged, you need to be liked. And to be liked you need to prove, time and time again, that everything you do is for the benefit of your customers and is nothing to do with yourself. That way, they'll like you and pay you well. Any hint of selfishness on your part and they'll challenge your prices.

People access your website through a variety of means. They might read your material directly on the site itself. Or they may get an RSS feed of your articles. Perhaps, they even receive your information via email. Your content might appear in other people's sites who load up your RSS feed. Some people might view your content in "aggregators" like iGoogle or NetVibes. In other words, there is a growing plethora of ways in which people can get hold of your material - many of which don't involve them actually going to your website.

And that is a problem for many businesses. In order to know how well your company is doing you need some guide as to readership levels. Knowing the numbers of people who visit your site and what they access is important. But because there are now so many different ways in which your content can be found, any web analytics program only gives you part of the story.

Web analytics programs like Google Analytics or (the superior) Clicky, don't tell you as much as you need. Even though they can provide raw numbers, who accessed which page, the subscribers to your RSS feeds and so on, they don't tell you what you really need to know - the precise numbers of people who read your material. For instance, you might have just one subscriber to your RSS feed. But if that subscriber is posting your feed on their site which gets half a million viewers a day you think you have fewer people accessing your material than is actually the case.

This is the same problem that has beset print publishers for centuries. The Times, for instance, knows exactly how many copies of today's newspaper it has printed. It also knows how many get returned by the newsagents and therefore knows exactly how many copies were sold. But how many people read that newspaper? Some people buy the newspaper but then don't get time to read it. Others buy it and share it with members of the family. Some newspapers get left on the train where half a dozen people might read through it. Knowing how many copies are sold only tells newspaper publishers part of the story.

The same is true on the web; analytics programs can be confusing because they only tell you part of the story. They are very good at giving precise data about the visitors to your website. But how many people were sitting looking at that computer screen when your material was accessed? Sometimes you share content by showing it to people, perhaps members of the family look at the material together. Equally, in the office your web page may be up on a screen in the reception area where everyone walking past has a look at it. And your content may be viewed in a conference where a presenter is showing your material to 500 people in the audience. In each of these instances your web analytics program records one view, but it may be dozens or hundreds more. In the same way as a newspaper sale does not record actual readership, neither does a hit shown in an analytics program accurately reflect the real numbers of viewers your pages have.

On top of this there are growing technical issues at play. Most analytics programs require the use of a piece of code called "JavaScript". Usually this is loaded last, so people don't have to wait to view your content. With some big pages, people may have read what they need to read and move on before the analytics program gets a chance to record that the page was accessed. Also, some big organisations switch off JavaScript as a security measure, resulting in the fact that access to your pages will not be recorded at all. And many web companies advise their clients to edit the "Hosts File" (a file on your computer that can be used to prevent access to certain websites). By editing this file, companies can prevent Google Analytics from recording their own access to their own website. That's important for big firms where their analytics could be confused with the numbers of all the people in the company accessing their own website. By editing the hosts file to prevent, say, Google Analytics from recording anything it means that the data they see in their Analytics account does not include the company's own access to the website. But in doing this it also prevents Google Analytics from recording access to any website, thus impacting on the statistics of every other website that uses the Google system.

What this all means is that the data from analytics programs is incomplete; it only presents part of the picture. And therein lies the problem. People focus on the pretty graphs, the statistical information and the array of tables as though it were fact. It isn't; it's a guide, that's all. Checking your analytics is an essential component of good website planning and improvement. But don't take it as gospel. Consider all the other information you have about your website and how people access your material. A good way of doing this is to get the SEOBook Toolbar. This allows you to check a range of data on your website - and your competitors. In this way you can see how well you are doing in comparison with your competition. Taken together with your own analytics information, this will help provide you with a more complete picture of what's going on with your website.

Analytics programs are valuable, but like newspaper sales they don't provide the complete picture over what's happening with your content.

Your mouth is a fantastic tool. It enables you to stay alive as it gets fuel and water inside you. Your mouth lets you breathe when your nose has given up. And it lets you kiss the ones you love, helping form a bond between you. Not only that, it allows you to talk to other people and get your message across to them in ways that printed words simply cannot do. After all, it's difficult to convey true feelings in print, but your mouth lets you do that by helping you change the tone of your voice. All tolled, the human mouth is a brilliant, somewhat under-rated, multi-purpose tool.

So what have we stopped using it? We send more SMS text messages than voice calls on mobile phones, for instance. We are sending over 2m emails a minute in the UK alone - way more than phone calls. And now that Twitter has become mainstream, people are "chatting " away using their keyboards. It's all as though we've forgotten we have a mouth, that is a very useful communications device.

Well, new research with Intel employees has found that in spite of all these wonderful technological advances, talking to each other is still immensely useful...! The researchers found that teams worked best when members were able to speak with each other. Those teams which relied on "asynchronous" communication, such as email, had "co-ordination delays". Whereas teams that adjusted their working hours so they could talk to each other in real time using the telephone - in spite of being in different continents - were the ones that got on with the job more quickly.

Email, text messaging and Twitter all lull us into a false sense of security. We send a message and as far as we're concerned "job done". But of course, that's only true if the message, as we intended, is received. When we speak, even on the phone, we can tell from the immediate feedback whether we need to explain, provide more details or say it again. We can also immediately negotiate the next steps. With email that might take several messages over a period of days.

What this new study shows is that talking to people usually produces quicker results. So, perhaps we need to ask ourselves a question when we fire up our email program or grab our mobile phone to send a text message. That question is: "Would this be better and quicker if I made a phone call?" It's likely that much of what we do with written communication, would be more appropriate if we used our mouth instead of our fingers...!