Yes, I realize that topic is going to start some ruckus. So read through this before you just blast off a defensive or offensive reply. Larry, I am not complaining about your site… it’s a great site… just sharing what appears to be a significant industry change I did not realize had happened.
I am the owner of a 1st year haunted house in Illinois. I spent a decade working for an event in Illinois that was consistent ranked in the top three. During part of that time I was the webmaster of the events site, and always had access to their website analytics. Now as the owner I have access to my analytics. You are talking to a guy who has been maintaining, at the event level a haunted house site on and off since 1998.
Five years ago I would have told you to do anything you could to be a part of your local Haunted House Referral / review site. These sites drove MONSTER amounts of traffic to the .com of a haunted house. I would have said, have a MySpace to send people from your .com to interact. Five years ago I was getting burned out and uninvolving myself from the industry.
Today, I own an event and watch my traffic heavily. Google gives me most of my hits over 1/3 of my hits. The rest of the search engines are in there too. Next highest place kicking people to me is….. FACEBOOK!!!! The haunted house review sites combined… DO NOT equal the traffic Facebook pushes to me. Now this may be unique to me. But I can say this is really telling me a few things.
1. Facebook really is becoming the AOL like portal it is rumored to be. People under 25, our core audience are living their entire lives in Facebook. No .com…. they don’t even care to go look… There are other social sites… Hulu, YouTube, those places… but no one cares about a regular old someonesaidgohere.com site.
2. Your search engine priority is more important than ever. WHY? Because people under 25 know how to Google. They can find you… so help they find you…
3. Guys, let’s face the facts… NO ONE under 25 gives a darn about an online review anymore. They have become just a known fraud source. You doubt me, ask them. They stopped looking when the companies started paying people in India and China to stack reviews with false entries. I stopped asking if people went to our local online review place in our third weekend. Why, might you ask? I was educating the public that the site existed. No one knew who they were.. I have two colleges in town... NO ONE KNEW! (BTW, as an owner I realize I love being the guy who greets. If your exit and entrance are in the same place you really get the pulse of your crowd and your event. )
The point of my rant here is to share what might be something the rest of you realized in your marketing over the last few years. The .com is weaker than it has probably ever been. Facebook is the monster in the yard we all have to appease. And no one wants to waste time looking at an inconvenient opinion on things or looking up your haunted house in a listing of 100 other events. People now know how to Google and they just want to type into their search engine “my town” “haunted house” and hit enter. Or even better, go to the place their Friend just posted made her mom piss her pants….
Now the real battle….where the hell do I spend my advertising dollar…. =)
I am the owner of a 1st year haunted house in Illinois. I spent a decade working for an event in Illinois that was consistent ranked in the top three. During part of that time I was the webmaster of the events site, and always had access to their website analytics. Now as the owner I have access to my analytics. You are talking to a guy who has been maintaining, at the event level a haunted house site on and off since 1998.
Five years ago I would have told you to do anything you could to be a part of your local Haunted House Referral / review site. These sites drove MONSTER amounts of traffic to the .com of a haunted house. I would have said, have a MySpace to send people from your .com to interact. Five years ago I was getting burned out and uninvolving myself from the industry.
Today, I own an event and watch my traffic heavily. Google gives me most of my hits over 1/3 of my hits. The rest of the search engines are in there too. Next highest place kicking people to me is….. FACEBOOK!!!! The haunted house review sites combined… DO NOT equal the traffic Facebook pushes to me. Now this may be unique to me. But I can say this is really telling me a few things.
1. Facebook really is becoming the AOL like portal it is rumored to be. People under 25, our core audience are living their entire lives in Facebook. No .com…. they don’t even care to go look… There are other social sites… Hulu, YouTube, those places… but no one cares about a regular old someonesaidgohere.com site.
2. Your search engine priority is more important than ever. WHY? Because people under 25 know how to Google. They can find you… so help they find you…
3. Guys, let’s face the facts… NO ONE under 25 gives a darn about an online review anymore. They have become just a known fraud source. You doubt me, ask them. They stopped looking when the companies started paying people in India and China to stack reviews with false entries. I stopped asking if people went to our local online review place in our third weekend. Why, might you ask? I was educating the public that the site existed. No one knew who they were.. I have two colleges in town... NO ONE KNEW! (BTW, as an owner I realize I love being the guy who greets. If your exit and entrance are in the same place you really get the pulse of your crowd and your event. )
The point of my rant here is to share what might be something the rest of you realized in your marketing over the last few years. The .com is weaker than it has probably ever been. Facebook is the monster in the yard we all have to appease. And no one wants to waste time looking at an inconvenient opinion on things or looking up your haunted house in a listing of 100 other events. People now know how to Google and they just want to type into their search engine “my town” “haunted house” and hit enter. Or even better, go to the place their Friend just posted made her mom piss her pants….
Now the real battle….where the hell do I spend my advertising dollar…. =)
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