说话不怕牙凉

We learned the fundamental law of Supply and Demand in Economics 101. The textbooks explain that shifts in demand cause corresponding changes in supply. No matter what the changes are, the point where the curves intersect sets the price of the good or a service. This law provides a powerful explanation for how markets come to equilibrium.

But this law makes important assumptions which are often overlooked - that supply and demand are treated as flexible and having unlimited quantities. In the real world this is simply not the case, because of the laws of physics. However the Internet, because it does not have geographical restrictions, changes the rules once again. So in this post, we look at some different types of supply / demand scenarios. Our conclusion (sorry to ruin the ending) is that Google is the ultimate money making machine on the Internet. Now let's find out why...

How Things Work in the Physical World

A classic example in the physical world, and perhaps the earliest example of urban business, is the mom and pop grocery store. Since Mom and Pop are mere mortals, their daily output is fixed. This simply means there is a physical limitation on how many customers they can serve. Hence, the supply is limited. Also, because it is a physical store, there are only so many people who can come to it - regardless of how good their stock is. Geographical locality implies limited demand. All of these physical limitations are bad news for mom and pop. No matter how hard they work, their revenues will peak and max out after they get to maximum efficiency at what they do.

Large corporations like Starbucks solve this problem by breaking away from one store and expanding into various geographies. This allows them to tap into economies of scale, where they are able to produce additional units of output at a lower cost - typically because of technology and know-how. Historically, geographical expansions are done by Franchising - the creation of independently operated units that obtain supply from the parent company, as well as maintain brand and comply with regulations. Curiously Starbucks is not technically a franchise, so it is perhaps the exception that proves the rule. In any case, a smartly operated franchise has the chance to leverage geographical expansion to generate exponential growth in revenue.

How Things Work in the Online World

Surely the laws of physics apply to the online world? After all we use electricity to channel bits around and to power our computers. For example Amazon servers take up physical space. And finally, our brains consume real calories to generate all of the source code and HTML on this planet. Yet, the Internet is far from being bound by the laws of physics in the same way that the real world is. This is because there is almost no friction. At least, we do not perceive any friction when we drag and drop widgets or type our blog entries. Two facts: software is 'soft' and the Internet has no geographical boundaries. So this results in a completely different business scale and dynamics.

To understand this, let's start again with an example of a bounded online business. Case in point - a niche blog such as Read/WriteWeb. Again, as in the real world, the supply is limited. Our writers work around the clock to bring you fresh analysis posts about web technology, but the number of posts per day is limited - to say no more than ten. There is also a 'limited' amount of people that come to Read/WriteWeb. Now we are very successful blog and have a daily audience of over 80,000 readers, which is a large number, but still it is limited. 

Finally, any blog has a maximum revenue that it can generate - dictated by the traffic and amount of advertising that it can present. So in terms of limitations on supply and demand, blogs are similar to mom and pop shops. But there is a key difference: scale. What local store would be able to serve 80,000 customers daily?

The difference in scale becomes more obvious when we compare Amazon to Barnes and Noble. Amazon started with just books, but after building the brand it expanded into many other categories - eventually surpassing Barnes and Noble. Amazon's revenue curve has a slope that is far greater than the slope of Barnes and Noble. The key difference: no geographical constraints in the physical sense.

Amazon (red) vs B&N (blue)

Why Google is the Ultimate Money Making Machine

Despite Amazon's success, the very nature of its business model limits its potential revenue - because it is a web site. A web site is an online geography. Granted, it is not hard to find Amazon, but that is different from saying Amazon follows you everywhere when you are online. Amazon does not, but Google does! 

In addition to being one of the top three online destinations, Google - through its text ads strategy - has managed to weave itself into the very fabric of the Web. In doing this, the company freed itself from even Internet geography and became ubiquitous. By empowering companies and individuals to publish Google ads on their sites, Google solved the unlimited supply and demand problem in one fell swoop.

So how does Google compare to Starbucks, which is a very good money making machine in the real world? The key differences between Google and Starbucks are:

• Starbucks spends money on expansion, but Google ads spread themselves;
• Starbucks spends a lot of money on maintenance, Google spends little;
• Starbucks spends money on marketing, but businesses flock to Google because it just works;
• Starbucks relies on people, Google relies on software.

These differences make Google by far the more attractive business, compared to Starbucks. To put it simply, Google has almost no friction.

Google (red) vs Starbucks (blue)

Conclusion

So one can't help but wonder: what model could possibly beat Google? 

We are not talking about a better search engine; we are looking instead for a better, less costly and more efficient business model. At the moment, it is difficult to imagine what could possibly beat billions of links meeting millions of eyeballs daily. 

However, human history is the history of progress and innovation. In the seventies it was difficult to imagine what comes after IBM and in the nineties it seemed that Microsoft was unshakable. So there has to be the next leap after Google. At the very least, making Google's model work in the mobile world would increase revenue, by hitting more eyeballs with ads more often. Google is, of course, already working on just that. 

But beyond wireless, and in the decade to come, will there be a better business model than Google's current Internet model? Let us know in the comments what you think is going to be the next big business break through.

孙健认为网站优化重点之一是信息内容的优化，也是就文章页面的优化。一个网站的最大流量收录是来源于最终页面，因为最终页面的数量是 远远会超出分类页面，即便是分类页面有很热门的关键词流量巨大，也远远比不了内容页面的大量的小流量群，所以建议SEOER在优化网站的时 候不要忽略内容信息页面的优化。

 信息内容优化大体分为几个步骤：

 1，信息内容页面的title和meta优化，信息内容页面的title和meta优化与首页和分类页面会有区别，有些网站的程序结构很难达到title和meta优化的效果，title和meta优化是内容的前提，如果做不好这一点，以后的工作效果也不会很好，也是搜索引擎首先判断内容页的一个重要指标。可参照“网站title与meta的写法与作用-孙健”这篇文章所叙操作。

 2，对编辑人员的培训，目的是把文章编辑成搜索引擎所喜爱的方式，容易读取的方式。这一步现在只有对SEO有些认识的站长才会认真的编辑 文章，是一步比较麻烦的过程。文章的标题如何设置关键词，内容又如何与标题回应，这是搜索需要判断这篇文章的权重性。又如何在文章中 引入与之相关的内容，这点是对用户体验与搜索都有很大的帮助，也可以做到流量的互动，搜索的延伸。

3，对网站程序人员的要求，能够做到在文章中出现的关键词自动加上相应列表或栏目的链接，这是网站内链最重要的基本功，孙健认为一个网 站内链如果做的好外链自然不用愁，整体网站的权重会随之增加。

 4，对页面结构的要求，以上如果都能做到这点自然就很简单，对于结构的优化每个人有不同的方式，重要的一点是使搜索很容易抓到重要信息 。

 5，一些小的优化指标配合，如内容页面的图片优化“网站优化之图片优化—孙健”