I don't know much about the site Online MBA, but I enjoy their infographics.
Their most recent infographic describes the history of Groupon and how it works. Lately we've been using the word "epic" to describe Groupon's growth. We're doing this because words like fast, enormous, explosive and amazing don't seem to good enough.
Whatever you call it, Groupon's growth is nicely explained by the inforgraphic.
BTW, not everyone thinks Groupon and discounting is good for small businesses. Branding expert Laura Ries presents this point of view in her article Coupons, Groupons and Cocaine.
The 2nd topic of this post is the power of good content.
We get lots of people offering Smallbizlabs money in exchange for paid links and/or coverage. The main reason they do this is search engine optimization (SEO). We have a decent Google page rank and links from our site help with SEO programs. Our policy is not to accept these.
Online MBA has effectively gotten around our policy by creating compelling content. They've earned the 3 links (retail value = hundreds of dollars) in this article by providing information we think our readers will find useful.
That's the power of good content.
You know this is a bubble when the very idea starts to attract franchising interest.
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/entrepreneurship/2010/12/16/veteran-entrepreneur-jim-piccolo-launches-digital-ad-franchise-firm
Posted by: michael webster | January 13, 2011 at 06:37 AM
Michael: Thanks for the pointer. I agree, there are so many companies targeting this space it's hard to see it as anything but a bubble.
Posted by: steve | January 14, 2011 at 09:06 AM
In my humble opinion, from the SEO prospective, while quality content will get you backlinks or “votes” from other webmasters, the truth I found from experience is that such success really depends on your industry or topic that you are writing about.
For example, if you are in the digital media / finance industy and have good insights to share, you will probably earn more incoming links naturally as a result of your strong and good quality information.
On the other hand, if you are in a industry whereby the target audience are not so technologically savvy, you will find links hard to get. (For example, imagine yourself in the knitting / elderly care niche.)
Point being, if your target audience are more techologically savvy, (know how to blog, “like you” on Facebook, social bookmark, etc) this probably works better. Links are ultimately created by people who knows how to create a link in the first place.
Not saying that we should not add value (quality) to the world wide web. Just that certain industrys require you to work slightly harder to get those links. And if you are in one of those nichces, basic seo activities also tend to reward you with better results.
Posted by: singapore seo | January 19, 2011 at 06:12 AM
Hi,
I think Groupon's growth is equal to the info graphics and both the word depend on the growth of the business.
Posted by: UAE universities | September 26, 2011 at 11:40 PM