Flow carrier and bamboo basket to draw water
1. Fetching water from bamboo basket
Many years ago, during the personal website era, I built many websites, and several of them had relatively large traffic. I also made some money from this traffic.
However, there is a problem: users cannot be retained. Many users only visit the website once, or only visit it after searching it from a search engine.
This was also the biggest reason why I failed to make it big in the first place. If I can retain users and make them visit again and again, then my traffic will increase exponentially. Then, my daily advertising income will also increase exponentially.
If you can't retain traffic and users, then the website is just a bamboo basket. Even if it can bring in water (make money), most of it has been lost.
So, the key question: How to retain users?
Rely on original content? Almost all the content I made at that time came from crawling. This was also the true situation of most webmasters at that time. They lacked originality and had to collect information from everywhere.
Later, I did a review and summary and believed that only a large amount of constantly updated, high-quality, and original content can retain users.
This is also the key to IT168’s success.
In 2007, I went to work at IT168.
IT168 is a vertical portal. To be honest, it is the same type as the websites I made. But they can earn more than 100 million a year. The traffic is also far greater than the sum of all my websites combined.
IT168 does have a group of loyal users.
The reason why it does this is indeed through original content. I still remember the subtitle of the IT168 website very clearly: an all-original IT portal. It was marked as "fully original". At that time, there were only two websites in China, one was IT168 and the other was CHE168, which belonged to the same company.
Original content makes IT168 successful.
Then, after the start of the mobile Internet, all IT websites, including IT168, collectively declined rapidly.
There are three reasons for this.
First, domestic users are no longer as unfamiliar with IT products as before, and their demand for IT information continues to decrease.
Second, the rise of e-commerce platforms has largely satisfied users’ needs for information on specific IT products, and they can also purchase them directly.
Third, the rise of self-media is almost fatal to IT portals. IT168’s “original” core competitiveness has lost all its advantages in the face of self-media.
The profit model of IT168 is the same as that of other IT portals. They used to rely on advertising. After the rise of e-commerce platforms, they gradually shifted their focus to directing traffic and users to e-commerce platforms. . It turns itself into a traffic "channel". If it cannot store traffic or retain users, it will eventually become an e-commerce platform.
I often make this assumption: What would be the result if IT168 made its own brand hardware?
After all, IT168, one of the two IT portals with the largest traffic back then, can be said to have covered almost all consumers of IT products.
You can imagine if it was making mobile phones and laptops like Xiaomi later. . . . . .
The large amount of original content that is updated every day has allowed IT168 to retain users and obtain a large amount of traffic within a certain period of time. It should be said that in the era of PC Internet, this approach of IT168 is really not a "bamboo basket", but In the era of mobile Internet, IT168 people who have failed to adapt to the changes of the times have become "bamboo baskets".
The water was all leaked.
Not only are a large number of websites "bamboo baskets", but also a large number of APPs are also "bamboo baskets".
Many APPs have a lot of users, even tens of millions of users, but their daily activity is relatively small and their retention is very low. Their daily activity is mainly maintained by adding new users every day.
In other words, users register and use it once, and then basically never use it again.
This phenomenon is very common.
2. Traffic entrance and traffic siege
Before and after the beginning of the mobile Internet, everyone realized two things: traffic entrance and traffic siege
Seize the traffic entrance and introduce all the traffic.
Create a traffic siege and let users solve all problems in their own siege, so that users can only stay in this siege.
Traffic portal, what is traffic portal?
On the PC Internet, the largest traffic portals are search engines and portals, so Yahoo, Google, Baidu, Sina, etc. will grow rapidly.
Of course, later everyone realized that the browser was also the entrance to traffic, and then there was a browser war.
In the mobile Internet era, what is the largest traffic entrance? It’s mobile phones, hardware.
This is why Apple will lead the entire mobile Internet era. This is why Xiaomi will become bigger and stronger quickly.
Many smart hardware will be huge traffic portals, such as smart cars. Therefore, in recent years, a large number of Internet companies will spend a lot of money to build cars.
Smart city projects, such as a smart airport, a smart community, etc., can also be a huge traffic entrance. This is one of the reasons why Internet companies will actively participate in the construction of smart cities. Of course, smart cities are very important on the one hand; Many things are still in the exploratory stage, so they have been tepid over the years.
Traffic siege, what is traffic siege? That is, as long as the user comes, he cannot leave. If he doesn't want to leave, he doesn't need to leave.
The method is very simple, expand product categories and give users everything they need.
Therefore, in those years, the later major manufacturers with capital in hand fought fiercely in various fields, until today.
From long videos to short videos, from search engines to recommendation engines, from self-media platforms to content creators. . .
In the past two years, community e-commerce, instant retail, and local life are also fighting under this logic.
Horse racing and enclosure.
But, anyway, it's really effective.
Turn the bamboo basket into a cornucopia.
Meituan, for example, relies on high-frequency demand and strong supply to attract and retain users, builds a siege across all categories, locks in users, and makes money on the long tail of traffic.
Take the Meituan air tickets I made as an example. It is actually more difficult to take it out on its own and grow it. After all, air tickets are a very low-frequency demand.
However, being placed in Meituan, as part of Meituan’s “siege”, not only helps Meituan lock in many users and improve hotel sales (machine + wine is a very important way of hotel sales), at the same time, Sales of the tickets themselves have also been boosted significantly.
However, except for a few large manufacturers with strong capital, no company can achieve traffic siege. Moreover, with the development over the years, even large manufacturers are increasingly unable to cover everything.
In contrast, look at the Internet companies and products that have emerged in recent years. Most of them do not rely on traffic siege. Rather, it relies on getting a thorough understanding of one point and relying on private domain traffic.
Even Pinduoduo relied on marketing products and private domains.
In addition, the Internet situation abroad is very different from that in China. The traffic siege is not as serious as in China. Instead, it is more user-centered and continues to deepen its respective fields to strengthen its core competitiveness in order to retain users and traffic.
Google's search engine and SAAS
Facebook social
Amazon’s e-commerce, supply chain and cloud computing
Apple hardware and app distribution
. . .
Therefore, the high-cost method of traffic siege is not the only way to retain users and traffic.
To retain users and traffic, you need a good and suitable traffic carrier, not a "bamboo basket".
3. Traffic carrier
Let me first define a concept: traffic carrier, that is, something that carries traffic and users.
It can be a website, an APP, a SAAS, a traffic siege, a social account, a community, or even a brand, etc.
1. Start with SEO
When I was doing SEO in the early 2000s, I was quite successful. At that time, I looked at various data every day, researched keywords, and researched users. . . . . .
At that time, I discovered one thing. Many keywords with high search volume are actually well-known brands, product names, IPs, film and television drama titles, novel titles, events, etc.
Therefore, I considered this at that time. As long as the visibility of something can be greatly increased, the number of searches for related keywords by users on search engines will be greatly increased. And, if this thing belongs to you, no matter whether the traffic searching for these words can reach your website (most of the time, the main traffic will go to your website), you will be the biggest beneficiary.
I remember that this topic was also discussed in the SEO circle at that time.
Therefore, in fact, keywords such as brand, product name, IP, events, etc. are themselves keywords that carry traffic and are the carriers of traffic.
2. Cognitive limitations
Everyone has their own cognitive limitations.
In the PC Internet era, webmasters relied on SEO, community traffic and other methods to obtain traffic.
In the era of mobile Internet, with the rise of various platforms and the rise of private domains, the attitude of webmasters towards content platforms and private domains is still to "drain traffic to their own websites."
Therefore, in those years, there has been a voice in the webmaster circle: do not create content for Weibo/WeChat.
However, as domestic traffic closures become more and more severe, it becomes increasingly difficult for webmasters with this idea to get traffic.
On the contrary, those players who rely on private domain traffic are rising rapidly. For example, Pinduoduo.
In fact, this cognitive limitation is not only experienced by webmasters, but even the world giant Microsoft has this cognitive limitation.
It was not until 2014 that Microsoft, which had always insisted not to make products for its competitor Apple, began to export its products to Apple's traffic ecosystem. At the same time, it connected the products of many SAAS companies and competitors to its own traffic ecosystem, such as Adobe. , zoho, etc.
Wherever the users and traffic are, my products and content will be there.
Therefore, social accounts, communities, self-media, etc. are also carriers of traffic.
3. Hardware
Apple makes mobile phones. Every time it is sold to a user, the user's mobile traffic for a long time in the future will belong to Apple, and then Apple can distribute it to application developers through the app store.
The same goes for Xiaomi.
This is also true for many smart hardware. For example, Internet companies build cars for traffic.
Therefore, some smart hardware can also be a carrier of traffic.
. . . . . .
In fact, there can be many carriers of traffic.
Traffic is crucial to the Internet. A good and suitable traffic carrier is often the key to the success of an Internet entrepreneurial project.
And a good traffic carrier must not be a bamboo basket!
