How to Make Your Internet Site Soar

Surfing the Net to Success

Glenn Canady, 39, of Rocky Mount, N.C., went from a dot-com casualty to a dot-com success in just a year and a half.

He was laid off from his job as vice president of an Internet consulting company in Roanoke Rapids, N.C. in October 2001, and instead of searching for work in a depressed economy, at a time when jobs were scarce, he decided to start his own business.

Canady had been contacted six months earlier by a Canadian company that wanted to enter the U.S. car wax market. Gardgroup manufactures a high tech paint protection system that lasts longer than anything else on the market.

Canady liked the product so much, he decided to market it himself. He created a brand name called 5 Star Shine, and decided to sell it exclusively over the Internet; but to be successful, he had to find a way to get noticed.

"I started with the understanding that the Internet is basically like a network of roads, and when you first put up a Web site, you’re miles from the nearest highway," says Canady. "I needed to find a way to build the roads that would bring in traffic"

He had heard about a technique for bringing targeted traffic to a Web site, and in the process, getting much better search engine rankings. "It sounded good on paper, so I decided to give it a try," said Canady.

Within six months, 5 Star Shine was ranked number one on almost all the search engines for the phrase, "car wax," and sales soared. The company has maintained its top ranking for the past 18 months.

After seeing Canady’s success, some of his friends who have Internet sites urged him to write down everything he had done. They wanted to know how to get their own sites noticed. One thing led to another and Canady got into the book writing business.

"Most people think if you have a Web site, you’ll make a lot of money. That’s not necessarily true. To make money, you have to be able to bring people to your site," says Canady. His new book, "Gorilla Web Site Marketing" shares with readers, step by step, the process he used to get 5 Star Shine noticed on the Internet.

"I came up with the name, ‘Gorilla Marketing’ because that’s really what it is. Teaching the reader how to become the 800 pound gorilla in their industry," says Canady.

"After I made most of the changes suggested in the book, my hits tripled," says Mike Barber, owner of Dashboardadventures.com. His Internet company sells compact discs, packed with natural sounds, that are intended for use during long car trips.

Canady is so confident in his methods, he offers a money back guarantee to all of his customers. "No one has taken me up on it yet though," Canady says.

To buy a copy of "Gorilla Web Site Marketing," log onto www.gorillawebsitemarketing.com. The printed version retails for $49.95.

EDITOR NOTES:

Here’s a breakdown of the percentage of traffic received by the seven largest search engines on the Web:

1) Google 55.2 percent 2) Yahoo 21.7 percent 3) MSN Search 9.6 percent 4) AOL Search 3.8 percent 5) Terra Lycos 2.6 percent 6) Alta Vista 2.2 percent 7) AskJeeves 1.5 percent

Source: OneStat.com