One of the issues that all businesses have to deal with is the geography. Being an ebusinesses allows you to literally serve the whole world as long as you ship the product (which may not even be necessary if you sell a digital product) and receive payment. Unfortunately, it is not always so easy to go beyond the borders.
One issue that we have struggled with over the years is how much business we want from non-US users. Since over 90% of our revenues are derived from advertising and digital products, we can serve customers almost anywhere but there are downsides to targeting visitors from countries other than those in US, Canada, European Union, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia. The advertising rates for the rest of the world are incredibly low. We have seen this in particular with our website Lindisima which gets a lot of its traffic from Latin America. Finally, we realized that we had to target the English-speaking Latinas in the United States and Canada and we launched the English version of Lindisima.
Something similar has happened to MYNIPPON. Due to the website being in English it attracts a lot of visitors from Asia. While we do not want to ignore our Asian base, we continue to try to build a readership base in US and Western Europe to get the best advertising rates. Generally, it is easy to do so simply by changing the focus of your content.
Our other two websites, iProceed and LuvCube, are truly America-centric.
Having said that, it is important to note that the growth potential in America is limited. The number of Internet users in the US is ~ 190 million and is not expected to grow very fast. China will soon surpass this number and it is not going to be easy for most American companies to serve the Chinese unless they partner with Chinese websites or invest heavily into their website design team.
Another attractive market is India with just about 100 million Internet users and growing rapidly. The good news is that Indian Internet users generally have a good command of English and actually are not always looking for "Indian" information. They are fascinated by America and will be happy to surf "American" websites. But to truly appeal to them, you will still need to "Indianize" your website.
Final note: 75% of Internet users worldwide are outside the US. So think how you will target them, profitably.
Recommended article: Growth opportunities in China
One issue that we have struggled with over the years is how much business we want from non-US users. Since over 90% of our revenues are derived from advertising and digital products, we can serve customers almost anywhere but there are downsides to targeting visitors from countries other than those in US, Canada, European Union, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia. The advertising rates for the rest of the world are incredibly low. We have seen this in particular with our website Lindisima which gets a lot of its traffic from Latin America. Finally, we realized that we had to target the English-speaking Latinas in the United States and Canada and we launched the English version of Lindisima.
Something similar has happened to MYNIPPON. Due to the website being in English it attracts a lot of visitors from Asia. While we do not want to ignore our Asian base, we continue to try to build a readership base in US and Western Europe to get the best advertising rates. Generally, it is easy to do so simply by changing the focus of your content.
Our other two websites, iProceed and LuvCube, are truly America-centric.
Having said that, it is important to note that the growth potential in America is limited. The number of Internet users in the US is ~ 190 million and is not expected to grow very fast. China will soon surpass this number and it is not going to be easy for most American companies to serve the Chinese unless they partner with Chinese websites or invest heavily into their website design team.
Another attractive market is India with just about 100 million Internet users and growing rapidly. The good news is that Indian Internet users generally have a good command of English and actually are not always looking for "Indian" information. They are fascinated by America and will be happy to surf "American" websites. But to truly appeal to them, you will still need to "Indianize" your website.
Final note: 75% of Internet users worldwide are outside the US. So think how you will target them, profitably.
Recommended article: Growth opportunities in China