eBiz ROI Blog

The Rationale for Internet Marketing for SMBs goes something like this. More and more people come online and are staying online longer every day. These users are buying more online now than ever before with many relying on the Internet as their primary source of local products and services. Internet Marketing for SMBs is critical, especially for local services businesses competing to capture a growing segment of their local market, namely online shoppers and those turning to the internet first for local business information. For those that don’t invest, they remain invisible to a growing portion of the local market.

Internet marketing enables local SMBs to reach more users as today in the US, 3 out of 4 are online. More than 90% of the 170M+ US Internet users access their rich media content through high-speed Internet connections. These high-speed connections enable rich media experiences include online gaming, video with digital quality picture and sound and applications running as nimbly as if they were running locally. During recent years, the US online media consumption, on average, has nearly doubled from 2.1 hours/day to 3.8 hours/day. With increased online media consumption comes increased online sales. In fact, the US Depart of Commerce estimates that, as of November 2009, eCommerce has reach 3.7% of overall US retail sales as compared to .8% in 2000, representing a 362% growth during that period.

Further accelerating online media expansion and increasing the importance of Internet Marketing for SMBs is the emergence of popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Unless you consume zero media in your life, you no doubt have heard mention of these networks. The explosion of highly specialized user generated content available on these social networks and other popular sites like YouTube and others have increased peoples reliance on the Internet, which for many, now has become their primary source of local business information.

As more businesses and consumers turn to the Internet first for product and services information, it’s Internet Marketing for SMBs becomes even more critical, particularly if the business is a local services business where online visibility to the local market is key. Local services businesses, in particular, need to ensure that their businesses are listed in the local search results of precious in-market users for at least the most popular local search spots.

By way of example, imagine you are a financial advisor building a practice in the Albany, NY area you are probably investing in print (yellow pages, newspapers, magazines, etc.) possibly TV, Radio and maybe even outdoor (billboard) advertising, but late to the Internet Marketing game. Now image a potential local investor is online and performing the following search on Google Local: financial advisor, Albany, NY:

As you can see, the list of your competitors for this potential investor is long and if you are not in the search results, people using Google Local to locate financial advisors will not find your business. It is as if your business is invisible to a segment of the market which could be substantial. This kind of prospect garnered through Internet Marketing is valuable as they are actively searching for the very services you offer.

The takeaway is that Internet marketing represents a great opportunity for local SMBs, particularly local services business. Internet Marketing, and local search in the example above, provides valuable visibility to a growing segment of the local market who turn to the Internet first to find information on the local products and services they are interested in.

Internet marketing solutions for small and medium businesses are affordable with directly measurable results. Getting started can costs less than a single print advertisement!

eBiz ROI, Inc. was recently reatured in the January 2010 issue of the Saratoga Business Journal. The Title of the Article is eBiz ROI Provides Clients with Internet Marketing Services, written by Val Albert. The article provides a good overview of the eBiz ROI business focus and differentiators within the Internet Services Market.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is hard but rewarding work. SEO done right at least. Done right means employing only ethical SEO tactics, often referred to as whitehat SEO tactics. While it’s possible to achieve short-terms results using unethical SEO tactics, often referred to as blackhat SEO tactics to deceive search engines, it’s a risky approach.

How does one know if an SEO tactic is blackhat? All unethical SEO tactics are designed to deceive search engines into rating content relevancy to particular keywords higher than it really is. For instance, a blackhat seo tactic commonly used more than a decade ago when search engines were a relatvely new concept, was filling a page with repeating keywords in a font that was the same as the background color of the page, so not viewable by readers. While these blackhat SEO tactics, at the time, were effective in achieving short-term traffic results, once detected and labeled by the search engines as SPAM, the offending sites optimized with blackhat SEO tactics were in some cases temporarily blacklisted by the search engines, some banned from search results altogether.

The contemporary search engines have become more sophisticated in detecting blackhat SEO tactics, driven by maintaining relevant search results for users. To search engines, ensuring website content relevancy to search terms is their Holy Grail for maintaining and growing their search market share. Naturally, users will gravitate to search engines that deliver most relevant search results for the least amount of effort on their part. Wading through SPAM will drive search engine users to find alternative search engines with more relevant results. To search engines, loss of users means loss of search market share, resulting in lost advertising revenue. You can understand why search engines are motivated to find and punish websites that use blackhat SEO tactics.

Implementing whitehat SEO tactics is hard work which involves careful keyword research, website analysis, competitor analysis, comparison of website content to industry benchmarks, obtaining quality links from related websites. If it sounds like ethical SEO is a lot of work, it is. This is not to say that the amount of effort to implement whitehat SEO tactics is too high relative to the reward, but that caution should be used when considering short-cuts or SEO practitioners that employ them. Whitehat SEO tactics, when applied correctly, can deliver a steady stream of qualified traffic to a website for an ongoing period of time without incurring additional cost for each visitor.

In summary, when evaluating SEO practitioners, whether internal or outsourced, understand enough to ensure that Blackhat SEO tactics are not used as a shortcut to results. Evaluate tactics on the basis of whether they are designed in some way to deceive the search engines. When in doubt, great sources of additional information include the Google Webmaster Guidelines and the industry de facto SEO Code of Ethics offered to the industry and available in 19 languages.

Like two out of three Americans, eBiz ROI procurement relies on the Internet as the primary souce of local product information. Recently we found a local product search opportunity for a large, national office supply retailer. This short story starts out with the need for two large whiteboards for the eBiz ROI main office. Having a savvy procurement department and needing to procure these whiteboards fast, the procurement team went to their favorite local search engines and selecting everything from web to product to local search, but were unable to find a local (Capital District, NY- Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Troy) supplier of whiteboards using Internet search. The eBiz ROI procurement yellow pages were not available to aid in the local product search as they had all been used to prop up computer monitors to proper viewing height

Local search was perfect for the task of finding affordable whiteboards since finding a local supplier meant avoiding the prohibitive cost of shipping two large whiteboards. In fact, the shipping costs in almost all quotes received were more expensive than the purchase price of the whiteboards themselve. The only relief from the shipping cost is to buy wholesale and pick up your shipment off the back of a truck. Since eBiz ROI only needed two whiteboards for the office, wholesale purchasing was not an option.

To provide the reader some persepctive, the eBiz ROI procurement team is comprised of determined web surfers from back in the days when Archie, Gopher and FTP where the hottest things since Commadore Commuters, Atari and 1400 baud dial-up bulletin boards. They searched way beyond local product search engines including searching the three biggest search engines and then proceeding to navigate directly to the websites of several national retailers who with comprehensive websites and robust ecommerce functionality and a local brick and motar presence. Surely these large national office supply retailers, with stores serving local markets in the 100 of thousands of consumers would have large whiteboards in stock locally. For heavens sake, eBiz ROI operates in the Capital District of New York State with faily substantial population centers in – Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Troy not to mention New York State government offices.

Long story short, local product search yielded no options for the methods employed. The eBiz ROI whiteboards were purchased at a brick and mortar store of one of the national office supply retailers who has several stores in the Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Troy sales district. The whiteboards were found only during a visit to one of the physical stores. Whiteboards that were not found usling local product search. The opportunity stems for the fact that this company has a great website and tons of qualified traffic, but there is no doubt that they would move more whiteboards in their stores nationwide if they could somehow integrate that large ticket item with their website and local product search strategy.

Granted, no one, including eBiz ROI, expects there to be a run on large whiteboards in the Capital District anytime soon, but with a fresh crop of entreprenuers popping up everyday, who knows? If you are going to invest in shelf space to inventory large whiteboards which are a medium to large ticket item among your available inventory, whny not efficiently market to your thousands of loyal Internet customers searching for your products online. Sounds like there is a local product search pony in there somewhere.

Did anyone notice that there were two news stories on consumer confidence today? One headline read “US consumer confidence hits 16-month high.” This headline was driven by a ABC News consumer confidence survey based on a sample of about 1,000 interviews conducted in the four weeks ending January 3rd.

One of the measurements in the ABC News consumer confidence study is referred to as the consumer comfort index, currently at -41. While this is the highest measurement of this index in 16 months, it is still well off the 24 year average of -12. The consumer comfort index is measured on a scale of -100 to +100.

Another headline today read “Consumer confidence suffered its sharpest fall in over a year in December” coming out of Reuters London. It appears that some recently announced changes in VAT and other taxes possibly has UK consumers a bit worried or their economic future.

A few weeks back, on December 29th, the Wall Street Journal headline read “The Conference Board, a private research group, said its index of consumer confidence increased to 52.9 this month, from a revised 50.6 in November.” This seems like “directionally” good news for US consumer confidence and hence, anticipated consumer spending in 2010.

While consumer confidence and other economic indicators show signs of consumer optimism, consumers are shopping smarter ensuring that most value for every dollar spent. Since roughly two thirds of the economy is driving by consumer spending, businesses are paying close attention to these key economic indicators such as consumer confidence as they finalize their marketing plans for Q1 2010.

Recent reports for 2009 online holiday shopping, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2009 results, show consumer enthusiasm for the online buying experience.

Specific reports include:

• Black Friday 2009 – Online shoppers spent $595 million, up 11% from last year – Source: CBS News
• 96.5 million Americans plan to shop online for the 2009 holiday shopping season, up from 85 million last year, an increase of 13.5% – Source: Shop.org
• Online orders for Cyber Monday 2009 were reported by Coremetrics to be up 13.7% over Cyber Monday 2009 spending
• Cyber Monday 2009 expected to bring in more than $900M in online sales – Source: CBS News
• One in 10 or 10% of 2009 holiday purchases will be made online – Source CBS News
• Cyber Monday 2009 – 87.1% of retailers offering deals online – Source: CBS News

With the price of gas and the stress of fighting the crowds in the parking lots and stores of malls and massive shopping centers, is it any wonder that many consumers, especially if given an incentive, would seek a more positive and rewarding shopping experience online?

For a video perspective, check out the CBS News Cyber Monday Report on YouTube.

Happy Holiday shopping to all – whether online or otherwise!

I have a landing page for a $299 business website landing page that I would like to define three goals for. The first is a newletter sign up which is easy and can be triggered when user is redirect to sign up the thank your page once they submit their first name and email.

However, for my other two goals, when a user clicks sales@eBizROI.com link or when a user clicks to chat, I am limited to only being able to track the event.

From a business valuation perspective, it would be great to assign a goal value to both the email and the click to chat events which, to me, are very much a part of the sales funnel and should be trackable as goals. Does anyone have an idea on when Google will enhance Google Analytics so that users can track or link events as goals? This will be key in providing users an integrated view of campaign peformance while providing data to enable campaign managers to make decisions to increase marketing ROI.

More discussion on the topic can be found on the recent Google Analytics Help Forum – event tracking and goals thread.

When times are tough, business owners and leaders look closely at discretionary spending, scrutinizing each line item expense based on its potential to grow the business and demonstrate clear ROI (Return on Investment). As a small business owner myself, that is exactly what I do. While considered “discretionary spending” by some, marketing and advertising investments are necessary to grow any business. Internet marketing and advertising investments, whose impact can easily be tracked, enable businesses to increase marketing ROI while being able to directly correlate investments with incremental results. A business website is the central component of any Internet marketing strategy, regardless of the products and services a business sells.

The most important benefit a business website provides is visibility, including company, product and service visibility. What portion of the target market is a company and its offers visible to? If its not 100%, then there is room to grow. Imagine the opportunity cost of a company not being visible to its prospects that are actively searching on the Internet for exactly what it is that business offers. Recent studies have shown that a majority of buyers rely on Internet search as their primary source of local business information. Businesses that rely solely on the print yellow pages, classifieds and word of mouth are missing a large part of their addressable market. If a business is a services business as opposed to product business, its primary (and in many cases only) market is local. Like the saying goes, “You have to be in it to win it.” In other words, a business has to be visible as an option before it can be considered.

Since more and more businesses and individuals are now using the Internet to research products and services before buying, companies must provide online prospects with ready access to company, product and service information positioned with unique selling points. Buyers expect anytime access to this information since many companies are and have been providing it. For example, many restaurants often have websites that provide hours of operation, locations, driving or walking directions, menu content, email contact and a phone number so that those interested can email or call to make a reservation. Restaurants without business websites miss out on potential customers who are planning online.

Understanding what a company needs in a business website and how that website supports business objectives is critical. At a minimum, companies going online need a domain name relevant to their business. A company domain name becomes a pivotal part of that company’s online corporate identity. An email address with the same domain name is also very important. This provides much more credibility than using a free email account from a Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail domain. Email from these domains is often blocked by filters since much unsolicited email originates from them. All business websites should include a company background with mission and values, up to date offer information, hours of operation, contact information, and directions (if applicable). It is also important to budget for basic website promotion to ensure that the business website is visible to those searching online. Many cost effective options such as search engine optimization and pay per click advertising exist.

If the business objective is to grow revenue profitably while increasing marketing ROI, then a business website is absolutely a necessity and not an accessory. The good news is that there are a number of affordable Internet marketing solutions available. The cost varies depending on how much initial and ongoing support a specific business requires. Having a business website today does not necessarily set a company apart from its competition, but does afford increased visibility and a chance to cost effectively compete for customers online that would otherwise be forfeited.

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When it comes to picking a domain name for a business website, there are a number of criteria that can be used to measure candidates. Picking an appropriate domain name is important as the domain name is central to a company’s online identity. A deliberate and well thought out domain name can have lasting benefits for a business such as building a positive brand and generating repeat traffic. Once a domain name is registered, a business is immediately invested in that domain name since it will exist in web links that drive search engine rankings, directories that drive web traffic, included on business cards, signage and other promotional materials. This article provides the top five criteria to be applied when selecting and registering a strategic domain name for a business website.

The first criteria, which can also be viewed as a prerequisite, is to find a domain name that is available. Since domain names unambiguously identify a business online much like a phone number does offline, domain names must be unique. Many of the shorter, more desirable domain names are already in use and have a great deal of worth. These include Insurance.com, Business.com, Cooking.com and Diet.com There are lots of free tools provided by domain name registrants and web hosting companies to determine if the desired domain name is available and to suggest variations when the desired domain is already taken. It is also good practice for companies to search the online US trademark database to ensure that a potential domain name is not a registered trademark for some other business. Believe it or not, there are known instances where businesses had to surrender domain names they registered which were later discovered to violate trademarks of other companies, even though the trademark owners had not previously registered the domain name.

The second domain name selection criteria is to find a name that is related to the business name, the brand or industry. If the business has an established brand identity, then the choice of domain name should be the brand name, if available. Some of the largest ecommerce sites fall into this category, namely Amazon.com, ebay.com and craigslist.org. Their domain names are their brand names which were established over the years . However, if a business is new and does not yet have an established, widely-recognized brand identity, the domain name selected can benefit if related to the business focus. Examples of this kind of domain name include PRWeb.com, ezinearticles.com and emarketer.com, though it is unclear to the author whether these currently well-established brands were built before or after their domain names were registered. Either way, a prospective visitor can look at these domain names and get an idea of the business focus of the registered owner. Having a domain name aligned with business focus can also assist with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and increase visitors referred to the business website from search engines.

The third domain name selection criteria is based on the old adage, “less is more.” In other words, it is best to select a domain name that is as short as possible while taking into account the other selection criteria. Many suggest that ten characters or less is ideal. This can be quite a challenge with so many domain names already registered and in use over the last decade and a half. To make matters worse, many investors registered domain names for the sole purpose of markuping them and reselling them prior to their use. This practice, known as domain name parking, is based on speculation of high demand and motivated buyers for certain domain names. That said, there are still plenty of available domain names that are ten characters or less for those willing to be creative. Having a short domain name benefits the website address by reducing the number of misspellings, making it easier to remember and able to fit on business cards, stationery and signage.

The fourth domain name selection criteria is to register .com suffixes whenever possible. Most Internet users assume that commercial entities will have domain names that end in.com as opposed to .net, .biz, .tv, .us, .info, etc. Many looking for the website of a well-known company or brand will add “www.” to the company or brand name, then append “.com” to the end in attempts to navigate directly to the website of interest. Some businesses will select a popular brand or company name as their domain name “root” but register it with one a non-.com suffix since the .com domain name is already registered by the brand owner. While this approach may yield “free” traffic, conversion rates of visitors to customers will be very low as these visitors will usually abandon the website feeling misled. The same principle applies to selecting a domain name using a misspelled brand or company name.

The fifth and final domain name selection criteria is what I call “The 3Rs” – easy to Recite, Recognize and Recall. Random strings of numbers and letters make good system passwords, but horrible domain names. They are difficult to remember and nearly impossible to guess. This applies to acronyms that represent unknown brands. This is especially relevant when providing a website address to radio audiences or presentation listeners. A good domain name will enable advertisers and presenters to recite a website address to potential clients and customers who will hear and recognize the website address, then recall that address next time they are online. Domain names with word components that can be spelled in multiple ways such as “ad”, “add”, “two”, “to”, “too” should be avoided as listeners will be prone to misspell the website address when attempting to reach the business online.

Carefully selecting and registering a strategic domain name is an important step in launching an online business identity. Businesses will benefit from selecting wisely as domain names, once registered, will quickly find their way into countless materials, partner links and search engine indices that become expensive to update if changes are required. Applying these top five domain name selection criteria will enhance online identity, increase website traffic and make it easier for customers and prospects to connect with your business.

There are too many web pages available in the internet. Outshining the competition seems to be the goal of every webmaster. Advertising and marketing their site is what they have to do. Online marketing techniques are taught almost everywhere in the net these days. Some of these advertising methods are listed below.  But take note that Delta Squadron teaches the best internet marketing training.

1. SEO. Optimizing your website is one of the first things you need to do when promoting your business.  With SEO, many have already achieved success.  In this technique, pick a keyword that has good traffic.  Then, optimize your website by including the keywords in your title, h1 tags, meta description and keywords.  Sparingly use the keywords in the articles in your website. This will eventually make your website become visible to the search engines.

2. Link Building. Creating good links that point to your website will help you in your SEO efforts. This advertising method includes placing your link on as many highly ranked sites as possible. You can place these links in social networking websites, article directories, blogs and many more.

3. Marketing through Articles. This method has long term results since your articles stay in the articles directories for years. Write articles that are related to your business then add a link to your website in the bio or resource box. Use keywords in the title and throughout the article, submit it to article directories and you create a back link to your business website.

4. Form Marketing. Posting in forums help you build your credibility and persona. When posting in forums, make sure you make sense and do not look as though you are spamming. People tend to buy from people they trust. Try to answer questions and give advice about things that you are knowledgeable. If you need some help do a little research first.   You can also add a link back to your website using your forum signature.

5. Blogging. Making a blog is easy and anyone can do it. Simply look for a free blog service, sign up and write something about your business. Use keywords so your posts will be found in the search engines. Add fresh content to your blog at least once a week, preferably more, especially in the beginning.

These advertising methods are just some of the many ways to advertise your product or service. These guidelines will help you have a bigger online presence.