How can the Internet help the Small Business Owner?

Small business excels at relationships. I am convinced relationships not innovation drives revenues for small business owners. The Internet will extend this relationship and permit small business to accelerate in the next 5 years. You say prove it – I will show you why?

1) The Internet has transformed the customer experience. Customers are now in charge and small business owners excel with the customer relationship.

2) Jeff Jarvis says ‘the mass market is dead, its been replaced buy the mass of niches. Small is the new big.” Small business is about the the niches not the masses.

3) Google has dominated business in the past few years. They have created an open network and infrastructure, brought democracy to business. Small business has a chance to do well provided the entrepreneur is focused and uses these channels to network with collegues, clients and partners.

4) Social Marketing has promoted relationships virally over this new and powerful network. Since small business does well with connecting, social marketing will accelerate the reach of small business provided they have carved out a viable niche. A carefully selected set of Social Network services will spawn a significant increase in networking and relationships not even dreamed of 20 years ago.

5) Jeff Jarvis talks about the rhetoric of corporate value: “Companies own customers, control distribution, make exclusive deals, lock out competitors and keep trade secrets. The Internet abhors centralization. It loves sea level and tears down barriers to entry. It despises secrecy and rewards openness. It favors collaboration over ownership.” Small business can take advantage of vast networks such as Amazon.com or LinkedIn to leverage their products.

The small business owner can effectively reach a new audience, talk to a customer in India, work with human capital in Southern California, license software in Toronto, connect with Google’s API’s in Washington, use open source tools developed world-wide and train on how to use Photoshop on YouTube. The only barrier is knowledge and even this barrier has been taken down by the internet. Just use it and apply!

Content is changing the advertising game

Advertising is changing. Marketing is Changing.

Content is becoming increasingly valuable. Nothing is better than real live data. I posted a simple presentation under SlideShare.net/tmischuk on Social Media. Within 1 week the presentation had over 1,000 viewers. I opened up our Google Analytics account for WhiteCloud Marketing – we had 700 or so unique visitors in the last month. Not bad for a small business but certainly not even close the presentation on Slideshare. In addition, as a marketing vehicle people were embedding the presentation on websites and blogs spiraling viral growth.

Advertising will always work. What is changing is how ‘good’ advertising works. What is over is ‘poor’ advertising. With all the metrics available today – how can a company continue to make poor choices. Consumers and business have unlimited choices in their advertising and they are subsequently choosing good content. They are tuning out the ads interrupting them from reaching the content they want to consume. We need to remember online advertising just started 10 years ago and is now a $25B business.

Today advertising is moving towards education. Providing the consumer and business with information helping them make the best choice, creating awareness, effectively building your brand and establishing trust.

Content creators, respect their readers, are transparent, add a personal flavor and create content that is embedded, ‘faved’ and so on the viral world of Social Media Marketing. The effect of good content rips up the organic search results, its highly trusted, free, but earned form of advertising in today’s marketing mix (not to mention organic ads are read more than paid ads).

Innovative content and presentation is providing marketers with opportunities to develop both brand and lead generation. Good content creates awareness, driving traffic to their site and supporting profits for their services and products. Great content can no longer be ignored. Content is changing the advertising game.

Is Social Marketing a Waste for Time for a Small Business?

Social Media Marketing has grown substantially since its inception with Classmates.com in 1995. According to Wikipedia SMM is ‘information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies that is intended to facilitate communications, influence and interaction with peers and with public audiences, typically via the Internet and mobile communications networks. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.’

Marketing, Lead Generation and Brand Development has never been more important for Small Business. Social Media provides a window for SMB’s to gain significant market share online.

Small business owners said:

“ I post on blogs and BBS because I can express myself to millions of people at once.”

” I like the rush, and I feel empowered.“ I believe the bloggers and their ideas. They are my friends and will tell me the truth, unlike ” advertisements.”

The reality is Social Marketing does empower the Small Business. It permits a Small Business to express their brand and market services provided the information supplied is creative and thoughtfully presented.  Your information can be more believable and attract thousands if not millions of  viewers. Social marketing web properties usually rank in the top 100 on major search engines. By leveraging their strength small business can ‘piggy-back’ on the Social site supporting high organic links and visibility. I would suggest that by developing an effective strategy a business can achieve higher visibility with Social sites then with Pay per Click (PPC) and SEO combined. Why? The viral component just does not come into effect with PPC. A strong anchor site with imbeds from various other sites will cause viewers to ‘fav’, digg, imbed, link, tag and RSS the content. Over several months you will see increased traffic to information relating to your services.

Do not:
a) Blatantly advertise your product
b) Stuff logos and links everywhere
c) Do not copy work, writings from other people. If you are referencing research then reference correctly.

Do:
a) Write creatively
b) Mash and embed all relevant material including other works
c) Keep information to a small digestible size
d) Strategically cross-link

Effective Social Maketing Sites for SMB’s:

1) YouTube.com Video Sharing
2) SlideShare.net Slide Sharing
3) WordPress.com Bblogging
4) digg.com Bookmarking
5) Twitter.com Short Blogging
6) Facebook.com Personal Networking
7) Linkedin.com B2B Networking
pixel2life.com Graphic Design
9) sphinn.com/ Internet Marketing
10) activerain.com Real Estate

Source for Quotes: http://china.seekingalpha.com/article/30979

Survey: SMB slow on Web 2.0, High on Internet Search

 

According to Bedin Business Information Inc., Small Medium Business is taking a slow approach to the adoption of Web 2.0.

Only 14% expect that blogs will be very or extremely important, with similar ratings coming in for wikis (21%), social networking sites (22%) and webcasts (31%). At the same time, more traditional methods of delivering resource information ranked high, with 49% rating email newsletters as very or extremely valuable over the next five years, and 46% giving that ranking to interactive tools such as quizzes or calculators.39% of marketers rated blogs as very/extremely valuable over the next five years 14% for SMBs), and 67% rated webcasts as very/highly valuable 36% for SMBs. 

This indicates a slow start but indicates a huge potential for growth once they become ‘aware’ of their importance.”SMBs are telling their vendors it is the message, not the medium, that matters,” said BBI CEO Stu Richards. “It is not surprising that SMBs have not yet warmed to Web 2.0 – they are typically not early adopters. While these formats offer tremendous potential to enhance relationships with SMBs, the challenge for marketers to use these methods effectively is to provide SMBs with relevant, actionable and easy-to-access information and advice.

Key findings from BBI’s report on SMBs and Web 2.0:

•	SMBs don’t yet see the value of many Web 2.0 tools. When asked why they don’t use blogs, 57% said they don’t see the value, and 54% don’t see the value of social networking sites.
•	Regardless of the information format, SMBs most commonly look for information on accounting and finance (63%), technology/software (50%) and industry trends (46%). The least-sought topics were international business (20%), entrepreneurship/innovation (30%) and law (32%).
•	SMBs look to their vendors first for tools and information to help run their businesses. Thirty-one percent said they would be very likely to seek this information from their vendors’ websites, as opposed to the sites of trade associations (20%), government/non-profits (18%), colleges/universities (15%) and the media (13%).
•	Nearly half of SMBs (48%) begin their search for business help on a search engine. Thirty-three percent go to sites they know have good resources, and 19% go straight to the sites of their current vendors.

Have you ever tried to use Internet Marketing tools such as Google Adwords?

(polls)

Google Unlocked; Inbound Links

Inbound links are links from websites on external websites linking back to your site.These links bring new users to your site when they bring value and are part of the editorial decision. Other key elements include analysis of your site’s content, its relevance to a location, value of title heads, Keywords etc. Relevant, quality inbound links can affect your PageRank. These links often come easily to websites with excellent and relevant site content, product or services.

Ranking Factors

As an example, you may have a site, http://floridatwrental.com, that offers surfers a variety of SouthWest Florida condo rentals. The following site http://floridarentals.wordpress.com/ offer users reviews of on people staying at the White Cap Condos. Another link from Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ has over 100 members who have joined with interest in the Ft. Myers Beach Accommodations. Overall, one of the strongest ranking factors is the site’s content. In addition the site is also linked from three sources, one inbound link is from a spam site. As far as Google is concerned, they want only the two quality inbound links to contribute to the PageRank signal in our ranking. 

Google reviews over 200 elements ( the analysis of the site’s content and inbound links as mentioned is one key element) are applied to return the most relevant results to the surfer.

Practical Steps

1) Start a blog, passionately write about an area of interest to you.

2) Teach readers things that are new, links you have found and interesting things about your business they may not know. For example; Should I use sodium in my water softener?

3) Spotlight your search term on the page. “Think about what people are going to type in to try and find you,” Cutts of the USA Today says. He tells of meeting a chiropractor from San Diego who complained that his site couldn’t be found easily using Google search. The words “San Diego chiropractor” were listed nowhere on his site. 

4) Fill in your tags. Title tags and descriptions tags are important, In addition add key words to the H1, H2 and H3 Tags.

5) Ask other friendly sites to link back to you. It helps build the family of links. There is once customer who set up a reciprocal link and over 50 clicks came through in the first month.

6) Register with Google on their Local Business Center site. It helps promote your efforts locally and is especially helpful for those using iPhones and Blackberries using the search map feature looking for local services and products.

For rore information on inbound links.

Canadian SMB Business Outlook

The Canadian economy saw an impressive growth of 33,000 new SMB firms in 2007. Over the coming 5 Years the average annual growth in Small and Medium Sized Businesses will exceed 2%, leading to the creation of 260,000 business in Canada by the Year 2013. Although a slowdown is expected, The CIBC Worldmarkets Small Business Report published in 2008 indicated that in comparison to the overall economy the SMB sector outperformed.

The Canadian manufacturing  sector is in recession but reviewing the employment situation reveals an impressive story of 90,000 new jobs created in the first 8 months of 2008. The SMB sector with 100 employees or less created 39% of all new jobs, higher than the 28% a year earlier.

One of the keys cited in the CIBC report is SMB’s are well suited to adapt to consumer and market changes than larger businesses, giving them the ability to focus on niche markets and succeed in providing goods and services.

From a marketing perspective there is increasing opportunity in this sector. Demand for marketing services will increase. Not all marketing services but the services which; a) generate a quick measurable return, b) are cost effective, i.e. internet marketing and direct marketing vs. TV and Radio c) deliver results within one month. SMB’s companies are careful with costs and expenditures and as a rule did not spend on marketing. Today they have become much more sophisticated and are increasingly using sophisticated web tools to power their business and target prospects.

CIBC sites technology adoption and connectivity is driver producing accelerated growth.Small firms reporting a high level of web connectivity saw their revenues rise twice as fast as those with little or no web connectivity. Increased connectivity improves and strengthens customer relationships, enhances deivery of value proposition and builds company brand. Only 38% of small firms in Canada have a website and 7% use the internet as a serious tool (I am surprised how low this is, lots of room to grow).

Pay Per Click and Selling Products and Services

Over the last few years generating leads for clients I have recognized three key trends relating to the Pay Per Click form of Internet marketing (i.e. Google Adwords).There is a psychology connected to how people respond to online advertising.

Deals and Sales
People are attracted to deals or sales. Potential clients respond to your ad over others because there is an attractive offer. This can be a free trial, free download, first 25 free or some similar offer compelling a potential buyer to click through. Once the client clicks through the landing page, the offer should be short and to the point. A key is to have the client register  – and to an email list to send additional future offers.

Brands
Online brands have proven to sell and have greater conversion rate than a little known brand. If your brand can associate with a more sginificant brand do it. The brand may ask for for a royalty as part of the partnership but you will notice a definite increase in click throughs and conversions with the brand. If you are selling a branded product – send them directly to the shopping site. The customer wants to buy – they have clicked and interested – get the them to the buy screen as quickly as you can.

Selling Services
Selling services online can generate many leads if done effectively. In a previous company that I have since sold – all the leads were generated through Pay Per Click and the sales team did little if any cold calling. Setting up effective Landing Pages with a clear call to action and ability to register for a free demo, webinar or white paper worked well. Even thogh the bounce rate was high those registering where leads we wanted and followed up on.

Stay focused, track results and do no give up. An effective online lead generation program will work for your company.

Google WebMaster Tools

Google has redefined Search Engine Optimization with a set of webmaster tools which will help your company or orgranization achieve acheive outstanding reports what issues prevent your website from ranking higher organically.

Google has provided excellent tools to support updating and managing SEO on your existing site. A site’s position in Google’s search results are based on a number of factors to provide end-users with accurate search results.
Sites’ positions in our search results are determined based on a number of factors designed to provide end-users with helpful, accurate search results. These factors are explained in more detail at http://www.google.com/technology/index.html.
The Google Webmaster tool does an excellent job in itemizing when a) Googlebot last accessed your page and b) which site maps are included in Google’s index. Additional Google provides a comprehensive diagnostics tests to determine a) meta description issues, b) title tag discreptancies such as missing and duplicate title tags and even information on mobile crawl and web crawl issues.
One of the most powerful aspects of the tool is a list of keywords the Googlebot has indentified on the site. See image below.
 

Other excellent resources include:

Analyze robots.txt
See whether your robots.txt file blocks specific URLs as is, or with modifications you make. Test against various Google user-agents, too.

Generate robots.txt
Interactively create a robots.txt file to indicate which robots you don’t want crawling your site, and which files or directories you don’t want crawled.

Set geographic target
Associate a particular geographic location with this site if you are targeting users within that area.

Enhanced image search
Enable Google’s enhanced search for images on your site, including advanced labeling techniques for images hosted by Google.

Manage site verification
See all verified owners of this site, and optionally reverify them.

Set crawl rate
See statistics about how often Google crawls your site, and optionally adjust that speed if desired.

Set preferred domain
Associate a preferred domain with this site, to always or never show the leading “www.” in Google’s search results.

Remove URLs
Remove content from the Google index, including expediting that removal.

This toolset is invaluable to support SEO within your company and managing related information to provide Search Engine Optimization within hyour company. For a tour of the full features visit Google WebMaster Tools.

Effective Landing Page Headlines

After refining your keywords, changing bids and updated text ads you still see a bounce rate of 90% or greater. The bounce rate means people are coming to your storefront (Landing Page) and 90% decided to leave – the site was not for them. A simple way to attract a web user in the short 5-8 seconds they have is the headline  – its the one thing people will read. Here are three simple tips.

1) Include your paid keywords headline.

This assures and confirms to users they have hit the right page and you are deliverying on the services and prodcuts they are looking for. 

2) Deliver a headline with a strong valuable proposition. No ads.

Ensure the headline delivers the value proposition your customers are looking for. Don’t think about what you are trying to sell. Think about what your customer is looking for, what problem they are trying to solve. Customers are aware of tacky ads and are looking for a service or product that will help them solve a real problem. For example change ‘All natural skin cream remedy aging skin’ to ‘All natural skin cream smoothes skin, lessens deep lines and moisturizes for a youthful look’ Highlight information no ads.

3) Subheads support the headline message.

The subhead is the next most readily accessed information on the page. Again the the subhead supports the value proposition. For example change ‘All natural skin remedy for aging skin’ A proven soution for over 10 years, to  ‘All natural skin cream smoothes skin, lessens deep lines and moisturizes for a youthful look’ See the reviews from Hello Magazine, Chatelaine, Flaire and Canadian Living. This supports a strong value proposition with supporting reviews from reputable magazines who have reviewed the product.

Quality Free Web Templates

I found a site which has some excellent quality free web templates that can be used to edit in Dreamweaver, Contribute or other html editing software. Most of the template are licensed under an Open Source agreement called the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. The 45 free templates are some are truly dazzling is located at http://dzineblog.com. Have fun and enjoy.