As online marketing and advertising begin to outstrip traditional advertising media - TV, radio and print -  as the medium that will drive customers to their office or storefront (whether that is a digital online office or storefront on a company’s web page, or the old-fashioned ‘bricks-and-mortar’ variety) businesses, large and small, are grappling with how to advertise and market their products and services online and what is the most effective way to do this. 

David Wei, CEO for Alibaba.com, a leading website providing business-to-business (or B2B) networking and connectivity, has observed that, “Going global has never been easier and more affordable for a small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME), especially from the relative comfort of one’s own factory, shop or home office.”  

Mr. Wei notes that, the “Internet has ushered in new tools to bring trading partners together using search engines, portals and online marketplaces.”  Mr. Wei notes that online marketing and B2B marketplaces like Alibaba.com are replacing traditional marketing venues like  trade shows, catalogues and trade associations, just as internet advertising is gradually replacing traditional print, TV and radio as source for advertising placements.

 Importantly, Alibaba.com’s CEO, points out the choice that all businesses, particularly small-to-medium sized enterprises (or SMEs), must face when taking their advertising and marketing campaigns online, or starting up a fresh marketing campaign, is whether to channel time, money and effort into paid advertising and marketing (the banner ads, and pay-per-click sponsored ads on Googl or Yahoo! etc.), or whether to invest those resources in organic marketing.

Pay-per-click has its place and a company can bid and pay for advertising spots, just like it would do for TV and other old media ads, but pay-per-click has its limitations.   “A search engine is more consumer-traffic driven with no budget guarantee,” Mr. Wei suggests, “so costs can accumulate without any reasonable assurance of sales. There is also a serious global issue of click fraud, whereby competitors click repeatedly to increase your pay-per-click advertising costs.”  ”At this time,” Mr. Wei says, “there is no known solution that can eliminate 100% of click fraud.”  With pay-per-click it can thus become difficult to know that you are paying for what you get.

The alternative to pay-per-click is to market and advertise online using the internet’s organic search capabilities to get your products and services noticed and ranked at the top of the search engines’ results page. There is nothing like having your site appear “above-the-fold”, so to speak, on the Google results page for the key words that describe your business to drive sales. While this is not “paid advertising” per se, there are definite costs in terms of the aforementioned resources of “time, money and effort” that an SME will need to expend building an effective online marketing campaign organically.

Mr Wei’s advice for small-to-medium sized enterprises is, that “it is best to have someone in-house with keyword marketing expertise. Otherwise, you should consider using marketing firms which have a proven success rate of getting companies to rank higher in search results.”

Sound advice. But even if an SME tries to build an in-house capability for online marketing, how can the business influencer or decision-maker be assured that the person they are looking to hire has the search engine optimization expertise to successfully orchestrate a full online marketing campagn, particularly if one’s marketing mix is to use both pay-per-click and organic search engine optimization? The answer may be to test the online marketing waters first and take your online marketing and online advertising campaigns to a company whose search engine optimization specialists have organic and pay-per-click experience.

Reading the marketing and advertising trade journal Advertising Age, I was struck by how the comments made by AdAge’s Guest Columnist, Beau Fraser, the managing director of ad firm Gate Worldwide, which were directed at big clients and the advertising and marketing mega-firms and boutiques that serve them apply in some ways to small businesses and their online marketing people. The piece is a bit of rant, really . . . and maybe justifiably so, but I know next-to-nothing of the Madison Avenue-world of advertising. What Mr. Fraser says about advertising at its best, however, - “Advertising provokes thought, differentiates commodity products and helps consumers make better-informed decisions.” - rings true for the product and client services produced by the search engine optimization and online marketing specialists I work for.

Mr. Fraser’s guest column suggesta there are four points that will help big clients allow their big-firm advertising shops serve their maketing interests better. (If any of my bosses’ clients happen to read this, these comments are not directed at you - so don’t take offense. Nor do I think Beau Fraser intended offense for anyone, merely hard-won constructive criticism, all in the name of putting out a better product, and creating a more invigorated climate for both client and ad agency.)

Here are Mr. Fraser’s points transposed, I suppose, with a view to how working with small business SEO amd online marketing specialists can boost the profile, revenue and productivity of small, mid-size and growing businesses lthat rely increasingly on the cyber-traffic to their web pages as well asthe foot-traffic past their storefronts:

1. Avoid treating online marketing “as a pit stop, not as a profession”. - I’m new to this on-line marketing business, formerly having been a lawyer. Yet, even with the staggering amount of reading that was necessary in that racket (yes, racket!) to keep abreast of not only my area of specialization, but the state of the law in general, I am blown away by the amount of information my bosses have to absorb in order to keep abreast with and tap into the best practices in this ever-evolving field. When undertaking online marketing oneself, or when working with your consultants or contractors, I think its essential to treat a business’ online storefront as every bit as important as a retail storefront. Its gotta be clean, persuasive, inviting and intriguing to attract digital foot-traffic and keep them around long enough so you can make your sales pitch and let the person who found your site decide they want the products or services you are offering, Cleaning up a derelict storefront, opening up a new neighbourhood boutique or creating an online presence takes time and effort. Time in the pits optimizing the appearance and efficiency of your site is not time that is spent off the race track where you are competing for positioning and sales. Nobody is going to lap you while you clean up your digital storefront. Quite the contrary.
2. Do Not “Lack Courage” - Change is, or always can be, intimidating - and the pace of change in online marketing is blistering . . . and increasing. (See point 1, above, regarding how much time my bosses have to spend keeping abreast of online technology’s ever-burgeoning possibilities.) Mr. Fraser makes the valid point that clients can have a tendency to “make decisions based on sacred cows, those rules, standards or formulas that are blindly followed because ‘that’s the way its always been done.” Trust in the ‘pros from Dover’ you’ve hired to help you enter the online marketing stream and foster the ’stick-to-it-iveness’ to wait for organic, growing results, some of which may have what is referred to as a long-tail. While there are plenty of fly-by-night SEO operators who can deliver a quick boost to the top of Google’s rankings through quick-fix, questionable means, ranking consistently on the top pages of the search engines requires both short and longer-term efforts to build the web site configurations, content and connectivity. And some of these efforts may seem counterintuitive to how a ‘bricks-and-mortar’ storefront builds traffic and generates sales revenue. It takes courage to take the leap and perseverance to see past the quick fix to the end of the long-tail results.
3. “Get Aligned” with Your SEO Team - To produce optimal results in the search engine optimization game, there has to be a mutuality of interest, where client and provider share the mutual goal of creating a digital footprint that will stand out. Trusting in each other, and having a shared goal and belief in the process, product and progress of results is essential.
4. Make Sure ‘Decision Makers’ are In Touch - For the quick response to changing markets and marketing conditions its critical that a small business’ ultimate decision-makers on matters of site performance, optimization and functionality are in touch with the vision and plan of the SEO, online marketing ‘decision maker’ who is handling your work. In fast-changing times, fast action is most often called for. You don’t want to be sidelined, or have your site sidelined, while waiting for site changes and functions to be approved and then revised pages uploaded through your host server. As technologies emerge evermore quickly and evolve evermore rapidly with new online, internet marketing tools being deployed on a daily or near daily basis, and with emerging new paradigms in business-to-business and business-to-client communications, not only a shared vision but also a fast-action client/marketer response is required.

If you are just entering the online stream, so to speak, don’t hesitate to get your feet wet. Take it from a ‘newbie’ - it’s invigorating. But get with experienced, knowledgable and adaptive specialists who will not only be able tooptimize your site, but will be able to keep you abreast of online marketing developments and the latest internet marketing and search engine optimization techniques as they emerge, whatever these may be this week - or . . . more importantly . . . next week.

May 12, 2008 - Internet marketing sites are “a-Twitter” - forgive the pun - with talk of recent moves by Facebook, MySpace, and now Google, that will enable small business websites to tap into the potential for online marketing through the social networking media. Online marketing advantages that were formerly enjoyed by only the largest of sites with reams of resources and technical expertise are poised to become features that savvy small businesses, growth companies and mid-size players can easily tap into.

Today, Google announced it is rolling out a new Google FriendConnect feature that will easily allow small business web sites to let their clients and customers interact right on their web site without ever leaving their page. According to David Glazer, Google’s Director of Engineering, “Many sites aren’t explicitly social and don’t necessarily want to be social networks, but they still benefit from letting their visitors interact with each other.”

The potential for small business marketing online through building customer loyalty, brand marketing and driving revenue is fantastic. Imagine the potential for a local wedding planner to enable bride, groom, families and friends to interact online, sharing their ideas with each other to maximize what they would like to experience at an upcoming wedding -and being able to purchase the products and services online, onsite to realize those ideas - all without leaving the planners site. As potential customers interact in brainstorming ideas for one upcoming wedding, they will be able to invite their family and friends onto the site to discuss and get feedback on their own upcoming events. Fantastic ‘long-tail’ prospects await entrepeneurial small businesses that tap into the emerging new technical capabilities Google, Yahoo!, Facebook etc. are letting the little guy into!

Google will preview its new features s that will allow them to make the Web 2.0 world of “any app, any site, any friends” a reality for website owners at its Campfire One, Googleplex.

My new boss is now officially as jaded as the lawyer I used to be. . . . On my way out yesterday, I poked my head in his office and asked him to look over an article I’d posted on eZine.com for a client, to see if I’d gotten the right mix of keywords – not too many, not too few – in the article’s content. He opened the article and looked up at me with “You’ve got to be kidding me!” written all over him. “To be honest,” he said, “I look at this and all I see is blah, blah, blah . . . link!” “Wow,” jaded, I thought. The article, its content and length was more than he was used to seeing in SEO land, apparently.

And that seems to be the critical balance in SEO copywriting. Yes, we all want to get content up there on the web that has the all-important incoming link to our site, but how to best achieve this while getting the double-boost of attracting readers to the site, blog or social media space you are writing for? After all, in the short-term link building gets the page ranking boost you and/or your clients are looking for – but it’s short-lived. I think my bosses and I agree, and we wouldn’t be the only ones in the industry, that social media marketing – MySpace, Facebook, del.icio.us, dig etc. – is the next wave to ride. But how best to ride it and turn it into a strategy that pays for itself and for our clients? After all, almost by definition users on social media sites - perhaps with the exception of the SEO-types I now rub shoulders with, but I know( or at least hope), that they too tap into what is out there on the internet for fun and frolic) – do not want to be bothered with in your face, blatant marketing content. What’s a poor hack to do?

I think the answer must lie with almost the very first thing I heard about SEO when I first interviewed for this gig. “Content is King!” With Google still trying to figure out how to monetize its social marketing phenomenon - YouTube, all of us seem to be focusing on how we can utilize social marketing media to boost the page ranking on the search engines. What we seem to forget, as I see it as an admitted SEO newbie, is that the blogs like this that we publish are already social media. Readers come to them not only for the information that they want, but to be informed by it. That’s communication, an inherent social medium.

As I write articles for the directories, content for web pages and blog blurbs like this one, I try to keep in mind that their is an end user out there who will, I hope (Are you out there?) read what it is I am writing and feel motivated to take some action as a result . . . post a comment, link to the site, return to see what is new in a week or two’s time, link to my client’s site. That is how the internet grew, and I feel that all of us in SEO should bear that in mind while we’re trying to make a buck or two for ourselves and our clients.

Google faces a great challenge in figuring out how to turn a buck, or bigger buck, on YouTube. Google CEO, Eric Schmidt was candid about that during his recent interview on CNBC. Ultimately, however, if you want to put readers eyes in front of the advertising, products or services you are marketing on line, whether for clients or through affiliate marketing, you’d best be assuring that the product that is going to capture their eye is also going to capture their imagination. Down in the caverns of Google Labs and Google Research, I’m sure they have this uppermost in mind. Good thing they have the cash to back up the imaginative ways they will undoubtedly come up with for marketing their products, ads and services through YouTube, which is becoming greater asset for them every day, if they can only figure out how to capitalize on its social marketing potential. I for one will be keeping an eye on how that plays out how to do the same on a smaller scale in the social marketing milieu the rest of us small fry swim in.

Stephane Malhomme’s recent article in the Financial Post’s “Small Business” section (April 21, 2008) regarding search engine optimization and how to get your small business website to the top of Google’s search results page was interesting and topical, yet did not fully cover the whole SEO story. The techniques that were discussed by SEO’ster Justin Cook in the article are known in the search engine optimization (SEO) field as “keyword stuffing”. This is the practice of placing key words that describe the product or service you are offering as many times, and in as many places as possible, in your web page’s hidden html code as possible.

While Mr. Cook, of Convurgency.com, is technically correct in that keyword stuffing can have the effect of quickly bumping your website from page twenty to page one of Google’s search result rankings, it will not keep it there. Moreover, Google and the other search engines are more than overly familiar with this outdated SEO technique. The practice can, in fact, have the opposite of the intended effect. Once Google, Yahoo! or MSN analyzes your website’s html code and sees that it is keyword stuffed - and they will - the page will in effect be punished for the practice and will drop off the search engine’s radar screen - perhaps altogether, depending upon how blatantly the practice is abused.

Search engines are designed, and continually updated, to ensure that the results that are most relevant to the end user searching for information are displayed first. Google’s entire business model is premised on this, and they jealously guard against entrepeneurial types that seek to ‘game the system’ utilizing technical shortcuts that are irrelevant to the end consumer, such as keyword stuffing. If they didn’t, users would obtain better, more relevant search results using a different search engine! Consumers would vote with their feet - or in this case their fingertips - and Google’s market share would tank.

In both SEO and search engine marketing (SEM), the maxim is “Content is King.” While it is important to ensure that the relevant key words are in the right places on your website - and in the right amount, and no more - it is more important to provide quality information - content that is both relevant and interesting for the end user (i.e., the person typing in his or her search query). It is important to include the relevant key words when adding content in the form of articles, pages and blog entries to your web page, but not to overdo it. Every person who links to your site as a “favourite” is worth more than all your efforts optimizing your website

When a small businessperson is seeking advice on SEO or SEM - whether hiring a professional to undertake that function, or in looking for courses to learn how to perform those functions oneself - caveat emptor still applies: Buyer Beware! If the person selling you SEO services or advice is talking about a quick, one-time fix brought about by a tweak to your webpage and is not telling you that the best results are achieved by continually adding new and relevant information for visitors to your site, shop around.

Media Daily reports that online advertising will grow 3.7% during 2008. The main catalysts are the Olympics and the US elections.

Internet spending will account for 10% of global media investment with a growth rate of 28%. Search is the largest component of internet advertising with 60% share and continuing to grow.

Learn about search engine optimization and pay per-click advertising, major tactics in online advertising.

Read the Media Daily article at http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=75176

A New York Times article by David Kaplan indicates that streaming ads that show up before , after and during web programming are disruptive.

Read more of David’s article at http://www.nytimes.com/paidcontent/PCORG_318930.html

More and more, these types of ads are turning people off. The only time people want to see an advertisement is when they need to! That is the beauty of search engine marketing and for that matter, yellow pages advertising.

Check out our yellow pages articles for more info on small business marketing.

2008 is going to be a a massive year for small business marketing online.

Stay tuned to the new Wolf21 blog for up to date information on critical issues for your business, including yellow pages advertising, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising and lead generation.

AT&T ’s YellowPages.com is now offering online yellow pages video advertising. Superpages.com has been offering the product for about 5 years now but it hasn’t seemed to catch on. I watched a flower shop video on SuperPages. It was very professional and brought a feeling of trust along with it.

Still, how many people will take the time to watch a video of a flowershop and how many of those will actually make a purchase? When I buy flowers, I am looking for speed and price, simple as that.

Google is following the Yellow Page road by soliciting “Business Referral Representatives”, in an effort to put feet on the ground in the local business marketing sector.

At $10.00 for each approved referral, Google won’t be on the same playing field a Yellow Page Publishers who can afford to be enourmous fees of 30-50% to their sales reps for renewal or new customers. But it is a start and sure to get the attention of Idearc and AT&T.

Print Yellow Pages advertising is still the choice for a majority of small businesses mainly due to the relationships built up ovr time with local yellow page sales reps.