Internet marketing

This is an online survey of businesses with 1-50 employees in which we ask them about their attitudes and use of internet marketing, mobile marketing and marketing services. We ran the survey in conjunction with ChamberofCommerce.com, and we received 736 complete survey responses. Ninety-five (95%) of respondents are located in North America (92% U.S.; 3% Canada), primarily because this is where our marketing of the survey was focused. The following charts represent some of the key findings of the survey. The full survey results and charts can be viewed on BrightLocal. Q: How Much Money Do You Allocate To Marketing Your Business Each Month? 70% are spending less than $500 on marketing per month (vs. 73% in 2013) 83% are spending less than $1,000 on marketing per month (vs. 85% in 2013) Just 16% are spending more than $1,000 on marketing per month (vs. 21% in 2013) There has been little change in the distribution of marketing spend since 2013. The majority of SMBs continue to spend … [Read more...] about 75% Of Small & Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs) Say Internet Marketing Is Effective

In many ways, taking charge of your search engine results page is like answering the age-old philosophical question, “Who am I” — but for your business. You may still be in the dark about what motivates some of your personal actions, but if you’re a business owner, I’m pretty certain you know exactly what your business is all about. That’s the first step. Now you need to translate that into Google results. Sound easy? Didn’t think so. It’s a bit like trying to reel in Nessy with a Pocket Fisherman. But all hope is not lost. You can – and should — take ownership of your SERP (Search Engine Results Page), and there are more ways than ever to do just that. Integrated search has been a thorny issue for marketers since it came out, and the issue is only getting pricklier. Local maps, the Knowledge Graph, one-boxes scraped from Wikipedia, and the various tools Google provides based on user searches have combined with … [Read more...] about The Holy Grail Of Internet Marketing: Owning The Whole SERP

In a recent Forbes article, the popular SEO is Dead / Death of SEO topic took center stage. The article highlighted how questionable SEO tactics (particularly for link building) will no longer be valid. Marketers need to focus on creating truly great content, which in turn earns the right to be shared and searched for. The problem with the article’s hypothesis was that it was based on an assumption that SEO tactics only use shortcuts for success. My perspective is that SEO is more than a series of shortcuts, but an evolving Internet marketing discipline. Regardless of what perspective you hold, one thing is true: B2B SEO requires greater integration with multiple marketing specialties. This is particularly true when working with larger organizations. If you are responsible for SEO in your organization and hearing the chatter about its death, it is critical to understand the concepts and priorities various marketing teams hold important. Talk their talk. Here are five concepts … [Read more...] about Concepts Every B2B SEO Needs To Know In Today’s Internet Marketing Environment

Did you know there is a significant difference between the meanings of the words “global” and “international”? “Global” is frankly often the front end of a steamroller which crushes all before it in a form of harmonisation or centralization process. “International” on the other hand, at least for me, tends to imply more respect for other cultures and identities and working with them and alongside them. They both, however, suffer from the same weakness as do their users; they both look at the world at a “country” level which for many international marketers is job done — no need to dig any deeper. Unfortunately, life isn’t really like that. There are nations which are highly centralized, such as the US, UK or France — and then there are those which are not — in fact, most countries. The US, UK or France are actually much more diverse than my initial statement implies. (It used to be a joke of mine when … [Read more...] about Dealing With Regional Dialects & Languages In Global Internet Marketing

Having outstanding content is crucial in a good social media campaign, but many times the overall framework around the campaign can make or break your initiatives. Not only do you want to make sure that your campaign is overwhelmingly successful, but that you can track all of the metrics of this success. Content related items Thoroughly check your hosting – Make sure that your hosting can withstand a flurry of traffic – that can many times cripple a server. Contact your hosting provider and see if they could handle 25,000 visits in a 5 minute span. Many people think they are going to do alright, but end up crashing during primetime, wasting all their work. Doublecheck your content – Many times, even with excellent bandwidth and a reliable host, webmasters can shoot themselves in the foot in their execution of the content. Say you have 100 images to accompany a top 100 list and they all measure about 40kb an image. Your host’s processor might have the allotted … [Read more...] about The Social Media Promotion Checklist For Internet Marketers