What's New with Internet Marketing?

Small Business Plans to Grow with Social
Small businesses are optimistic about coming out of the recession and looking to boost marketing budgets, especially online. Social media is getting the most increased attention since last year.
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 Brick and Mortar retailers moving business online as foot traffic declines - Leading companies to overhaul their traditional business models: the online retail market...READ MORE.

Interesting Facts:

The survey involved 2,000 consumers who have accessed local business information this summer. Here are some of the stats that stood out.

First place you go to look for local business info

Behavior here differs slightly based on age, but online is the first option for the three major age groups.

Age: 55 and older

    * 56% look online first
    * 41% look offline first

Age: 35 to 54

    * 69% look online first
    * 27% look offline first

Age: 18 to 34

    * 81% look online first
    * 12% look offline first

so it is interesting that even in the oldest age group - 55 and older - they still go online to look for info first...Your customers are online are YOU?

FREE Googel Places for Bussiness submissions for all my clients:

 Globe and Mail article "How Google will ruin everything" except for us:

By Omar El Akkad From Friday's Globe and Mail Published on Thursday, Apr. 29, 2010 4:44PM EDT Last updated on Friday, Apr. 30, 2010 12:30PM EDT

Advertising is one of the few industries where it’s virtually impossible to know if money spent is money well-spent. Is a Super Bowl commercial really worth $3 million? Is Tiffany & Co. a more alluring brand if its ad appears in The New York Times instead of USA Today? And what makes a good ad, anyway? These and other questions have plagued marketers for decades as they seek to refine the murky art of persuasion. Now, platoons of Google engineers are threatening to make such questions irrelevant by reframing the entire scenario: Let the consumers tell advertisers what they want. READ MORE

But how, exactly, do you find out what the consumer wants? Why, you ask them

Long Tail Search Engine Results Virses Short Tail Results

Keywords can be split into two groups, short tail keywords and long tail keywords, or broad search terms and narrow search terms. A long tail keyword is something like "Local Internet Marketing in Victoria, BC"  while a short tail keyword example would be "Internet Marketing"

When you compare the two keywords, "Internet Marketing" has about 20 times more competitors as Local Internet Marketing in Victoria, BC. However; Internet Marketing may get searched for more often. In my opinion it is better to be more specific with your search results this will result in better Google and MSN ranking. You may get less traffic but it will be good qualified traffic.