Sierra Web Marketing Blog

Basic Small Business Website Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:22:00 +0000

Measuring success is easier than you think.

The Secret Is Out; As Many As You Can Find

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 03:01:00 +0000

Building web references.
I do this already but now the crowd has caught up!

Nice article.

New Post, Yes I have Been Negligent Here

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:29:00 +0000

Relying On Print Yellow Pages? Most Local Customers Turn To The Web!

This post by Greg Sterling tells the entire story.

SEO, SEM, SMO & Baseball?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:12:00 +0000

Marketing Pilgrim Andy Beal offers a smart baseball analogy to the SEM game.

Local, Targeted Ads, Are You Ready?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:49:00 +0000

DID YOU KNOW?

The Kelsey Group forecasts that $5 billion of locally targeted, small-business advertising will move online by 2009--

Is your business being left behind?

Search Engine Land points us to a recent study on Yellow Pages usage statistics.

When Someone Bids Your Business Name

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:34:00 +0000

Someone bidding on your name or trademark? SEOptimise covers the issue in this article as it pertains to major brands in the UK.

The subject is timely as it pertains to my local clients and what I see occurring in the local space in general.

Talk to any small business owner and watch their reaction when they see or hear a competitor is bidding on their name or business. Someone like Sony or Apple can send a legal team to Google's door to fight back retailers from bidding on their products. A local plumber, roofer or glass repair business doesn't have the resources or know where to start.

Google offers this page for a general discussion on trademark abuse. Basically the business owner is urged to take direct action on the infringing party.

"...the advertisers themselves are responsible for the keywords and ad content that they choose to use. Accordingly, we encourage trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with the advertisers, particularly because the advertisers may have similar advertisements on other sites."

So they advise the offended to talk to the offender. This is a touchy area. If your competitor has the brass to advertise using your personal or business name, effectively stealing your business, you are not in the greatest mood when you pick up the phone.

Who needs this headache?

What happens if the offending party tells the offended to blow off?

One tact is to have an attorney draw up cease and desist letter. The advertiser may simply cite Google's own Terms of Service and say too bad.

Another angle is to fight fire with fire and bid on the offenders business name, key services or products.

Yet another is to hire an online marketing specialist to deal with the issue.

A simple test to determine if a competitor is bidding on your personal or business name is to search Google for all of your identifiers. If you see your competitor's bidding on your name or business service don't panic. In some cases the business may not even know they are doing it.

In my experience it's an even split between business owners and unscrupulous marketers taking advantage of the lack of a competitors understanding of the process. So put your shotgun away and call in the virtual gun.

The link is above.

Consultation is always free.

.

Microsoft's Open Live Small Business

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:43:00 +0000

Microsoft's Open Live Small Business site offers you "Everything You Need To Grow Your Business Online".

*Create your own professional Web site—for FREE

Microsoft Office Live Small Business makes it easy to create a professional-looking Web site for your business. Sign up and you’ll have everything you need to get started – including free Web hosting, a custom domain name, e-mail accounts, e-commerce, and more.

*Attract Customers

Reach new customers and stay connected to existing ones

Microsoft Office Live Small Business has easy-to-use, affordable online marketing products to help get your business noticed. No long-term commitments or costly up-front fees mean you’ve got nothing to lose but potential sales opportunities.

*Manage Your Business

Stay on top of your business with simple online tools

Managing and tracking information isn’t easy when you’re busy running your business. But powerful online applications can help you organize and access sales opportunities, contacts, project schedules, documents, and more. So whether you’re in the office or on the road you can stay on top of your business."

Visa is a site sponsor/partner in a promotion called Business Break Though, Presented by Visa where businesses can sign up for a shot at 10k worth of consulting. Talk about paying for a lead.

Visitors will find slick, well produced videos offering small to medium businesses previews of their services. The videos show consultants visiting businesses that either lacked a web presence, marketing plan or sufficient technology infrastructure.

Microsoft partner consultants of course can sell you solutions to get your business on course.

Slick, very slick.

Read the New York Times take.

.

Small Business Marketing & HP

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:56:00 +0000

I was reading Mashable this morning and noticed a sponsored add by HP pushing small business marketing. Clicked over and landed on Small Business Trends, an SMB marketing blog operated by Anita Campbell.

The site is a success judging by the amount of readers (137k) and all the comments or suggestions posted on the tips page by celebrated personalities in the online marketing realm.

The tips page sponsorship by HP is smart, marketing on a marketers site. They expose readers to HP computers, office supplies, copies etc.

I'm not a fan of full site or even dedicated special event page sponsorship. I understand the idea from HP's point of view however when a site is 'owned' by a particular brand objectivity is automatically questioned.

If this site was fully sponsored by someone like Idearc's Superpages I would not be able to point my clients to advantages offered by competitors.

Once I take a dedicated sponsorship I become a blogger for them, not an objective agent for my clients.

On the other hand life would be simpler.

Biggest Growth in Online Advertising Will Be Local

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:14:00 +0000

Jupiter Research reports found local display and search advertising have found life on the Internet and are leading among all online advertising categories for significant growth;

" According to the US Online Local Advertising Forecast, 2007 – 2012, released by JupiterResearch, local advertising will increase by 13 percent from 2007 to 2012, faster than online advertising as a whole, of which a 12 percent growth rate is anticipated during the same period. But it will be local display and search advertising that are poised to make the biggest impact."

"At this point, most local advertisers are not marketers and do not have the time or resources to manage, let alone optimize, online advertising campaigns," said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch. "Although search is increasing its impact on the local market, it still demands a degree of sophistication unavailable to most local advertisers."

Our unofficial research tells us that at least in our local geographic area businesses are unaware of online advertising options.

The venue is not part of the "common culture" among small business yet.

Many are being introduced to the concept by the same people that put them in the Yellow Pages for $1,000 to $4,000 per month and are now trying to sap them similarly online.

Wikia Search

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:28:00 +0000

Jim Wales and his Wikia crew released Wikia Search (alpha) early this morning. No surprise some pundits downgraded the search site immediately. Hard to say what they expected.

The search pages will take some time to form but the social element is inviting. Wikia Search is a social search site where search and the social elements are intertwined. Facebook and MySpace are social networking sites that have little or nothing to do with search.

The interesting aspect of the Wikia Search is people on the network determine what search results are pertinent.

It's an open palette where the participants have a say in the site. Everyone is an editor, not just a profile.

The implications for local will sort out over time. Like Facebook, every business owner should be able to have a personal profile filled out. If you own a pet supply store in Dallas or a used book store in Bakersfield you can place your local footprint on the search results pages. Once there befriend everyone with your local profile keywords, work the network.

If Wikia Search finds widespread acceptance, early adopters will be rewarded for getting involved in from the start.

Here is a quote from Jimmy Wales,

The idea is to have a community controlling all the editorial functions
of search, the functions that are normally done behind closed doors.
There will be many things that users can do, publicly, to rate urls,
guide the spider, blacklist, whitelist, etc.

These things all rely upon having some notion of "trust". In a wiki,
the activity of users is more intimate and conversational, and trust
emerges through dialog and debate. In this context, clicking to rate a
url, there is much less need for dialog and debate, and so it seems
unlikely to me that solely through that process users could come to know
each other well enough to really judge who is doing good (or bad).

The social graph provides a more explicit look at that. Plus, it's fun. :)

--Jimbo

WeBuildPages Tools Go Behind Pay Wall

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:17:00 +0000

Can't say I blame Jim Boykin for doing it but just the same what I admired about his business was his decision to share openly such cool tools.

Here is what he had to say about the decision to take down the cool tools;

"I was able to get Aaron Wall, Andy Beal, Bill Slawski, Jim Gilbert, Cameron Olthuis, Neil Patel, Shoemoney, Jill Whalen, Christine Churchill, Lee Odeen, and Stuntdubl, and myself, to create training videos for this program. I’ve also decided that most of the We Build Pages Tools should no longer be public, but should be included in the internet marketing ninja program as a free add-on to the program. I also put in a bunch of our private SEO tools into the program as well.

The price is $2995/year. To me, the video training is well worth that investment, as well as the tools are well worth the investment, so together I think it’s a pretty good deal. Yea, many won’t be able to afford the cost, but that will keep the program a bit exclusive."

The Online Marketing List

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 00:18:00 +0000

Much marketing wisdom within.

Google Knol; Opportunity For Local?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:04:00 +0000

Knol, (short for unit of knowledge) will invite authors on any topic to provide content to Google.

According to Google expect the following;

"Anyone will be able to rate a knol or write a review of it. Knols will also include references and links to additional information. At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with substantial revenue share from the proceeds of those ads.

Once testing is completed, participation in knols will be completely open, and we cannot expect that all of them will be of high quality. Our job in Search Quality will be to rank the knols appropriately when they appear in Google search results. We are quite experienced with ranking web pages, and we feel confident that we will be up to the challenge."

I'm interested on the local take.

Is there opportunity for local business within Knol? On first view plenty. Do you know your local real estate market? Post it up, link to your real estate site and invite comment.
Local commercial painters or wedding photographers can take to pen and start talking.

Arborists can write about care of regional trees and trimming requirements. Caterers, whip out the calender and start writing.

If we know anything about Google we know they love scale and this means opportunity will present itself at the neighborhood level.

This is a great move by Google and proves again why they are the leaders in search and online marketing.

Google Enlisting College Students To Sell AdWords

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:19:00 +0000

Google today announced an innovative local marketing challenge designed to spread the word about AdWords to local business.

Student groups will receive US$200 of free online advertising and then work with local businesses to devise effective online marketing campaigns. They will outline a strategy, run their campaign, assess their results and provide the business with recommendations to further develop their online marketing.

It’s a great chance for students to gain practical, real world online marketing experience whilst getting all the excitement of competing with other students from all over the world.

What a great idea. This is a win win for all parties. Local businesses that sign on will see what they have been missing in the digital marketing space and students will learn how to craft marketing campaigns for small business.

Yale University Keyword Modeling Study

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:27:00 +0000

Oliver J. Ruiz, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Yale School of Management authored this keyword modeling study. Professor Ruiz uses and hotel chain for his study.

It's long and detailed but worth the read if you are into the subject. My initial takeaway is confirmation of what I have found in managing keyword or PPC based campaigns. When dealing with multiple keywords for a service or product there can be no precise measurement of effectiveness per keyword or keyphrase.

This is where many clients get confused about pay per click. It's easy for the small business operator to understand the need to advertise on a TV or radio advertising spot or even a print yellow pages ad because it's traditional. While ROI is not easily quantified it's tried and true, safe though expensive.

Web based advertising is still new and is being sold to them primarily by the same guys that used to sell them old media spots.
If a small businessperson were to read the Yale modeling study above they might come away with skepticism and that would be a shame. For the small to medium business it's the surest way to get above the fold.

Local Online Ads To Double In 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:01:00 +0000

Search Engine Land quotes a Borrell Associates study of local online ad sales projections for the upcoming year.

"Local search is expected to grow from roughly $2.5 billion currently to $5 billion in 2008. Borrell expects local video to roughly triple from just over $400 million today to $1.27 million next year".

Other highlights from the Borrell Report;

The three largest categories are Autos, Jobs and Real Estate.
Dramatic rise in video for local business.
Average local business spend was $299 "per location" in 2007. (Range, $18,000 high end to about $100 low end).
Independent online ad specialists will be in high demand.

Reviews, Your Key To Clickthroughs

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:56:00 +0000

Greg Sterling posts documentation on the importance of reviews at Screenwerks.
It's an education process getting small business to catch on to the importance of reviews.

Send us a note, give us a call, we have solutions.

No Bubble At Sierra Web Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:14:00 +0000

When is my 7 figure buyout offer coming?

Hulu Is Fantastic

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 05:19:00 +0000

I got into the beta for Hulu.com.

I'll say it right now, TV is about over. I see the future and Hulu is a preview of how we will watch TV. Real time TV was dead for me when I got Tivo but Hulu is almost the final shot to the heart. I'll still need live TV for football and live news events but it's really a matter of time before that is streamed as well.

Yeah I know I wrote a similar thought when I looked at the Joose earlier this year. I never followed through with Joose, for all I know it is still stuck in beta. I thought the idea was innovative but the interface was stodgy and the content was very limited.

Hulu contains content from Fox, NBC and others, both old stuff and new. For instance I was cruising the Hulu library and found the pilot episode of St. Elsewhere. I liked that show but never caught episode 1.

The Hulu player delivers a clean image with an intuitive control panel. I did not intend to do a complete breakdown here but if people wish to get an invitation all they have to do is follow the link above and sign up and wait. The earlier you get signed up the faster you get in.

As for advertising it looks like big brands are filling the spots but in time I can see local targeted ads to individual profiles.

As I was looking over the site and finished watching the episode of St. Elswhere it occurred to me that Youtube is over. Don't get me wrong, I like stupid pet tricks and amateur comedians plying their wares as much as the next guy. "You Are a Pirate" is a kick, my kids love it.
But now that a site exists that offers first run proprietary content of shows I really like I say sayonara Youtube.
I almost feel sorry for Google. As they say it's all about the content.

Every Business Should have a Facebook Page

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 17:28:00 +0000

Whether you are a social networking butterfly or not you have to have your business "listed" on Facebook.

The interface is simple, the benefits as yet are unknown but you have nothing to lose by adding your business to Facebook.

I'm still studying the Facebook SocialAds platform. For now it looks like big brands are getting an early foothold. Unquestionably local business will have a place to lay out their wares.

MySpace Invades LookSmart's Space

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:09:00 +0000

MySpace will take residence in the "LookSmart Building" according to BizJournals.com;

"Los Angeles-based MySpace made a triumphant entrance into San Francisco last week at the Web 2.0 conference, throwing a bash at SFMOMA and announcing that it was opening an office in the city with about 200 employees.
While the company did not disclose the location of its new offices, it has signed a letter of intent to take about 35,000 square feet at 625 Second St., according to sources. MySpace, part of Fox Interactive, ...... ."

This is an interesting development. LookSmart leased all 130,000 + square feet of the building in 1999 for a ten year term. From the beginning the building has been a bane for LookSmart dragging almost $400,000 dollars a month from their dwindling coffers. Earlier this year LookSmart announced the building had been sublet IN FULL, helping to stop the bleeding.

How can the full building accommodate the MySpace mob? It's possible a few of the startups occupying space have gone belly up but it's possible too the primary occupant, LookSmart may be readying an exit themselves.

Let's examine the evidence. LookSmart has been selling off and dropping sites steadily over the last year. They shuttered Zeal with no explanation. They sold NetNanny for a song. Grubb was pushed over to Wikia for an undisclosed sum (guessing zero), and they just recently closed Wisenut.

Before Wisenut was closed they pulled the Dave Hills inspired vertical search sites.
The 180 vertical search sites are now folded into FindArticles but they are hard to find. Most of the subdomains are completely closed down registering 404 type messages.

Evidence exists suggesting they are in a deal of some sort with General Atlantic Partner property Network Solutions. Vortal.com (owned by NetSol I believe) houses the 180 vertical sites using the original LookSmart material. (under different URLs)

Combine the information above with the fact CEO Hills, CTO Grubb and CFO Simonelli (already past his announced departure date) have all quit and a picture of the future of LookSmart is unfolding.

It is interesting to note Dave Hills has a very nice severance that includes a sales position with the company. He is required to put in just short of one day per week, (15% of his work week) selling AdCenter etc. Interestingly, anything he sells he retains some residual payment. He will make more in this part time gig than he did as CEO and it's believed he still holds approximately 750,000 shares.

Early in the summer LookSmart retained the services of a Sand Hill Rd. venture capital law firm paying them in shares. This is documented in SEC forms that can be accessed from LookSmart's investor relations page.

LookSmart's job board has been downgraded. No more call for technical personnel. They are looking for sales and support people.

So will LookSmart's 200 (+ or -) employees move out to make way for the 200 MySpace folk?

SFGate.com wrote about the MySpace move to San Francisco Oct. 15 and did not mention the address though they knew the exact neighborhood.
Is LookSmart that far under the radar of everyone but a few shareholders?
If something is afoot I credit the LookSmart employees for maintaining the code of silence.

Absolutely nothing official or otherwise is coming from LookSmart lately that can shed light on what's really happening inside the big brick building.

Shareholders must resign themselves to guessing.

Update;
Valleywag linked to this post with an interesting take on the MySpace move into the LookSmart building.

Apparently LookSmart is moving from the fourth floor to make way for MySpace. In the LookSmart conference call Nov. 7 interim CEO West announced a 25% reduction in staff. He also announced the sale of Findarticles to CNET.

While the company remains fodder for bloggers and old SEO's with a grudge the company finds itself in the best condition since MSFT dumped them.

The company will have $57 million in the bank after the Findarticles deal closes which puts the value of the company at $2.46 per share. The stock trades at $2.40 as of Friday.

The company is valued below cash on hand. As it stands LookSmart has NO value! Of course it does but how do you value the company? On the publisher side AdCenter powers IAC's ASK.com, Reed Publising, Mainstream Media and others. In 2006 CEO Hills announced Facebook leased AdCenter but it's hard to gauge if it's been put to use in the new FB ad platform.
We know they are working closely with Wikia, interim CEO West mentioned in the conference call the two are actively working together. Currently LookSmart display ads are showing on selected Wiki's. On the advertiser side they serve ads to a variety of partners.

West announced they have several new AdCenter clients either signed or in the pipeline that will bring in six figures.

The biggest fish out there is MySpace who announced last week they are working on a self serve ad platform.
Hmm, seems awfully coincidental LookSmart is moving out of the fourth floor to make room for them.
I light of all of this LookSmart (LOOK) was upgraded to BUY by Craig-Hallum following the earnings report.

So LookSmart is moving . Not out of their building, just down a flight or two.

Search Marketing For Small Business

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:24:00 +0000

The L.A. Times runs a piece today concerning small business migrating to online advertising.

"Take Eddie Ugalde, 33, who runs an eco-friendly carpet cleaning business in Altadena. He started spending $1,000 a month with ReachLocal in March and got such a dramatic response from the search campaign that he moved Right Away Carpet Drycleaning out of his home, grew from two employees to 10 and bought a distribution business. He recently increased his monthly ad purchase to $1,500."

My small business friends, it really is that easy. All it takes is a commitment to growth and a willingness to break away from the hold your YP rep has on you.

Email us from the link on our main site. Let us help you GROW your business.

LookSmart Deactivates Wisenut.com

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:57:00 +0000

The index had not been updated for some time and traffic hovered around the 30,000 rank of sites worldwide for some years now so it's no real surprise that LookSmart shuttered Wisenut.

The "About Us" page offers the following message;

"We're sorry, but this site is no longer available.
Please visit www.looksmart.com to learn more
about other LookSmart products."

This action follows the sale of Grub.org to Wikia, the closing of Zeal.com with no explanation, the "fire sale" of Netnanny.com and the most recent removal of the vertical search sites.

As mentioned in the post below LookSmart revamped their home page this week. They demoted search to a tiny box lower left of the new page that returns results from their Findarticles site.

In other LookSmart news today Board president Ted West was promoted to (interim?) CEO. Along with compensation details was a healthy dose of verbiage including this quote;

"If during the term of your employment, there is a “Change of Control” event and (1) you are terminated without “cause” by the surviving corporation within twelve months after the Change of Control, or (2) you voluntarily resign for “good reason” within twelve months after the Change of Control, then all of your unvested Option Shares shall vest and become immediately exercisable." SEC Filing

I understand this is standard disclosure on SEC documents of this nature but it seems to me the company is polishing the fuselage for parking in a different hangar..

Disclosure; I own shares in LOOK but have no contact with anyone in the company and any speculations posted here are only that, speculation.

Update: Mashable and others caught the news 4 days after the fact!

New Look For LookSmart

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:44:00 +0000

LookSmart has revamped their home site with a cleaner, more direct message to advertisers and publishers. Take a LOOK!

Gone from the home page are the verticals search sites developed under the former CEO David Hills. There is no reference to FindArticles either. Last week LookSmart revealed the vertical search sites have been "folded" into their FindArticles index.

You can find the 180 vertical sites throughout Vortal.com, a Network Solutions site under the umbrella of web property giant General Atlantic.

I find the new look of LookSmart more appealing. It speaks to the heart of their business model, providing private label ad and publishing solutions to others.

It's apparent too that they are now deeply involved in display, something already being seen on Wikia.com, their recently announced ad partner.

PPC For Grocers Works, Cereal Case Study

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 02:48:00 +0000

Adtech, a majority owned subsidiary of Advertising.com points to this case study that cites how proper targeting of Kellogg's Special K increased sales volume. Please read the excerpt from this older press release.

"Frankfurt, Germany – 22nd January 2007. The French survey NetImpact 3 bis has proven that online advertising has positively affected the sales of the fitness cereal Kellogg’s Special K in the supermarket. Firstly, advertising increased the sales volume in the retail business. Secondly, banner & co generated new customers for Special K in stationary trade.

Participating on the implementation of the advertising impact study were the online advertising provider ADTECH (www.adtech.info), the IAB France, the advertising customer Kellogg’s and the market research company Marketing Scan. Within six weeks, from mid June to end of July 2006, ADTECH delivered the online ads for Special K on numerous French websites – Advertising.com, Alice, Au Féminin, Benchmark Group, Doctissimo, France Télévisions, Hi-Media, Lagardère Active Publicité, Lycos, MSN/Windows Live, Orange, Régie Obs, Skyrégie, TF1 Publicité, Voyages SNCF, Yahoo!, Zefir Web.

Via geographical targeting, the ADTECH ad server adjusted the cereal banners in a way that only internet users from two French towns – Angers and Le Mans – got to see them. The market research company Marketing Scan had installed test panels in these two towns and was in connection with all supermarkets in the area. To compare the sales figures control data was collected twelve weeks before the virtual campaign and six weeks afterwards..."

Did you know?
"ADTECH is a leading international digital marketing solutions company. The company's flagship product is the Helios IQ ad serving platform. It enables web publishers to manage, serve and evaluate virtually any kind of online advertising campaign including display, video and mobile formats. The Helios IQ ad serving platform differentiates itself via its scalable, enterprise-class infrastructure and publisher-friendly tools, providing publishers with increased efficiency, reliability and ROI for their online advertising business.
Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, ADTECH is an independent and majority-controlled subsidiary of AOL's Advertising.com division. Globally, ADTECH AG works with customers in more than 25 countries."