eMarketing Blog

Online Coupons Improve Email Open Rates

2009-11-20T17:04:00.002-05:00

Everyone is looking for a deal these days. Shoppers will go buy something just because they “got a deal.”

Using coupons as leverage for customers to open and view your emails is what a lot companies are engaging in.

Making it known in your subject header that the recipient can receive 20% off their purchase will give them an incentive to open your email. Over two-thirds of American households use coupons and this has grown 46% in the past three years, according to Experian.

There is a big difference in open rates for emails that have coupons and emails that do not. According to Experian open rates of about 24% to 25% for coupon emails dropped to only 16% to 18% for non-coupon emails.

“Understanding the purchase drivers and triggers along with the channel preferences of unique customers is an essential element in building loyalty and engagement. Today’s consumers are multi-channel and marketers that acknowledge this will see greater return on their marketing spend,” said Matt Seeley, president of Experian Marketing Services’ Platforms division.

How Fast Does Your Website Load?

2009-11-13T16:27:00.000-05:00

Google has been talking about the importance of load time on websites --- if your website loads fast you may soon have an advantage in search rankings.

Load time doesn’t have an impact yet…however, speed may soon become a ranking factor!

In an interview with a software engineer at Google, Matt Cutts, he stated:

"Historically, we haven't had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast… It should be a good experience, and so it's sort of fair to say that if you're a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don't want that as much."

"I think a lot of people in 2010 are going to be thinking more about 'how do I have my site be fast,' how do I have it be rich without writing a bunch of custom javascript?'"

If you have 10 different widgets on your site pulling data from all different sources, maybe it’s time you thought about “cleaning up” your site a little… it’s safe to assume load-time will become a factor in where you’re listed in the search engines. If your site loads slowly, your bounce rate will increase because as soon as someone enters your site and has to wait more than 5 seconds to load, they’ll hit the back button immediately --- and move onto your competitors!

Increase in US Interactive Marketing Spending

2009-11-04T13:48:00.000-05:00

According to Forrester Research, US interactive marketing spending is projected to have a 17% compound annual growth rate for the next 5 years.

This trend isn’t only apparent in the US. In the UK, search engine marketing makes up a majority of the UK’s online advertising spending.

Email Marketing has also become very popular. Although email marketing sometimes has a bad name due to all the spammers out there, total spending is also projected to grow within the next 5 years.

Is Social Networking Really that Important?

2009-10-16T16:22:00.000-04:00

A recent report by eMarketer revealed that social networking is one of the most important online activities, trailing close behind email.

Respondents were asked to rank the importance of Email, Online Social Networking, Online Chat/IM, Web Browsing, Online Forums, Texting, Online Discussions, Online News Feeds, and Blogging...with “1” being the most important.

As you can see, Email is ranked #1 at an importance level of 2.6; Online Social Networking is 3.1.

81% of respondents taking part in social networking claimed posting photos was the top social networking activity.

“This is a particularly important finding,” according to the report, “in that it suggests that these younger users have integrated social networks into their lives to such an extent that it has become a trusted resource for their decision making.”

A March 2009 study by Knowledge Networks found that “between 10% and 24% of US social media users turned to social networks when making purchase decisions about various categories of products and services. Less than 5% said they ‘always’ did so.”

Will Bing become the Next Google?

2009-10-09T16:24:00.001-04:00

Bing is having some success these past few months (maybe from the push of television commercials?).

According to the comScore report on September 22, 2009, between July 2009 and August 2009 Bing added 7% to its total number of searches. This is a huge jump for one month, considering the competition from Google and Yahoo. Google grew only 2% and Yahoo 1%.

Voice your opinions with Google’s new tool, Sidewiki

2009-10-02T16:13:00.003-04:00

Problem: You are looking to buy a new digital camera online, but don’t want to spend an arm and a leg. You search around for websites that advertise the lowest price on the camera you want. However, you don’t really trust the website you found with the cheapest price, but don’t want to spend full-price at a national retailer... what do you do?!

Solution: Use Sidewiki, a new feature on Google Toolbar that allows you to see posted comments about any site.

Google’s new toolbar feature called Google Sidewiki allows users to read and comment on any website they want...all within the Google Toolbar. If you want to find out if there are any problems with the website, or if you want to warn other visitors of abuse, Sidewiki can be very helpful.

Comments are not automatically posted, though. In order to get your comments posted, you must frequently comment on a variety of sites (this shows Google that you are a heavy user, and will be more likely to approve your comments). Google does this to prevent spam and abuse by angry users who have nothing better to do with their time than to make up lies about a website.

If you want to help increase the chances that your comments get posted start browsing sites in your niche and take time to read throughout the sites and post any interesting information about them that you think will be helpful to future visitors.

You can also see how many people found a specific comment helpful or unhelpful.

Remember that this tool is new, so there may not be as many comments as you’d wish.

Web Analytics doesn’t have to be a Foreign Language

2009-09-25T15:27:00.000-04:00

Web analytics is an important part of a website owner’s efforts in tracking how well money spent on online campaigns are converting into sales.

A lot of businesses are doing without web analytics, or not following up with data, because of the “un-user-friendliness,” difficulty of integration with other marketing solutions, or accuracy of data of most analytic programs.

In a survey done by Unica, they found that the two biggest challenges with the use of web analytics was integration with other marketing solutions and the accuracy of data.

“The biggest challenge for marketers was integrating Web analytics with other marketing solutions, cited by 46% of respondents. Verifying the accuracy of data was a problem for 41% of marketers, while 32% reported trouble with analytics that were not comprehensive and 29% complained of budgets that were too small.”

Web analytics requires hours, and sometimes days, of usage to learn the ins and outs of all the features. Even though the difficulty level may frustrate website owners, they acknowledge the fact that more resources and time must be spent on them if they want to maximize online profits.

“Fully 72% of respondents to the Unica survey had no full-time worker devoted to analytics.”

Google has an extensive web analytics program called Google Analytics. Their program is absolutely free and has most of the same features as the paid analytics programs. The best part about Google Analytics is that it’s very user-friendly. You can also link your Google AdWords account to the analytics account and have everything tracked, including calculated conversion rates, on one dashboard. Visit www.google.com/analytics to learn more!

The Internet Business Hour Announces New Flagship Station, WWNN 1470 AM Radio in South Florida

2009-09-18T15:14:00.003-04:00

Contact:

Diego Baeza

dbaeza@securenetsystems.net

Director of New Business Development

Securenet Systems

356 SW 12th Avenue

Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

(866) 568-9402

Deerfield Beach - September 18, 2009 - The Internet Business Hour, a radio talk show about tips and tricks on how to successfully conduct business on the Internet, is announcing their new flagship station WWNN 1470 AM Radio in Boca Raton, Florida, a 50,000 watt AM station serving the South Florida market. Starting Saturday, September 19, 2009, “The Internet Business Hour” will be broadcast weekly from WWNN 1470 AM.

The show will air every Saturday at 2:00 pm, and can be picked up on your radio dial all along the Gold Coast from Vero Beach to South Miami. The show can also be heard streamed live from http://www.wwnnradio.com/.

The show’s host, Kerry Brewer, is a long-time veteran of business talk radio. Each week he, and special guest George Dubec, Internet marketing expert, will be discussing the latest internet marketing trends and how business owners can take advantage of the Internet to boost sales and increase online exposure. They will also be giving out weekly informational reports that business owners can use as guidelines to increase Internet exposure.

For more information on The Internet Business Hour, or if you would like to be a special guest on the show, please visit www.theinternetbusinesshour.com, call toll-free (866) 568-9402 or email info@securenetsystems.net.

First Page Placement on Google

2009-09-11T15:11:00.002-04:00

As a local business owner or a company looking to do business in a local area, you must realize it is critical to use the Internet for advertising.

The problem is most businesses don’t have a sufficient budget to use PPC (pay per click) advertising and it is costly and time consuming to try to get high rankings on the organic (free) search listings on major search engines. Budgets of at least $1,000 per month for local PPC campaigns and approximately $10,000 over three months for nationwide PPC campaigns are recommended by most SEO specialists.

If you are a business owner and don’t have that kind of budget available, what are you to do?

Use the AdzZoo online Ad Program to promote and advertise your business using geo-targeting of keywords within your local area radius. AdzZoo will create an optimized Landing Page for your business (whether you have an existing site or not), which gives you the chance to get higher organic or free search listings on the major search engines.

In fact, with this program, you don’t even need a website to generate leads from the Internet!

Why You Should be Blogging...Again

2009-09-04T13:47:00.000-04:00

Blogs have been becoming a major part in online marketing for companies both small and large. They were originally created as journals for personal use. But more and more companies are latching on to blogs to communicate with the outside world and, of course, their customers.

Companies are finding out that blogs can help build solid relationships with their customers.

Blogs are very popular among consumers; they are a place where consumers can go to read reviews, read latest industry information and news, and also read what other products/services are available to them. According to eMarketer, the largest online research and analysis organization, there has been a 300% growth in monthly blog readership over the last four years! In a survey conducted by eMarketer they found that almost one-half of the online population reads blogs. Now when you think about the size of “one-half of the online population,” you can imagine how many blogs are read on a daily basis. One blog post can even help make the difference in swaying strangers to use your products and/or services, but actually getting visitors to your blog takes effort.

As you can see, just simply having a blog is just as important as having a blog that’s optimized. If your blog isn’t optimized how will you market yourself to strangers?

Blogs can be an effective tool in driving traffic to your main website. Blogger is Google’s own free blogging service and is highly recommended if you are new to blogging. It’s simple, user-friendly, and best of all, belongs to Google! If Google owns it don’t you think there’s a higher chance of it getting indexed?

Having a blog is great, but optimizing it will get you traffic and build rankings. If you would like our free 15-page report on how you can optimize your blog, email us at info@securenetsystems.net to request yours or leave a comment with your email address and we will send it over.

Google Loses Small Search Percentage in June thru July

2009-08-25T16:05:00.003-04:00

Although Google is still the market leader in online search, research shows that they have lost .3% to competitors in June thru July; mainly to Microsoft.

In June, Google had 65% of search...in July 64.7%.

What’s the reason for this slight decrease in market share? Probably the heavy advertisement from Microsoft after the launch of their revamped search platform, Bing.com.

In June, Microsoft had 8.4% of search; in July it increased to 8.9%.

According to ForeSee Results, a very high customer satisfaction is one of the main reasons for Google’s first place. “Google is unquestionably king of search, so the only competition is for second place,” said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results. “The research was done before Bing entered the market, so we don’t know what effect its entry will have. But Google’s customers are pretty happy and have little reason to try something new, so Bing has a real uphill battle ahead.”

On the University of Michigan’s latest American Customer Satisfaction Index, Google scored an 86 out of 100, which is the highest of any search platform. Yahoo, which was ranked second, scored a 77.

Google Local Business Listing Tips

2009-08-19T09:53:00.002-04:00

Last week Google sent out a newsletter to all Local Business Listing accounts. It seems as though Google is trying to create awareness by frequently sending newsletters...as last week’s was their first one.

Anyhow, they provided some insightful information regarding your local business listing. There are some very useful tips to think about when creating or updating your listing... Take a look at how to optimize your business listing.

“Here are a few ways to optimize your local business listing...

Make sure your listing is complete and accurate.

Include optional information like images and videos to help your listing stand out.
Add information like opening hours, payment types, and additional details to help users choose among search results.
Make sure that the location of your business on the map is correct so users can find you. Remember, you can always drag the map marker to the exact location of your business.
Make sure to list your authoritative business website as your homepage, since Google uses information from your homepage to help improve search results.
Of course, be sure that your business name, physical address, and phone number(s) are correct in your business listing.
See the Local Business Quality Guidelines to learn more.

Choose the most appropriate, specific categories for your business.

Pick a category from the list of suggestions to help Google show your business for the right searches (although you can always enter your own category if the Local Business Center doesn't suggest one that fits your business).
Don't be afraid to choose specific categories instead of broad ones. The important thing is that the categories are accurate and describe your business well.

This information is also available in our Help Centers. "

Updated Industry Statistics

2009-08-11T09:30:00.002-04:00

Here are some updated industry statistics that boosts internet confidence.

Of all local searches, 8 out of 10 will call or visit a store and 6 out of 10 will make a purchase.
There are approximately over 1 trillion URLS in the world.
In 2006 there was an average of 2.7 billion online searches per month. In 2009 there was an average of 32 billion searches per month.
The first text message was sent in 1992. Today, texts sent and received each day exceed the earth’s total population.
44% of small businesses do not have a website.
82% of people look online for local products and services.
66% of all commerce is conducted online.
97% of people research products and services before purchasing.
When pay-per-click and organic listings share a search results page you can expect:
- 45% increase in “Call to Action”
- 45% increase in orders
- 43% more page views
- 40% more visitors
- 38% more time spent on the site

Microsoft and Yahoo! Join to Combine Market Share

2009-07-30T14:22:00.001-04:00

Yesterday Microsoft announced that it had bought Yahoo!, the 2nd most widely used search platform next to Google.

The three top search engines are Google with 65% of market share, Yahoo, and MSN (now called “Bing”). With Bing and Yahoo joining forces, increased competition will be in effect with Yahoo and Bing handling 28% of the search.

Now there will be only two top leaders of internet search. What does this mean for websites already indexed in Yahoo and Bing? No one is really sure….but now websites must battle in 2 zones instead of 3; which increases the competition and fierceness of the search world.

“Microsoft didn't have to give Yahoo an upfront payment to make it happen, as many Yahoo investors had been counting on ever since Microsoft dangled $1 billion last summer in an attempt to forge a search partnership then.

Google tried to stop Yahoo from falling into Microsoft's camp. Last year it formed its own proposed search advertising deal with Yahoo, only to be forced to retreat from that alliance after U.S. antitrust officials threatened to sue.

Now the extended reach Microsoft is gaining will let it introduce its recently upgraded search engine, called Bing, to more people. The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker believes Bing is just as good, if not better, than Google's search engine. Taking over search responsibilities on Yahoo's popular site gives Microsoft a better chance to convert Web surfers who had been using Google by force of habit.

"Microsoft and Yahoo know there's so much more that search could be," said Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. "This agreement gives us the scale and resources to create the future of search.”

US Interactive Marketing Spending

2009-07-24T15:03:00.005-04:00

According to Forrester Research, US interactive marketing spending is projected to have a 17% compound annual growth rate for the next 5 years.

Search engine marketing is currently at $15,393,000, which is 12% of total ad spending. In 2014 search engine marketing is projected to be at $31,588,000, or 21% of total ad spending. Search engine marketing makes up more than one-half of all interactive marketing spending and will remain the largest sector in interactive marketing.

This trend isn’t only apparent in the US. In the UK, search engine marketing makes up a majority of the UK’s online advertising spending.

Email Marketing has also become very popular. Although email marketing sometimes has a bad name due to all the spammers out there, total spending is also projected to grow within the next 5 years.

Email Marketing Do's and Don'ts

2009-07-17T14:38:00.004-04:00

For many of you that engage in email marketing, whether it’s for informational or promotional purposes, know that a lot of times your effort spent creating nice/professional looking emails is useless because they just get thrown into the recipients’ junk folder.

Here are some do’s and don’ts to email marketing from FirstMark that might come in handy in trying to increase the chances that your emails are successfully delivered to the recipients’ inbox.

Rule of thumb: don’t repeat words, and be succinct!

Try to replace the words on the left with the words on the right...

TRY TO AVOID...	ALTERNATIVES
Do not use all caps	Keep everything in lowercase if possible.
Do not use !, $, or 100%	Keep punctuation to a minimum.
affordable	Reasonably priced, reasonable, within your means, inexpensive
Bargain or best prices	Good deal, good buy
click here	learn how, visit here
congratulations	Well done
debt	Owe, arrears, bills, deficit, due, liability
financing	Banking, expenditure, expenses, funding
free! for free?, for free!	No-cost or no-fee
guaranteed	Proven, certain, attested, affirmed, confirmed, insured
insurance	Coverage, assurance, warranty, safeguard
investment	Expenditure, expense, asset, grant
just released	New-improved
loan	Loan-plan, lending
low interest	Low risk
new car	New automobile
opportunity	Prospect opening, break, chance, occasion
paying too much	Over expenditure
permanent low interest	Definite low interest, preset
pre-approved	Pre-accepted, authorized, confirmed, credited
refinancing	Funding, outlay
special invitation	Proposal
unbelievable	Astounding, amazing, wonderful, awesome

Website Grader

2009-07-10T11:34:00.001-04:00

Website Grader is a useful tool in grading your website’s SEO.

All you have to do is enter in the domain name you’d like graded and it will calculate your SEO score based on 100%. It also analyzes your meta tags, readability level, domain age, Google PageRank, indexed pages in Google, last Google crawl date, Alexa traffic ranking, directory listings, among others.

You shouldn’t rely solely on this tool, but use it as a guideline in enhancing your online presence. It makes recommendations and explanations for why you should better your SEO efforts.

"The Internet Business Hour" - LocalAdLink Interview with Robert J. McNulty

2009-07-02T14:39:00.005-04:00

This week Kerry Brewer and George Dubec interviewed Robert J. McNulty on "The Internet Business Hour”. Robert founded LocalAdLink, a cost-effective advertising network for local businesses.

Click here to listen to the latest show with Robert.

Robert J. McNulty is an accomplished entrepreneur with over 25 years of significant experience in specialty retail, e-commerce, branded consumer products, retail start-ups and developing new concepts and technology platforms for utilization in the retail industry. Mr. McNulty founded Shopping.com and served as its President and CEO. Shopping.com was the first on-line retailer selling a broad range of consumer brand name products on the Internet, which was purchased for $220 million in an all cash transaction by Compaq Computers. Mr. McNulty also founded Home Club and served as its Chairman and CEO. Home Club was a chain of home improvement warehouse stores for contractor trade and do-it-yourself customers, servicing U.S. western states with 38 stores and 7,000 employees. He was the first to institute and implement the “everyday low price strategy” in the U.S. Home Improvement industry. Mr. McNulty was a founding board member of the Home Center Industry Council for the City of Hope Cancer Research Center. Currently, he serves as Chairman of Global Leadership Connection, a charitable organization that provides leadership programs for high schools students and supports the education of today’s youth leaders across America.

Securenet Systems Announces New Skins for Streaming Radio Players

2009-06-25T11:01:00.000-04:00

6/17/2009 - PRESS RELEASE

Securenet Systems Announces New Skins for Streaming Radio Players

Contact:
Diego Baeza
Director of New Business Development

Securenet Systems
356 SW 12th Avenue
Deerfield Beach, FL 33442
(866) 568-9402

Deerfield Beach – June 26, 2009 - Securenet Systems, Inc., http://www.securenetsystems.net/ a streaming services company in South Florida, continues to roll out enhancements to its streaming services packages that cater to terrestrial and Internet radio stations in the USA and around the world. The new player skins cover all of the major music formats and genres, and come in a wide variety of colors and themes. See http://radiostreamingservices.com/skins.cfm for more information.

The Securenet Systems radio streaming players allow a great level of customization and personalization for the radio station owner or manager. They can also be changed at a moment’s notice, by simply accessing the Customer Control Panel and selecting a new look.

Other features of the radio streaming packages consist of audio or video pre-roll that play before the station stream kicks in, a black-out feature for content that cannot be licensed for online streaming, royalty accounting, synchronized banner ads, album art with artist and title, stream to mobile phones, and many more features designed to help the station management generate extra revenue for the station.

Each station is provided with two players; one for live streaming and one for on-demand streaming. The customizable players allow for the upload of ad banners and links and provide listener stats showing listener habits and traits. The radio streaming packages can accommodate the small market station, or provide for unlimited listeners in larger markets. Packages start at $.49 cents a listener per month, making it one of the lowest-cost applications available on the market today and all packages come with the same power-packed features.

Securenet Systems is located in Deerfield Beach, Florida and is one of the largest hosting and radio streaming companies and a leading provider of comprehensive business Internet services, serving the radio streaming market in over 200 countries and every US state. Securenet Systems offers a wide range of Internet services including high-speed website hosting, custom website design and programming, online marketing and search engine optimization, and radio streaming. We also offer an Affiliate Reseller Program that is available worldwide.

For more information on Securenet Systems’ new radio streaming services package, or to get a free demo on the radio streaming features, please visit http://www.radiostreamingservices.com/, call toll-free (866) 568-9402 or email info@securenetsystems.net.

LocalAdLink - PPC Campaigns

2009-06-16T13:20:00.009-04:00

As a local business owner or a company looking to do business in a local area, you must realize it is critical to use the Internet for advertising.

The problem is most businesses don’t have a sufficient budget to use PPC (pay per click) advertising and it is costly and time consuming to try to get high rankings on the organic (free) search listings on major search engines. Budgets of at least $1,000 per month for local PPC campaigns and approximately $10,000 over three months for nationwide PPC campaigns are recommended by most SEO specialists.

If you are a business owner and don’t have that kind of budget available, what are you to do?

Solution: LocalAdLink Ad Packages for online marketing for local businesses!

Why should you consider LocalAdLink?

LocalAdLink provides a low cost, discounted rate for local businesses to get listings on major search engines, directories, social media networking sites, e-commerce sites, and other major outlets!

LocalAdLink allows you to choose keywords and target specific zip codes in your area of business and displays your listings in search engines, directories, etc. when someone in your specified zip code searches for a keyword you've chosen.

Packages start at only $69.99/month and gives you the opportunity to target up to 50 zip codes. Click here for more information.

What's the Buzz About Social Networking Sites?

2009-06-05T16:52:00.004-04:00

Lately there’s been a lot of talk about social networking sites like LinkedIn and Twitter. You can now follow CEOs of large companies to see what they are up to.

Many businesses are using these sites to keep in touch with their customers. It really creates a feeling of closeness when the CEO is interacting with customers.

It’s not just the big companies that are involved in social networking though. Smaller locally-owned business are latching on. The best thing about social networking is that it’s FREE “advertisement.” All you need to do is spend a couple hours, if that, a day informing, interacting, and linking with customers and other local businesses to generate buzz about YOUR business.

According to a study by Sage Software and AMI-Partners, more than 260,000 small businesses in the US and Canada employ social networking tactics, too.

Most businesses are using these social networking sites to respond to customer questions, network, and educate consumers.

Advertising Age offers five tips for marketing on social media platforms:
1. Track sales made on social media.
2. Don’t use Twitter as Facebook (and vice versa).
3. Create a conversation with friends and followers.
4. Sell last-minute inventory.
5. Alert followers to changes.

Why You Should be Blogging

2009-05-27T13:07:00.004-04:00

Blogs have been becoming a major part in online marketing for companies both small and large. They were originally created as journals for personal use. But more and more companies are latching on to blogs to communicate with the outside world and, of course, their customers. Companies are finding out that blogs can help build solid relationships with their customers.

Blogs are very popular among consumers; they are a place where consumers can go to read reviews, read latest industry information and news, and also read what other products/services are available to them. According to eMarketer, the largest online research and analysis organization, there has been a 300% growth in monthly blog readership over the last four years! In a survey conducted by eMarketer they found that almost one-half of the online population reads blogs. Now when you think about the size of “one-half of the online population,” you can imagine how many blogs are read on a daily basis. One blog post can even help make the difference in swaying strangers to use your products and/or services, but actually getting visitors to your blog takes effort.

As you can see, just simply having a blog is just as important as having a blog that’s optimized. If your blog isn’t optimized how will you market yourself to strangers? Blogs can be an effective tool in driving traffic to your main website. Blogger is Google’s own free blogging service and is highly recommended if you are new to blogging. It’s simple, user-friendly, and best of all, belongs to Google! If Google owns it don’t you think there’s a higher chance of it getting indexed?

Having a blog is great, but optimizing it will get you traffic and build rankings. If you would like our free 15-page report on how you can optimize your blog, email us at info@securenetsystems.net to request yours or leave a comment with your email address and we will send it over.

Update to Google AdWords Policy

2009-05-20T15:26:00.002-04:00

Google has recently updated their AdWords policy and is now allowing trademarked names to appear in paid listings. For example, stores selling Nike shoes can now use Nike in their listings.

Previously, Google didn’t allow trademarked names and restricted stores from using them. Stores that sold Nike shoes were only allowed to advertise by using words like “athletic shoes” or “running shoes.”

This new policy change weeds out generic listings and gives users a bigger incentive to click on an ad if they see the brand or trademarked name they are searching for. Instead of seeing “Brand Name Athletic Shoes,” which doesn’t explain much, stores can make their listings more relevant to the user by including brands into the listings: “Nike Running Shoes”

Here is an excerpt from Google:

“That is why, in an effort to improve ad quality and user experience, we are adjusting our trademark policy in the U.S. to allow some ads to use trademarks in the ad text. This change will bring Google's policy on trademark use in ad text more in line with the industry standard. Under certain criteria, you can use trademark terms in your ad text in the U.S. even if you don't own that trademark or have explicit approval from the trademark owner to use it. This change will help you to create more narrowly targeted ad text that highlights your specific inventory.

For example, under our old policy, a site that sells several brands of athletic shoes may not have been able to highlight the actual brands that they sell in their ad text. However, under our new policy, that advertiser can create specific ads for each of the brands that they sell. We believe that this change will help both our users and advertisers by reducing the number of overly generic ads that appear across our networks in the U.S.”

So if you have an e-commerce website and use Google AdWords to promote your items, make sure to take advantage of this change ASAP... a lot of companies have already changed their ads so don't fall behind.

Ten Laws of Online Marketing

2009-05-15T10:53:00.005-04:00

Here are some steps each website owner should take to ensure that your website is running at its full potential. Make sure you are not losing out on leads due to poor planning and implementation.

Define your target market: international, national, country specific, state specific, local or a combination thereof.
a. Percentages of the market in each category
Decide on the purpose of your website.
a. Provide information
b. Sell products and/or services
c. Company or product branding
d. Generate leads
e. Other
Establish a monthly or yearly budget for online marketing.
Develop a twelve month online marketing plan.
a. Adjust your marketing plan approximately every month based on web traffic and your conversion rate.
Designate a point person in house to be responsible for plan follow-up and monitoring progress.
Establish a relationship with a reliable, experienced outside resource (web design, SEO or marketing firm) to partner with to help and assist in implementing your online marketing plan.
Properly optimize a new website or restructure an existing website for optimization and integrate or add all the appropriate online marketing features and functions necessary to go along with your online marketing plan.
a. It’s important to create an online sales and marketing tool versus just a website.
- Consider the sales and marketing elements first, then design the website around them.
b. On your Home Page you must describe exactly what you do and what separates you from your competition.
- “Why should anyone do business with you?”
Make sure you have a comprehensive web statistics program in place to track your web traffic.
a. Create a Ground Zero Report to use as a base reference for your online marketing efforts.
b. Check your web rankings regularly.
- Alexa ranking
- Google page rank
- Link popularity
- Search engine rankings
Make sure you have a plan to track your conversion rate (sales, leads, requests, etc.) based on the amount of web traffic you are getting.
Check your statistics and track your conversions on a regular basis to analyze how your website is doing.

NOTES:
1. The online marketing process is an ongoing and dynamic effort. There is no “magic bullet!” It’s like “paddling a canoe upstream, if you stop you go downstream real fast!”
2. Make sure your online marketing efforts are properly coordinated with your offline marketing efforts.

May 11, 2009 - Biz to Biz Expo: Using the Internet for Your Business

2009-05-08T15:08:00.004-04:00

Monday, May 11, 2009, will be the next Biz to Biz expo in South Florida. Come join us, and George Dubec, our marketing expert, and learn how to use the power of the Internet for your online business. If you are struggling with getting traffic to your website, then you should attend this free expo and presentation by George.

The expo itself is from 5:00pm to 8:00pm and is a great opportunity to network and meet other business professionals in the South Florida area.

George's presentation on "How to Use the Power of the Internet for Your Business" is from 6:30pm to 7:30pm. Come find out:

How to get more targeted, qualified leads
How to generate more revenue from the Internet
How to get to the top of the search engines
How to promote and brand your company
How to promote yourself as an industry expert
How to get higher conversion rates and a higher ROI

The expo will be held at:
The Embassy Suites Hotel
661 NW 53rd Court
Boca Raton, FL 33487
Hotel: (561) 994-8200
(click here for map)