More Google Changes Coming Your Way
Google is continuing their march to fill up the prime areas of your screen with their paid ads. In an earlier post, I pointed out that only the top 7 local business listings are now being displayed (vs the top 10 previously).
The search engine has now removed phone numbers from local business listings in order to free up more real estate for sponsored ads, according to Aaron Wall. As more ads fill up the ‘above the fold’ area of the screen, organic search listings are being pushed down with the exception of the top 1 or 2 ranked websites.
This new development highlights the importance of getting to the top spots of the organic search rankings so that your website can be visible above the fold. Since it takes time and resources to get to these spots (unless there is very little competition in your niche), this leads back to doing the proper keyword research so that you’re targeting the most important keyword(s) for your business.
Posted via web from Kym Wong’s posterous
Marketing Spending Pays Off for Small Business
Small businesses spending more on marketing are also expecting increases in revenues. E-marketer also reports that businesses are shifting their budgets away from traditional to cheaper digital advertising, including social media and search engine marketing.
Another survey reported by Small Business Trends asked respondents to identify what they felt would be the MOST important tools for SMBs in the New Year. The top 4 responses were:
- Search engine marketing
- Email marketing
- Public Relations
- Social Media
According to the report, more than 68% of small business owners will be increasing their social media spending. This appears to indicate that small businesses are seeing positive ROIs and gaining confidence in using social media marketing to get results.
Posted via web from Kym Wong’s posterous
Google Local Business Center
Google has made a significant change to its Local Business Center listings.
As you can see in the image below, instead of displaying the top 10 local business listings, Google is now only showing the top 7.
This makes it just that much more difficult for local businesses to show up on the first page of a local business search in competitive markets.
This change also re-emphasizes the importance of optimizing your business listing so that you can improve your business’ local search ranking position.
Make sure you use the appropriate categories and keywords in your local business center descriptions and try and get additional citations from local directories as well.
It looks Google made this change in order to free up real estate on the first page for their new Local Listing Ads service. For a flat monthly fee, Google will display your business ad in the sponsored search section as shown below.
This service is currently only available in San Francisco and San Diego.
You can learn more about the Google Local Listing Ad service in the video:
Most Effective Internet Marketing Strategies
Most local businesses focus on paid search or pay-per-click advertising, such as Google Adwords, because the results are immediate.
According to a Forbes/E-Marketer study however, the most effective online marketing tactic, for both small and large firms, is SEO or search engine optimization. This was followed by email marketing, then pay-per-click advertising.
The results are not surprising given that 88% of Internet search traffic flows through organic search results (Forbes) so the opportunity to attract more visitors and website traffic by ranking organically in the search engines is huge.
The downside is that it does take time (usually several months) to get a site ranked and the results are never guaranteed. Organic rankings depends on a great number of factors, including back links to the website which can take time to accumulate. Link building is a gradual ongoing process that takes much time and effort.
Business owners who are willing to invest in the search engine optimization and marketing effort will reap significant rewards:
“Instead of spending advertising dollars on newspaper and magazine ads, focusing on acquiring more organic search traffic as a key pillar of advertising strategy should become mainstream in the next 12 months. Thus, I see organic as the next big frontier in online advertising” – Forbes 5/09
Top Social Media Sites
In a previous post, I talked about how businesses are leveraging social media sites to connect with more prospects and customers online.
So what are some of the top social media sites today that business owners can tap into?
In a recent study, eMarketer, a market research firm, ranked the popularity of social networking sites in the US and came up with the top 20.
Interestingly, as of Mary 2009, Facebook has replaced MySpace as the most popular site among internet users. Facebook’s unique visitors doubled to over 70 million in the 12 months ending May 2009.
Also, while Twitter showed the most dramatic growth over this time period, its visitor level is still less than a third of Facebook and MySpace.
For businesses looking to utilize social media marketing, it may be useful to take a deeper look at the top 3 sites and their visitor demographics.
1. Facebook
Online since March of 1997, Facebook is the 4th most trafficked site on the internet, with users spending an average of 26 minutes a day on the site (based on Alexa statistics).
The site appears to attract a younger more affluent demographic, with a heavy representationof users aged between 18-24.
2. MySpace
Ranked 11th by traffic, MySpace users spend an average of 19.5 minutes daily on the site, which was started in 1996. Much like Facebook, it tends to attract young adults (relative less affluent however than Facebook users).
3. Twitter
Unlike the top 2 sites above, Twitter users spend only 8.5 minutes each day on the site which has a traffic rank of 25. The site tends to attract a slightly older audience, those between the ages of 25-34 with males being more over represented than females.
This quick analysis shows that knowing the user demographics of these sites is critical in helping business owners determine if this is the right target audience for their products or services.
Since social media marketing requires a significant time commitment, rather than following the herd and targeting the top ‘most popular’ sites, it pays to spend time researching each social networking site’s audience before jumping in.
Tools such as Alexa, Compete or Quantcast provides useful statistics and site demographics which businesses can use to conduct market and competitve research.
