Ads Next™ Local Internet Advertising, Annapolis, Maryland, Internet Advertising Solutions, Search Engine Optimization, Website Design and Integration, Social Media Marketing

Here is an interesting article by Ben Parr from Mashable that discusses the Newspaper Industry’s decline in advertising revenue in the last 10 years.  Although their advertising revenue has declined each year their online advertising revenue is increasing.

We’ve known for a long time that the newspaper industry as we know it is dying. The shift from print to online has been a painful process — but just how painful has it been?

On Wednesday, the Newspaper Association of America released its estimates for advertising revenue across the newspaper industry. The numbers for 2009 were nothing short of disastrous, once again bringing up a very tough question: Can newspapers find a way to survive? Read More

By MG Siegler

Today, at its Search Event in Mountain View, Google Fellow Amit Singhal (who recently participated in our Realtime Crunchup) took the stage to announce a big new feature for the search giant: Realtime.

“It’s Google’s relevance technology meeting the realtime web,” is how Singhal described it.

As we’ve learned over the past several months with Twitter Search, relevancy is perhaps the key to making realtime search a pillar of the web. Google seems to believe it has cracked the code for this, and has been internally testing it for a while now. But starting today it’s going live for everyone.

Singhal showed off the new feature by doing a query for “Obama.” The results page shows results coming in in realtime. And yes, it works with Twitter. For example, Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted something from the audience, and in popped in the results immediately. This is the first time any search engine has integrated realtime results into a standard page, Google says. Obviously, this is huge. Read More

Here are some quick stats about facebook that should be interesting to business owners.

o Last month Facebook hit 300 million users
o An average of 250,000 new users join everyday
o About 34% work as professionals, sales, executives, educators or are in technical careers.
o The fastest growing demographic on Facebook consists of users 25 and older

If you decide to build a Facebook page for your business here are some tips that are important for establishing your Facebook presence.

Create a profile that is interesting

Upload a lot of photos.  Photos help fans connect with your company on an emotional level.  Your pictures can include your logo, pictures of your best selling products, company events, ads, employees, and etc.

Make sure your business description is unique and compelling.  A dull description may not appeal to many fans.  Stand out above your competition and other businesses.  Intrigue potential fans to want to become a fan of your business.

Add links, videos, and notes pages.  The more information you have listed the more appealing you will be to your fans and will increase the interaction on your page.

Continue to grow your fan base

You can start by befriending  people you know.  But keep these friends professional since this facebook page directly relates to your business.

Search on facebook to find more friends.  Facebook can help you find more friends through your existing email contacts.  Then search on keywords related to your business to find potential new friends that may be interested in your business.

Join groups that are related to your business.  You can do a Facebook search by industry, location and company name.  If there aren’t any groups in your industry start one.

Develop your presence

Join wall for forum discussions.  Comment on other walls.  This will help you establish your identity and visibility.

Make your wall interesting.  Update frequently with promotions, events, surveys or ask for feedback on your products or services.

Post comments/quetions on your wall that will get a discussion going with your fans.  For example “Who do you think will make it to the Super Bowl?”

Syndicate

Wherever possible link back to your website.  Sometimes your facebook page may get more views than your website so it’s important to link it back to your website whenever possible.

Link your Facebook page to other social networking sites like your Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

Add a Facebook fan box to your website.  When people click on your fan book they will automatically become a fan without having to log in to Facebook

By: searchengineland.com

From marketers to Wall Street analysts to the Department of Justice, everyone (even the general public) recognizes that Google is the 800-pound gorilla in the world of search. And particularly with the introduction of the generic 10-pack to Universal results, this fact largely holds true in Local Search as well. Google Maps has pulled even with Mapquest thanks largely to this decision by the higher-ups in Mountain View.

There’s tremendous value for small businesses in optimizing for Google’s Universal results, as Hanan Lifshitz pointed out last week. It’s hard not to imagine that small business owner grabbing the lion’s share of chiropractic searchers in his region, thanks to the efforts of Will Scott’s Search Influence firm.

But no matter your industry, when it comes to Local, it’s absolutely critical to think beyond Google, even if all you’re trying to do is optimize for the 10-pack.

The importance of citations for Google Maps

One of the pathways to “Local Organic Domination,” as Hanan termed it, is through the acquisition of citations. Citations are just mentions of your business name in close proximity to your address or phone number, with or without a link to your website. Think of them like votes of confidence for a particular business’slocation…the more confidence Google has in your listing, the higher they’re likely to display it in search results. So it’s important to list yourself fully and accurately in as many places across the web as possible, including blogs about your city or industry.

Bottom line, it’s hard to rank in Google Maps (and consequently Universal Search) without paying significant attention to how your business is listed across the web, not just on Google.

“Other” local search

One of Gib Olander’s favorite lines is: ” ‘other’ is the third-largest local search engine.” What he means is that local search is far more fragmented than traditional organic search. Unlike traditional search, if you’re only paying attention to getting your business on Google and Yahoo, you’re missing out on a huge chunk of local market share.

While the demise of the Print Yellow Pages seems imminent, Internet Yellow Pages sites are far healthier, and some are even thriving. YellowPages.com’s ad partnership with Bing is just one example…at least if Bing can continue to capitalize on its current hype. Superpages.com has long been a trusted source of data with its own steady traffic stream, and more recent entrants like InsiderPages and Yellowbot are starting to develop passionate user bases.

Then there’s the online classified market. Craigslist is the default place to look for local ’stuff” here on the West Coast, not to mention other major players like Oodle and Kijiji.

Vertical local search

Success in local also means promoting your presence on sites with strong market shares of their own in particular industries. This doesn’t mean only ranking well, but paying attention to what people are saying about you, responding to their feedback, and improving their perceptions.

For example, sites like TripAdvisor and Kayak are huge in the travel industry. Restauranteurs might even think about places like Yelp, BooRah, or Urban Spoon before thinking about Google. For chiropractors like Will’s client, these might include Planet Chiropractic and No More Clipboard. For searches near and dear to my heart, [golf courses] – it’s portals like Golf Digest and GolfNow.

(Incidentally, almost all of these sites make excellent citations for your Google Maps listing…)

Social local search

Many of the sites mentioned above, and even Google and Yahoo, straddle the line between social media and search due to the prominence of reviews in their users’ experience.  But local “searchers” are often turning to purely social sites like Twitter, Praized, and RetailMeNot as well for recommendations and sale information about Local businesses. And as we all learned from Dave Carroll’s brilliant lampoon of United Airlines last week, word-of-mouth can sometimes be more powerful than any search marketing campaign could be.

Conclusion

Local search traffic is only going to grow in importance.  So don’t “put your blinkers on” as Nick Faldo loves to say (indulge me…this is Open Championship week, after all) and focus all of your energies on Google. Your long-term chances for a successful online presence will suffer if you do.

People are turning to the search engines more and more to search for “local” service providers, ranging from cosmetic dentists to cosmetic skin care, electricians to home remodelers.

Most of us deal with companies and businesses within a few miles of where we live, especially with the current state of the economy. It’s cheaper to shop local.

Just building a website is not enough anymore to succeed online. It is now crucial for any business hoping to expand their reach to have a high Internet presence that is aimed at targeting their local customers.

Effective Local Online Advertising  involves a professionally built website, a Local Search Engine Marketing Campaign, and someone that can manage both of these efforts. Below is an interesting article on internet Ad Spending from SMBs by Melinda Gipson from Burrell Associates. 

“In the last three years, Internet spending by SMBs has nearly tripled from 4 percent of sales to 11 percent. So says the latest Borrell Associates report “Main Street Goes Interactive.” But, while the collective heft of such businesses, numbering more than 14.6 million in the U.S., has tantalized numerous locally-targeted Internet marketing services who are deluging them with offers, Borrell warns, “the SMBs in any market are less like a two-ton gorilla and more like 1,000 four-pound monkeys – difficult to chase down and impossible to corral.”

The good news: such offers have this market’s attention. The bad news, they’re much less receptive to buying banner advertising (now 54 percent of their Internet spend, but declining in share), and more amenable to search engine advertising, online directory listings and streaming video. Rather than spend more on what publishers might define as advertising, they’re upping their budgets on site design, search engine optimization and customer databases.
By the numbers, in 2008 SMBs:

•    Were responsible for $6.9 billion in locally-generated, locally targeted Internet advertising – more than half the U.S. total;
•    Smaller merchants spent less than $300/ea on Web site support, but this expenditure will triple again in just a few years, Borrell predicts.

“SMBs are collectively poised to plow billions of dollars into their own Web sites,” but they appear to be extremely results oriented and have grown leery of Internet products that are “oversold and under-perform.”

The report is chock-full of insights on what kinds of SMBs are spending more online than their peers, by category of business (hint: general merchandise stores, auto marketing and Real Estate Services together account for 70 percent of all local online ad spending.) Pure-plays like Yahoo and Google control almost half of all local interactive ad spending by SMBs, irrespective of their size. Newspaper-owned interactive units follow in rank with a 28 percent share. In 2004, newspapers’ share was 50 percent and portals hovered around 20 percent, so these marketers’ roles are nearly reversed, even as the competition for attention heats up.

As Borrell puts it, “All in all, our interactive Main Street may look quiet, but when it comes to local interactive ad spending, it’s where the action is.”

It is important to keep marketing in a down market if you don’t you will lose touch with your clients. In a recession customer service and marketing is more important than at any other time. If you lose touch with your client base you won’t be able to see the trends your clients are facing.  Below is a good article from Adotas discussing how online advertising will probably continue to grow in this down economy.

“So it’s no surprise that marketers are shifting to direct-response ads, search and performance-based advertising and away from less measurable display and branding campaigns, according to Imran Khan, who runs the global Internet research at JP Morgan Chase, who spoke at the OMMA Global Hollywood

“Historically, ecommerce drives online advertising,” he said. “Roughly 4% of total retail sales in the U.S. are from ecommerce. Amazon’s recent revenue results came in at about 8% during a time when consumer consumption was down.”

Overall, roughly 8 percent of the total ad dollars in the U.S. is spent online, while many consumers spend about 30 percent of their time surfing the Web, according to MediaPost. About 85 percent of total ad dollars spent online in the U.K. is performance-driven, compared with 50 percent in the U.S., Khan said.

Brands want more effective ways to reach consumers and efficient tools and processes to buy advertising online. But as observers of social media marketers have noted, brand awareness trumps intent for purchase. If more and more people are interacting on social networks, is the performance-driven models a short term phase because of a terrible economy?”

Here is an interview with Google’s Matt Cutts and his take on search engine rankings in 2009.  He makes some interesting points on what to expect from Google in 2009 and how you should be marketing your website.  Your main focus should not be on rankings. 

Cutts isn’t saying that rankings are dead however it’s not as important as it used to be.  He states that smart SEOs aren’t only looking at rankings but also conversions and metrics.  Its great to be ranking high on important keyword phrases that relate to your business but if those phrases aren’t generating sales or revenue then it isn’t helping your business very much.

Matt Cutts stresses “The challenge is not to pay so much attention to ranking, pay attention to traffic, pay attention to conversions and keep building good content and don’t worry about can I show people that I rank number one for my trophy phrases.”

He also gives some insight on Universal Search in 2009.

“Universal is really useful and I think it will continue to expand and what that means in 2009 you can’t just think of yourself as an SEO,” said Cutts.

“SEOs are starting to embrace the fact that they are marketers. It’s a broader spectrum. You have to think about how you build buzz, how do you get loyal customers, how do you optimize your ROI. All those different things and that can include how do I make good videos, do I have a book, things like that.”

Cutts says that people will continue to pay attention to video and images in 2009 but noted a down side. “Of course anywhere there is money there will be spam.” Google has been focusing on its different properties to manage the spam issue.

We agree, that is why Ads Next™ offers a 360°web promotion, tracking and results driven marketing solution.

Our goal is to promote your website across the web and generate as much traffic and leads as possible based on your budget.  We will balance our website traffic strategy between paid traffic (Pay-Per-Click), and organic traffic (Search Engine Optimization).  We then use our lead tools to track and convert these traffic increases into more qualified leads.  We prove results with our web-based Reporting Dashboard 2.0.  This new version combines all of our traffic and lead tracking metrics into one place with easy to read graphical charts.

The following article was posted on the Nasdaq website.  I found it very interesting.  It gives insight on the Interactive Ad industry and the challenges all types of advertising is facing due to the current state of the economy.  Although internet ads are in a better position because you are able to track performance.

“The internet advertising industry has managed to buck the slumping economy with this week’s announcement that revenues climbed to $6 billion in the third quarter of 2008.

The $5.9 billion in revenues represent an 11 percent gain over the third quarter of 2007, although the current figures are only two percent higher than they were in the second quarter of this year.

“Interactive advertising continues to be the most measurable and cost-effective way to reach consumers, and we see more and more marketers seeking to harness its power,” said Interactive Advertising Bureau President Randall Rothenburg. Still, Rothenburg also acknowledged that growth in advertising revenues had “stabilized” due to the current economic climate.

Total online advertising revenues have nearly tripled since 2000 and exponentially since such tracking began in 1996, when online advertising revenue for the entire year was reported as $267million.

David Silverman of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP also cited the economy as an ongoing challenge for any type of advertising, but suggested that internet ads are “better poised to withstand the storm” because of its “ability to combine performance-based advertising along with broad-based branding.”"

I recently tested Google’s new Chrome Browser and found it very fast, easy to use and Web 2.0 friendly.  It has a similar feel to Firefox, a project Google worked on, but displays website design in a cleaner format  – IMO.  I especially like how it combines the address bar with suggested search results. 

 As with Firefox it integrates very well with Web 2.0 applications such as social sites and bookmarks.  Google’s Chrome goes further combining chat and email as well.  It truly is a one stop shop for users and great for Local Internet Advertising – Chrome embraces the growing interconnectivity of the web so visitors can better find local businesses and find them faster!  Gone are the days of one dimensional browsers and search engines. 

Here is the announcement on Google’s Chrome Browser.

A fresh take on the browser

At Google, we spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And like all of you, in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends – all using a browser. People are spending an increasing amount of time online, and they’re doing things never imagined when the web first appeared about 15 years ago.

Since we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if you started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.

 So today we’re releasing the beta version of a new open source browser: Google Chrome.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff – the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better . By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built V8, a more powerful JavaScript engine, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

This is just the beginning – Google Chrome is far from done. We’ve released this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We’re hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and we’ll continue to make it even faster and more robust.

We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we’re committed to continuing on their path. We’ve used components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, among others – and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better.

But enough from us. The best test of Google Chrome is to try it yourself.

Wordpress and Blogger.com are two “self-hosted, blog publishing” software programs on the internet which allow users to posts various “blogs” and discussions on various articles, news or particular subjects. The word “blog” describes a website, which is usually maintained or taken care of by an individual that allows “entries” of comments, descriptions, reviews or any other materials to primarily complete a topic description/discussion. WordPress and Blogger are blog-services that are free, allow users to input text, and are community driven while supplying various privacy features.

In the beginning and for quite some time, blogging was more or less a means of keeping an online journal where individuals would keep a “running account of their everyday lives”. Most of these users called themselves journalist, diarists or journals. However, it was Peter Mernholz who is credited as creating the term “blog” out of the word “weblog”, created by John Barger. The term stuck as it was quickly “adopted as both a noun and verb (“to blog” meaning to edit ones page!).

Blogger (which is owned by Google) and Wordpress are two extremely popular and powerful blog publishing software programs. Blogger was created back in late 1999, and has been credited for “pioneering the format” and other various blogging tools to date. Wordpress first appeared in 2003, initially created by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little to create a “fork” of “b2”, then only later to have the blogging software come to fruition. Blogger was created to have a free format from the beginning, whereas Wordpress required an “invitation-only”, though this was primarily in the beginning and would eventually give way to over 3,500,000 individual blogs in the service. Registration is not required on both to read or comment on weblogs through the site, however registration IS required for an owner to own or post a weblog.

Wordpress is website that provides blog hosting free of charge. It is a multi-user program that allows thousands of blogs to be hosted on a single web server. However, the free hosting does not allow for any “plug ins” or themes, which many users can find irritating. These features may become available in the future as “payable plug ins” which would allow Wordpress to be comparable to traditional hosting pages. The biggest differences between Blogger and Wordpress can be summed up in one word, organization! Blogger, being one of the first and having an association with Google, enjoyed a great following of “bloggers” due to its timely inception and high end relationships and also because of its “toned down, easy to wield user interface”. It would allow for blogs to be edited in HTML, and it was also FREE!

However, as the site grew in popularity so did its content and the ways to/not too manage that content. That is when along came Wordpress. Wordpress offered a blog publishing program which in turn “organized” all blogs and articles, establishing categories for blogs, “blogstats” and an import blog feature so various blogs and articles from other sites (such as Blogger!) could be taken from and placed with ease into a Wordpress blog! Wordpress had also been able to give its participants a much more streamlined “dashboard” for which to navigate and create with. Users also rave about Wordpress’s ability to make “static pages” while providing specific links to a specific article/blog. And to top it off, though not the end of features is the ability to protect bloggers from Spam, or at the very least enough that they do not have to give constant attention to the issue.

Blogger, Wordpress and even LiveJournal are all blog publishing programs with their own audience and dedicated members. Blogger and Wordpress are more text driven, making them more popular when it comes to reviews, articles and such. Where the difference can be in the two major, text driven sites is the amount of organization and features which allow the user to create/expand his or her blog. From reading various reviews online, most come to the conclusion that Wordpress is the best for an “open ended” blog world, allowing an extremely user friendly interface with great organization and a growing list of features to come. Blogger too is also expanding its forum, with a revamped “dashboard”. Both are still free for the most part, so from what I read it comes down to which program you are both familiar and comfortable with using and researching.