Internet Marketing for Small Business

Recent studies have shown that 94% of business transactions involve online research at some point during the buying cycle.  Of this large sum of searchers, 64% use a search engine for their research and 83% use Google as their choice search engine for finding relevant information to help them make and informed decision. 

Now I don’t know about you, I do about 99% of my buying research online but I never expected findings this high.  That just goes to show you that businesses have seen the value of searching online for data for decision making and know that google is “the” place to find the most relevant results (that is if you know how to search properly) 

Just additioanl proof that I have chosen the right profession!

Source: Recently release Enquiro study of 1500 business buyers.

Google, the gigantic organization best known for bringing the most widely-used search engine to us has also given us many other reasons to like them. 

 - $10 free signup incentive to use at participating merchants for using the new Google Checkout (similar to paypal)

- Free $50-100+ for Adwords Professionals to offer new clients (contact me for details)

-Free money for joining the Adsense Publisher program designed to monetize your site.

Many sites that are ranked highly for keywords you are targeting may offer free listings in exchange for a link to their site.   For example, a search in google for “internet marketing minnesota” ranks http://www.marketingtool.com above the fold on the first page.  Since my site isn’t ranked that high yet, it would make sense for me to provide a reciprocal link in exchange for a free listing.  (that’s the best type of advertising, FREE!)  I am a Preferred Vendor in the Minneapolis, Minnesota Internet Marketing Firms Directory at Marketingtool.com.

Do a search for your targeted keywords and phrases and see what directories, informational sites you may be albe to get listed on for free or next to nothing.

“Turning your traffic into Sales!”

Tanya Mitchell
www.Tanya-Mitchell.com

My grandmother sent me this via email today (yes she’s an Internet-savvy lady) I laughed outloud and proceeded to email this to my friends - then I stopped and thought I would share it with the world as they might get a great laugh from it, just as I did.

This is a true story. An elderly Florida lady did her shopping and, upon returning to her car, found four males in the act of leaving with her vehicle. She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her voice, “I have a gun, and I know how to use it! Get out of the car!”   

The four men didn’t wait for a second invitation. They got out and ran like mad. The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into driver’s seat. She was so shaken that she could not get her key into the ignition. She tried and tried, and then it dawned on her why.A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces farther down. She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police station. The sergeant to whom she told the story couldn’t stop laughing. He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale men were reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair, and carrying a large handgun. No charges were filed.

If you’re going to have a Senior Moment, make it a memorable one!

If you don’t already know I live in Minneapolis, although I have mixed opinions about the city when it comes to climate, I have no hesitation in boasting the rich diversity and culture we have here.  Part of what makes me proud to be a Minneapolis resident is the fact that as a city we are progressive in many of the new technologies and ways of living. 

I had lunch last week with a friend who I love to discuss business-related topics with.  We enjoy talking about e-commerce, Internet marketing and the future of the Internet.  During our discussion of the recent .mobi launch and the possibility of various technologies surrounding that, I suggested that I thought in a few years the nation would have wi-fi signals everywhere without subscription, most likely advertiser-supported. A few days later, I received my neighborhood newspaper, The Southest Journal.  On the front cover read a headline:  Entering the Wireless Frontier Southwest will be second area to go live with new network.  It is different than what I theorized because there is a subscription cost of $20 per resident however I was excited to see this and also that my area of the city is the second area to go live with the initiative.  

One of my favorite things about Southwest Minneapolis is our access to two of the greatest lakes the city has to offer, Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun - pretty soon, I’m sure I will be working on my laptop from one of them!

“Turning your traffic into Sales!”

Tanya Mitchell
www.Tanya-Mitchell.com

Okay I know this is off-topic however it’s just one of those things I had to write about. 

Do you Tivo? I do, I have a season pass for Oprah which I will ocassionaly watch if the topic appeals to me.  I don’t care for all the celebrity appearances but I do like the inspirational topics she discusses at times.

Did anyone catch yesterday’s show? If you didn’t you must visit her site and watch a clip of Priscilla Dunstan’s appearance on her segment titled, The Secret Language of Babies. 

This woman has a photographic memory for sounds and during school she never had to take notes because she rememered them all.  If that isn’t amazing enough, she discovered with the birth of her own child that babies have 5 distinct sounds or cries that indicate exactly what they want!

Okay, now where was this woman 8 years ago when I had my son?  Anyhow, I was so amazed by her interpretation of the sounds the babies made I just had to write about it and since the explaination she gives is so simple I wonder why researchers never uncovered this before 2006? Well either way, after watching the new mom’s on the show use her technique with success I don’t fear the shreiking cry of babies anymore. 

If you know anyone who recently had a baby or is expecting a baby - buy this woman’s DVD as a Christmas gift for them, they will LOVE YOU FOR IT!

p.s. If I could ever guarantee a return on investment it would be the cost of this DVD compared to the amount of lost sleep, stress and agony a crying baby can invoke upon you.

p.p.s. No I didn’t get paid to promote her DVD nor is the link an affiliate link…I just thought it was newsworthy.

“Turning your traffic into Sales!”

Tanya Mitchell
www.Tanya-Mitchell.com

If you don’t already have some type of web measurement solution implemented to track visitor behavior you could be paying a huge price!

Maybe you are thinking that you already know what’s going on since you can access your server log files and interpret data there, right? WRONG! I’m going to explain why this is just not enough. Unless you are willing to give up your priceless market share - then by all means, go blindly into your future.  If you are ready to start increasing your ROI, revenue and customer base…then keep reading.

Conversion Rate is Key!

Through in-depth testing and analysis over a period of time you can increase the percentage of people that pull the trigger on your offer.  This is precisely what a conversion rate is tracking, the number of sales or leads generated based on the number of customers that were delivered your offer. 

Did you get that?  No, okay let me explain it a little more.

Let’s say your business sells only a single product priced at $20 and your website is currently selling $10,000 worth of product a week (2000 units per month). Now lets say you have a conversion rate of only .20%. (Average sales conversion rate is 1.5-2.0%) If your conversion rate was closer to the industry standard your monthly revenue would go from $40,000 to $400,000!  Do I have your attention yet?

Don’t forget what it’s all about.

There are many different web site analytics packages you can purchase from free to hundreds of thousands of dollars.  To choose the right one for your company you would need to consult with a profession to determine what detail will be required to be captured and recorded.  Now please don’t forget the FUNDAMENTAL MEASUREMENT you need to pay attention to, the conversion rate.  Your web analytics package will provide you with a wealth of data to use in testing and re-testing various elements of your site, ads and various marketing campaigns to measure the effectiveness but it all boils down to the conversion rate.  Increase your rate and increase your revenue.

Happy Testing!

If you should need assistance determining what analytics package is right for your company or further analysis with your existing package, please contact me. 

“Turning your traffic into Sales!”

Tanya Mitchell
www.Tanya-Mitchell.com

One of the ways to increase your ranking is to increase the number of links that point to your site, preferably one-way links.  One way to do this is to purchase links or what is called text link buying. 

Some search engine specialists don’t agree with this method entirely, and may choose not to include it in their strategy, others are able to use this method of search engine optimization for their own benefit.

There are better avenues for purchasing links.  One of which is paid directory listings due to the fact that they archive you in the most relevant category pertaining to your site topic.  The other option for buying text links is to purchase what is known as text link advertising on various sites. 

If you don’t know where to start you may find brokerage firms such as Text Link Ads, LinkAdage, and Adbrite do an excellent job at creating a network of web site publishers who are willing to sell ad space on their sites.  Take a look and see what you find. BONUS OFFER: $100 in FREE Links!

To understand why this method is effective let me explain a few ways that search engines work.  First, a search engine spider’s job is to continually crawls the Internet looking for fresh new content as well as related topics.  They use these findings to produce the most relevant result for their search engine users according to their specific search engine algorithm (or formula for determining relevant websites).

If the search spider continues to find your site listed under the same category (such as Internet Marketing) and your web site content is all about Internet Marketing you will increase your odds of gaining better placement in the search engine result pages as well as make it easier for the spider to figure out what your site is about to categorize it properly.  This is the reason that changing your titles, meta information and content is not enough to get you top placement in search engine result pages above other sites that you may think are not as “relevant” as yours for a particular search query.

This is why it is so important that you choose highly relevant categories when listing in directories and the same goes for purchasing text link advertising from a portal or other informational website.  If your site is selling “Golf Shoes” do not purchase advertising on a site like iVillage that caters specifcally toward women.  This may seem logical but it’s very important to check the quality and target market of any site you are considering purchasing advertising from as well as investigating their own backlinks and reputation to estimate if it will be a good return on your investment.

Link Weight is an additional factor calculated in the algorithmic mix.  This is essentially of all the links that the search engine spider found that are linking to your site and how many of them were considered:

• Relevant to the topic
• Credible, Trusted & Authority (in Google this usually means pages with higher PageRank)
• and led the spider to a page consisting of relevant content

Carefully review sites that you are considering and spend your advertising dollars wisely.  If you need assistance with this please contact me. 

Things change quickly with search engine ranking strategy, so be sure to take advantage of this opportunity soon!

Stay tuned for more great tips on text link buying.

“Turning your traffic into Sales!”

Tanya Mitchell
www.Tanya-Mitchell.com

Welcome, this is the first post of my new blog.  I have just recovered from a VERY long election day yesterday.  I volunteered here in Minneapolis to be an Election Judge and learn more about the operations of our political democracy processes during an election. 

It was a very interesting day to say the least.  I was surprised at the percentage of registered voters that came to the polls.  There was about 68% which is pretty good considering the precinct doesn’t normally turn out a high number of voters however this indicated to me that there is a sincere community interest in the politicians that are chosen to manage our country.  It is good to know that people took time out of their day and voted.  Looking forward to the primary in a few years!

P.S. One thing that struck me as odd was the lack of technology during the entire process, I wonder if confidence will rebuild after some mistakes in the past.  I personally welcome a bit more automation to elections and hope that it catches up to the other rapidly advancing technology automation industries that are doing very well with accuracy issues.

“Turning your traffic into Sales!”

Tanya Mitchell
www.Tanya-Mitchell.com