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

After developing a website for your business it is important for users to be able to find your website on the internet.  What is the point of having a website if no one can find it?  So how do you get found on the internet?  The best way to get a consistent amount of visitors to your website is through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it “ranks,” the more searchers will visit that site. – Wikipedia

Optimizing your website will allow users to find you, help you stand out from your online competition and guarantee that you will get web traffic.  Increasing traffic to a website means more potential customers and more potential sales for your business. 

Matt Cutts from Google shares 5 SEO tips to help sites rank higher in the search engines.

1. Spotlight your search term on the page. If you want to be found for your keyword, make sure that term is on the page you want to rank. The term should be at the top as well as peppered throughout your copy.
2. Fill in your “tags.” The two most important tags are Title and Description b/c that’s what is displayed on the search results.
3. Get other sites to “link” back to you. This is one of the most important of the 100 factors Google considers when ranking sites
4. Create a blog and post often. This can help you get links. 
5.  Register for free tools. Cutts recommends using the tools at google.com/webmaster, as well as creating a text-based sitemap www.xml-sitemaps.com, and adding your business to Google’s Local Business center (google.com/local/add)

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.

Internet marketing has become a hot new trend when advertising your business. We at Ads Next  pride ourselves on offering our clients with the best internet marketing solutions. Michael Burns of Ads Next states - “While currently providing our clients with complete internet marketing solutions, and while consistently following the current and upcoming trends in our industry, we are finding ourselves to becoming more and more fascinated and even focused on the importance of Video Marketing and how it can increase our clients page ranks…such as on Google, Yahoo or MSN…etc.  Just as inbound link building and site preperation are to internet marketing, Video Marketing is now becoming a staple for successful website promotion.

From most readings, especailly an interesting online article written by Terri Miller, it is becoming more logical to move into Video Marketing Productions, and by his thoughts will become a staple.

For instance, please read these quotes from Terri Millers blog:

• “This [online video ads] could very well become the dominant form of online advertising…probably within the next 18 to 24 months” - Bob Hanna, senor vice president of sales with Burst Media-a group that offers publisher sites to advertisers.

• “Online video ad spend is to surge by 89% in 2007 and is poised to grow and in 2010 will be worth around $2.9 billion”. - marketing vox.

It should now becoming more clearer that Video marketing will most likely become the “next big thing” in the world of Internet marketing.

Well what is Video marketing? Well most would say that Video marketing is the use of video for conveying your message to an audience while topics can range from business perspectives to personal grievances. Most experts believe that videos are more effective when it comes to establishing an engaging and interactive platform to communicate with the target audience. 

Video advertising is one of the basic forms of video marketing. In most cases of video advertising, the advertiser would make use of the video that is already being run across various television channels. Usually, a video is edited to shorten the duration. This also makes the video more appealing to the online audience. 

However, as Terri Millers blog describes, their can be many pitfalls when creating a proper Video marketing campaign. According to Amit I. Budhrani of Alza Management Institute, “Most advertisers feel that the content for a video advert can be borrowed from their own TV commercials. However, this is not the case. One needs to clearly differentiate between a video advert and an advertisement made for the TV. Video made for a TV can nevër replace video that is required for the Internet. And it will not make a good impression about the company in the eyes of the people since they can quickly make out that the ad has been copied directly from the TV. If this happens then one is likely to löse out on viewers since people will not care to view the ad of the company ever again. Hence the company will loose viewers instead of gaining them. And this will be a very big loss of opportunity.”

The growing popularity of such sites as YouTube has opened up one more avenue for advertisers, business houses and the corporate sector. One can place videos in social network sites. According to a report that appeared in Reuters, “YouTube, the leader in Internet video search, said on Sunday viewers are now watching more than 100 million videos per day on its site, marking the surge in demand for its “snack-sized” video fare.”

Experts state that this particular form of advertising has not only great scope, provided the videos feature original content and are high on creativity, but will become a standard for an internet marketing campaign.

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.

I came across this article on ClickZ from Patricia Hursh and thought that she had some very good tips on optimizing a website for Local dominance in the search engine results.

Optimize for Local Search Queries

As with any SEO effort, basic optimization principles apply to local sites. Local marketers must engage in keyword research; develop relevant local content; write unique, compelling page titles and meta tags; implement search-friendly navigation; and build link popularity (to name just a few critical tasks).

But for local Web sites, two of the most important optimization steps a marketer can take are incorporating local search phrases across Web pages and properly utilizing contact information throughout the site.

Incorporate Local Search Phrases

Local keyword research is often less precise than a standard SEO effort. This is primarily due to language idiosyncrasies and local colloquiums. For example, if you own and operate a local shoe store, it’s important to know if searchers in your part of the country use the term “sneakers” or “tennis shoes” more often. If you run a bed-and-breakfast in Philadelphia, do people most often search for “Philly PA” or “Philadelphia”? People search for Minneapolis and St. Paul, but they also search for “twin cities.” They search for “downtown Chicago” and “the loop.” Make sure your Web site utilizes local speak and reflects the way your customers actually talk and search.

Once you’ve researched and identified target keyword phrases, use these local terms and phrases in page text, page titles, meta tags, link text, and other key places throughout the site.

Utilize Contact Information

A business’ address and phone number are instrumental for conducting business locally. But this contact information also provides a critical clue to search engines that a business is local in nature.

How to utilize contact information effectively:

• Display your full address with Zip Code on all appropriate Web pages.
• Include a local phone number, even when a toll-free number is available.
• Give your address and phone number extra prominence on the “Contact Us” page.
• If appropriate, provide information on areas served.
• Provide driving directions and a local map (perhaps on a page called “Directions/Location”).
• Consider placing contact information in the footer of every page.

Nationwide retailers, dealers, and franchises can create individual dealer locator pages optimized for local search queries and display each dealer’s local address as recommended above.

Increase Local Site Popularity

In-bound site links are critically important to improve local search visibility and results. As with any SEO effort, these links are more about quality than quantity.

If you belong to a chamber of commerce, local business association, or professional organization, request a link to your site. These organizations tend to have authoritative and popular Web sites and will typically link to you at no cost or for a nominal fee. If possible, provide suggested text associated with the link and include your target keyword phrases.

Check to see if there are local/vertical online directories or portals that are relevant to your business, such as FindLaw, a portal that provides legal information and helps people find appropriate lawyers in their area.

Dominate Search Results

Engaging in this simple three-step program may enable a small business to literally dominate a search results page. A local business now can show up in three separate places — all on the first page, and all above the fold:

• The main search results page.
• A local result inserted by Google or Yahoo at the top of the organic results (Google calls these One Box results and Yahoo calls them Shortcuts). According to MarketingSherpa’s recent eyetracking study, searchers pay more attention to the Google One Box listings than almost anything else on the page.
• A local PPC (define) ad.

The What’s Up? Publishing Group, a leading publisher of print media serving the greater Annapolis region and Maryland’s Eastern Shore, announces that it has signed a joint marketing partnership agreement with Ads Next™, providers of local internet advertising solutions. Both companies are based in Annapolis, Maryland.

“Technology is having a profound effect on the way we consume content,” says What’s Up? Publishing Group President Veronica Tovey. “With more than one billion commerce-driven local internet searches, it’s imperative that we move into the digital media arena if we are to stay on top. The expertise provided by Ads Next™ is helping us transition into a leading digital media provider.  We intend to provide fresh online content with interactive experiences for our Web site visitors, combined with digital advertising services for our advertisers. One goal for this partnership is to offer combined local print and Internet advertising solutions to local businesses.”

“The local online advertising market is expected to grow 48% in 2008 to 12.6 billion. The What’s Up? Publishing Group has a long standing relationship with local businesses, and now they can offer an online advertising component with their local print ads,” says Ads Next™ President Brian Burns.

Changes to What’s Up? Publishing’s corporate structure as a result of the Ads Next™ partnership include a digital media focus with the launching of a new Web site, www.WhatsUpMag.com, using web 2.0 techniques; a weekly E-newsletter; digital advertising services; Web site development services; E-marketing solutions, and a staff dedicated to digital media. The website will feature a searchable business directory with geography mapping technology; a regional restaurant guide with reader reviews; interactive local events and music section; Blogs and content marketing features; advanced banner tracking, and more.

“I am excited about this partnership. Together, we can capitalize on the tremendous growth in this market and help local advertisers at the same time,” says James P. Burns, an investor in Ads Next™
Company Backgrounds:

What’s Up, Inc. (www.whatsupmag.com)
The What’s Up? Publishing Group publishes five glossy print magazines, including two lifestyle magazines, What’s Up? Annapolis and What’s Up? Eastern Shore that reach 96,000 upscale households in greater Annapolis and Maryland’s Eastern Shore.  Its latest publication, What’s Up? Weddings was launched in February.

Ads Next™ (www.adsnext.com)
Ads Next™ is a local internet advertising company located in Annapolis, Maryland. To help clients succeed in the rapidly changing advertising market, Ads Next™ offers a unique 360° website promotion, tracking, and results solution.

Link Building is an important part of Search Engine Optimization.  It is the process of getting other websites to link to your website.  It is more important to have relevant links from a website rather than have an irrelevant link from a site that has a high Page Rank.  The search engines weigh heavier on relevant links.

It is important to continuously build links to stay on top of the search results for a website’s targeted keyword phrases.  The more links the better.  It is important however to make sure the number of inbound links increase in natural way.  The search engines to do not like it when a new site gains a lot of links in a very short period of time.  So it is best to accumulate links at a steady rate.

If your link text is the same as your targeted keywords then this will have a strong effect on your search rankings for those keywords.  Again however make sure all the link text are not the same.  You should use several different keyword phrases throughout your link text so that the links to not appear unnatural.

Content on the pages that link to your website is another important factor on determining how relevant your inbound links are.  So for example, if your site is a restaurant site then you should have inbound links from a dining guide or a site that has restaurant reviews.  With relevant link text associated with these links they will probably be the links that help your site rank high in the search engines.

Many people search online for local dentists, doctors, restaurants, spas, landscapers and many other local businesses.  Is your business being placed in front of these users? 

It’s not just about how many people make it to your Web site, but whether or not they take action once they’re there. Are they filling out lead forms?  Are they making a phone call?

Phone call tracking is one way to measure the success of your Local Internet Advertising efforts.  Call tracking allows you to place unique local or toll-free telephone numbers on your website, online and offline ads or landing pages. 

Call tracking proves accountability in both online and offline ad campaigns.  It allows you to monitor the effectiveness of each ad campaign and prove ROI to advertisers.  Calls can be recorded for quality assurance purposes and to measure the quality of the leads that are being generated.  You are able to listen to the phone calls through a real-time reporting portal.  Within these reports you are also able to view name, date, time they called and phone number.

Starting an online or offline campaign with tracked phone numbers can drive qualified leads to your business.  If you are running an ad campaign without tracking the results you could potentially be losing money.  It is crucial that you start tracking your local internet advertising efforts.  Find out what ad campaigns are working best for your business and invest more into those campaigns.

I found this article today from eMarketer very interesting.

Here comes the “Precision Shopper.”

Any retailer who isn’t using the online channel to promote offline sales—as well as online sales—is missing a sizable opportunity.”Today, online consumers think nothing of shopping across a retailer’s stores, Web site and catalog,” says Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, Multi-Channel Retailing, “As a consequence, online product research is driving more in-store sales than online sales.”

Last year, eMarketer estimated that store sales influenced by online research totaled $471 billion. Comparatively, retail e-commerce sales were only $136 billion.

Looked at another way, for every $1 in online sales, the Internet influenced $3.45 of store sales.

”Online consumers are becoming precision shoppers,” says Mr. Grau. “They are availing themselves of the wealth of information resources online to discover and evaluate products, compare them and find where they can be purchased.”

Mounting research shows that a significant percentage of store purchases are influenced by online product research.

In addition, the “eHoliday Mood Study,” conducted during last year’s holiday shopping season by Shop.org, showed that 63% of US online buyers made their holiday purchases in two or even three retail channels.

The percent of respondents who used more than one channel would have been even higher if consumers who researched products in one channel then bought them in another were included.

According to eMarketer estimates, combined Web-influenced store sales and retail e-commerce sales accounted for 15% of retail sales in 2007. By 2012, the percentage will nearly double to 28%.

Forrester Research, in contrast, reported that Web-influenced store sales plus e-commerce sales accounted for 27% of retail sales in 2007—almost twice eMarketer’s estimate.

”As much as online shopping is a convenience and the online shopping experience continuously improves, people are not about to abandon stores anytime soon,” says Mr. Grau.

So if your cross-channel marketing capabilities are still in the early stages of development, don’t despair. As Mr. Grau says, “The majority of multi-channel retailers still have work to do to resolve organizational and IT issues that stand in their path.”

Aaron Wall recently posted an article called How Long Does It Take to Rank in Google? He mentions that he gets asked this question quite frequently.  This seems to be the only thing new clients are ever concerned about with their search marketing campaigns.  And I will have to agree with Aaron on this one, “to compete in competitive marketplaces you have to out-think the competition or invest more than they do. When you start from how little or how quickly you have the wrong mindset.”

As he mentioned several things you should be concerned about.  They are fresh quality content, building your brand, and make social connections.  You want to build a site that is informative to your users and that also has a clear message of what your website is about and what product and services you are offering.  This is a huge mistake I see happening all the time.  Put yourself in your target audience’s shoes.  Would you be interested in your site?  Are you finding the information you are looking for based on the keyword phrases you are typing into the search engines?  If not then it’s likely your potential customers aren’t finding what they want either. 

So how long does it take to rank in Google?  Aaron emphasizes several things that effect how long it will take to rank in Google.

If you site doesn’t have much competition in the search results space then it is possible that you may be able to rank highly in a month.

Is your site brand new?  If so and your competition’s site is much older it can take you’re site a year to get in the top position you desire.  However if they aren’t marketing their site well then it may be easier for you to rank in that top position.  You may want to build links over a period of time to gain recognition.  If your site is older you may be able to be more aggressive with the link building.

It is important to continuously monitor how much time and effort your competitors are investing.  You won’t rank above them if you’re not investing the time.