Results of Search Engine Marketing Survey

The results of their yearly Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Survey have just been released by MarketingSherpa with some interesting findings. This year, the SEM field was getting so big that they broke their survey down into two parts, SEO and PPC. This survey report deals with SEO.

In the results of over 2,000 responses  from B2B and B2C marketers, the first thing that hit me was only a third of businesses use a formal SEO process. Almost half use what they call  ‘informal processes’ and 20% have no SEO plan at all!

Also, two twists in modern search engine marketing are ‘personalized’ search (which means different people get different search results depending on their search history) which screws up the metrics of your SEO program, and the advent of social media results showing up on search engine results pages (SERPS). Read more.
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Senate Wants To Grant Emergency Internet Power

Here they go again. For the third time recently the U.S. Senate, this time in the form of Senator ??Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is proposing a bill that would grant the President the power to seize control of or even shut down parts of the Internet in the event of a cybersecurity emergency.

Previous attempts by Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) didn’t get too far. But Lieberman’s new attempt has been endorsed by Rockefeller and co-sponsored by Snowe according to a cnet article.

Now there’s bipartisanship for you… A Democrat, Independent and Republican all wanting more power for the government – power over the private parts of Internet. Read more.
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Starting An Online Business – Incorporation

We’re approaching the start of a new year and many of you are looking into starting an online business. One of the steps is deciding whether or not to incorporate your business.

As a small or home office business, you have four main choices for your business as a legal entity in the United States (for those of you in other countries you will have to check on your own business tax laws):

* Sole Proprietor
* General Partnership
* Limited Liability Company (LLC)
* Subchapter S Corporation

Of the other possible options, a “C” corporation is generally for large businesses and Limited Partnerships can be complicated, so I won’t get into them here.

Also, don’t forget your local business licenses. You may have to register your business in the city, county and/or state where you live. You should also set up a separate bank account for your business.

In general, your main considerations are going to be liability, taxes and how you intend to finance your business. Read more.
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Heavy Hitters Moving Into Mobile

Mobile phone usage is growing fast, especially smart phones, and some big names are moving into the field.

First, Google is buying AdMob for 750 million dollars.

AdMob is one of the top sellers of banner ads on iPhone applications and Web pages that can be retrieved from mobile phones. The acquisition could help establish Google as an early leader in the small but rapidly expanding mobile phone advertising business. [NY Times]

Advertising sales on mobile phones was a paltry 160 million dollars last year compared for $22 billion for online ads, and the “experts” projections for future ad spending differ radically, but everyone’s in agreement that it has no place to go but up and Google is positioning themselves to be in the lead. Read more.
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From Small Business To Big Business – One Man’s Story

A lot of clients ask us “how do I get started with an online business?” Thomas Heath, a columnist for the Washington post, just wrote a column about one man’s rise from small sales on eBay to a 5 million dollar a year company.

Find your niche. The man in question is a U.S. Marine named Jeffrey Morin. He started in the niche of “challenge coins”, memorabilia coins that commemorate service in a military unit or exercise. He saw them on eBay selling for around $10 – $15 and knew he could buy them for around $5. A small business was born.

Grow your sales. After about six months he got an email asking if he could he find a coin dedicated to mothers with sons in the Marine Corps. No, but he could sure make one! Read more.
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Recession Creates Uptick In New Businesses

A recent study by the Kauffman Foundation shows an uptick in business startups in 2008. It’s what the New York Times calls ‘accidental’ or ‘unintentional’ businesses.

Many unemployed people are turning to small business startups as an alternative to a corporate job, a job they got laid off from and are having little luck finding a new one.

The NYTimes article goes on about startup costs…

…the costs of owning a business add up quickly. There are state and local taxes and fees, insurance, salaries and contract pay, overhead, inventory and the like. And these days, lenders are none too generous when it comes to forking over money to new businesses.

For an online business that’s just nonsense. All that can come later. To start an online business all you need is a bank account and an Internet connection.

Read more.
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Where Do Moms Go For Advice Online?

The answer: Other moms online

A post by Stephanie Azzarone at mediapost.com’s Engage: Moms had some interesting statistics:

• 35 million of the 40 million women in the U.S. with children 18 or under are online
• Over 16.5 million of those moms are blog readers or publishers

• 67% of moms online look for help making a purchasing decision

• 78% of moms who blog review products

And moms looking for advice online usually go to other moms…

Studies show that moms are increasingly losing trust in established “experts” — institutions and the like — while trusting more in what other moms have to say. That trust extends beyond members of their family or immediate community to other moms — strangers — they meet online.

In other words, she says “Bloggers can promote products or services more credibly than companies can on their own.”

So, if you are a Mom you can start a home business as a blogger giving advice and selling products to other moms. Many do product reviews as a lead-in to affiliate sales.

Read more.
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Getting Paid Through Online Advertising

The most common way of getting income through advertising is with Google Adsense, but it’s not one we recommend. A couple of years ago Google split its advertising fees (Google Adwords) between ‘search’ and ‘content’ advertising, the first for Google’s search page and the second for sites with Adsense.

The fees Google charges for Adsense ads have gone way down, meaning you have to have tons of traffic that click on Adsense ads to make any money – and I mean TONS of traffic. You would do better to charge fees to advertisers directly for space on your site or blog.

For example, let’s say you have a site on dog training with Google Adsense. Someone selling dog food can use content ads, even picking your specific site for their ads, and be charged 10 or 15 cents per click. Of that, you get less than a nickel per click.

That means to make $1000 you need 20,000 click-throughs, which at a relatively high click-throughs rate of 3% means you would make $1000 for every 666,666 visitors. A more realistic CTR of 2% means $1000 for every MILLION visitors.

As I said, we don’t recommend Google Adsense.

Another option is to solicit paid ads directly from online sellers. You can have them pay per ad or pay per lead (click-throughs). So, let’s say you charge $40/month for an ad on your site/blog and another $20/month for an ad in your weekly newsletter and you find 7 advertisers. That’s $420/month or around $5000/year from one site. It beats trying to get 5 million visitors a year through Google Adsense.

As your number of site visitors and mail list recipients increases you can charge more for advertising, and/or create more sites.

Advertising can work as a sideline to products, even affiliate products, on your site, but I’ve found that after all the work to get a visitor to one of my sites, I don’t want them clicking away from it unless I make more than a nickel..
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