A quick thought. Create a webpage for your actual customers - the people who actually visit and use it. Find out what's relevant and important to them and then go and give it to them. Don't build a site that will help you, your marketing department, your sales team or anyone else at your organization. Take this mentality with you and see how it changes things - both online and off.

Tags: Bob Hazlett, Customers

1. Google recently announced and effort to allow local businesses to add their YouTube video to their listings on Google Maps. Videos will be viewable in Google Earth and Google Maps (press the Photos and Videos tab on the information bubble of you listing). This is one of those simple online marketing efforts that costs nothing to implement, yet sets your business miles apart from your local competitors. Here are 2 quick ideas on how to make your video and entry stand out.

• Offer a coupon code specifically for that video. Make it exclusive yet measurable.
• Show your expertise. If you're a landscaper, then plant a tree. If you're a chef, then show how easy it is to cook a delicious meal.

Don't have a YouTube video or entry on Google Maps? Don't worry, I've got you covered with two previous posts - Adding Your Business to Google Maps and Upload a Video to YouTube

2. Google AdWords Conversion Tracking - You can now define and track several different types of conversions that are important to your business. Different types of conversions can lead to different ROI's for you business. Knowing how well a particular keyword performs can (and should) influence your bid. Keywords that perform and convert well may be worth a higher bid than those keywords that aren't as hot.

3. Google Website Optimizer - You can now use your Google Analytics account to access Website Optimizer and test designs, headlines, and graphics that lead to the highest conversion rates on your site. Another easy way to squeeze every penny out of that already small online marketing budget. Read their blog for more details and ideas.

Tags: Google, Small Business, Tools, Bob Hazlett

I'm currently away at the Online Marketing Summit in beautiful San Diego. Just wrapped up the education portion of Day 1 and I'd give it about a 7 on a 1-10 scale. The day started out real strong with a presentation by Catfish on SEO. The guy is brilliant and the education I picked up from him more than paid for the entire conference.

In all, there are about 400 online marketers in attendance so lots of great networking opportunities. During the Q&A session for an advanced paid-search presentation (advanced was a very loose term at this particular presentation) I was speaking to the lady who happened to sit next to me. She pointed out something very interesting trends in the questions coming from the audience. Everyone wanted the magic pill. They wanted actionable and measurable things that they could do right now in order to be successful. The waters are so murky in the online marketing world that these people are in over there heads and don't know who to trust. They read one thing, but the data tells them another thing. They're on short budgets and need results fast. The sad thing I realized is that things are better than they used to be, but I don't see them clearing up anytime soon.

Hopefully next week, I'll be able to share with you my findings and give you some great insight that you can actually use right now in your day-to-day business. Stay tuned.

Tags: Community, Bob Hazlett, Google, Tools, Search Engine Marketing

I want to hear what things you are looking forward to in the New Year. What are the most pressing issues in relation to online marketing, social marketing, social media, etc for your business? How are you planning to implement these features into your overall strategy? Do you see this as the year in which social marketing finally steps up and becomes an integral part of every businesses marketing strategy? What are your thoughts, predictions, fears and anticipations for 2008?

I write this site for you; your feedback helps me shape what I post and give my attention to over the next year. Leave a comment, contact me or drop me an email with your thoughts.

Wishing you all a happy and prosperous New Year!

Tags: Community, Small Business, Bob Hazlett

Yesterday, Google along with a host of other major social networks (MySpace, Bebo, SixApart, Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle) announced OpenSocial – an initiative to share an open API amongst across multiple sites. This will allow developers to create applications or widgets that can efficiently extend their website experience to existing communities on popular social networks.

What this means for you?

• We no longer need to have a MySpace strategy, a LinkedIn strategy, etc, but rather we can develop one application or widget that can be accessed throughout all services. A standard API will greatly reduce development time.
• Harness existing communities. We don’t have to go out and build an audience, but rather we can leverage what’s already there.
• Combined, the core group of networks involved represents over 100MM subscribers.

Challenges

• The open API was just released yesterday, so bugs may occur
• Inconsistencies may emerge – not all applications may behave the same across all platforms
• No two networks are the same. LinkedIn and MySpace have 2 different user bases.
• Facebook, Yahoo! and Microsoft haven’t bought in yet.

This is a major announcement and something that I feel could really benefit your online strategy. The possibilities are endless. I suggest sitting down in the coming month with someone who actually understands this and how it can affect your business (or contact me) and see how you can be proactive and tackle this head-on. Trust me, its going to be worth it.



Additional Resources:
Wired covers the aspects of Open Social
Open Social FAQ's
All the Children are Insane courtesy of Magnus Kjall

Tags: Community, Google, Bob Hazlett

I'm sure by now these clips have made there way around the net and have been played countless times. Five years ago only a handful of people would have seen these flubs live and only a few would have told someone about it. The Internet and online media has changed everything. New and ever-evolving technology allows anyone to record, upload, stream and share their best clips with 10, 20, 50, 300 of their closest 'friends' in nearly real time. In the past users would never have been able to record live on their computer, edit it down into a :60 second clip, post it to YouTube, place it on their FaceBook account, Twitter it, write a blog post and Dugg it with a few clicks of the mouse (or on their cell phone while waiting in line at Starbucks). Heck, not one of these technologies I just mentioned was even around 5 years ago. The game is changing and if you or your business are not ready to address it, then you could end up being the one without a map.

How will you address your flubs? How will you promote your successes?

What technology will come around in the next 5 years that you can take advantage of? How will you anticipate and prepare for it now?

Tags: Web 2.0, Bob Hazlett

In a recent survey, 56% of U.S. and U.K. online retailers indicated that their overall sales conversion rates increased over the past year simply by adding product reviews to their site. Giving customers a voice can really pay dividends. 77% indicated that their site traffic increased (along with better search engine optimization) and 42% found that average order value increased because of the reviews.



How do you improve customer retention and loyalty? Do you customers have a voice? If that's hard for you to answer, go to Google and search for terms such as "I love", "I hate", "I like", "I didn't like" including your brand in the query (i.e. " I love One Half Amazing"). If they're not venting on your site, then it's probably coming out in public.



Additional Resources:
eMarketer - Customer Reviews Increase Web Sales
Church of the Customer Blog

Tags: Community, Customers, Web Usability, Bob Hazlett

Many businesses both small and large are adding blogs to their website to better communicate with their target market and build traffic to their site. According to Technorati, a blog search engine, their are over 71 million blogs world wide and approximately 175k are launched daily. Blogs are no longer a fad - they are here to stay!

The word Blog is the combination of the terms web and log. Blogs are somewhat similar to online journals or daybooks created by both individuals and companies contained within a website. Blogs typically contain text, images, media (such as video and audio) and most importantly, they link to other relevant web pages and content on the net.

Blogs can help to build stronger relationships, target certain groups such as clients, media, general public and encourage conversations.

Why should a small business build a blog? Besides a way to express yourself and keep others abreast on relevant news I've compiled a list below on the benefits of writing a blog.

Benefits of Blogging for your Small Business

1. Establish Expertise - Just as I spoke on in my post "Upload a video to YouTube", a blog positions you and your business as the expert in your industry and raises your visibility among your niche market.

2. Communication/ Builds Customer Relationships - Blogs enable companies to present a human face and voice to the public. No longer can you hide behind your phone tree or email - customers want and demand to know whom they will be working with. A blog gives you the opportunity to become transparent to your customers.

Blogs typically allow customers to join discussions respond to concerns, provide tips and insights or receive support. This can be accomplished through any number of mechanisms (comments, forums, etc).

3. Simple, low-cost PR - Writing a blog is probably one of the simplest, fastest ways to put information online.

4. Build communities - Use your blog to grow group support around a cause, political issue, technology or hobby related to your service or support.

5. Test ideas or products - Those that read your blog and comment are your biggest fans and supporters. Use a blog to publish an idea and use it to generate any interest or buzz. A small software company that I support will dangle an idea that they have for a product in front of their best users, gain feedback, tweak their product and then tease them with small bits of news and insight prior to its release. It works like a charm.

6. Higher search engine rankings - Google and other search engines reward those sites with lots of relevant content that is updated often and contains many inbound and outbound links to other relevant content.

Additional Resources:
Do's and Don'ts of Corporate Blogging - CNN Money
Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business - Amazon.com
Why Blogging Matters to Business - About.com
Bloggers Code of Ethics
Blogging for Business - The Entrepreneurial Mind

Tags: Web 2.0, Tools, Small Business, Bob Hazlett