Marketing Charts reports that most SMBs will maintain or increase their ad spending this year, and many will increase their online ad spending.

Among the most interesting statistics reported in the new study are:

• 47% of SMBs expect to maintain their spending on ads in the next 12 months while 34% expect to increase it
• 31% will make the decision based on ad performance and ROI
• 40% of SMBs plan to add customer reviews to their own websites
• 30% will add links or place ads on social sites or blogs
• 26% will incorporate video on their websites

These are encouraging statistics. If 81% of small businesses plan to maintain or increase their ad spending then it means the economy is not having as big an impact on business as we are being told. A clear 56% of small businesses will make advertising decisions based what is happening internally within their companies. At least 40% of small businesses will do some kind of Internet marketing this year.

I only see these numbers going up in the near future. If that happens then the necessity of doing business online will only increase, which will lead to more online advertising. The future of business is on the Web.

Should your domain name be your brick and mortar business name? Many businesses, when they go online to build their first website and start marketing, will assume that their business name should be their domain name. But not necessarily.

Let’s say you own a lumber company named Jack’s located in Denver, Colorado. All the locals simply know it as Jack’s and when they are ready to go buy lumber they just say, “I’m heading on over to Jack’s.” Do you want your website domain name to be Jacks.com?

Chances are, that’s already taken. But you may be tempted to find other variations of the word Jack’s that fit with lumber. The obvious would be jackslumber.com. If it’s not taken then it could be the best bet for you; but what if it is taken? What then?

It’s much more important to have a domain name with your most important keyword in it. In other words, if you had a choice to have a domain name with the word “Jack” in it versus a domain name with the word “lumber” in it then you’d be better off with using “lumber.” The reason is because you want to rank for your important keyword as much as you can and as high in the rankings as you can. While the domain name is not the most important part of your web rankings calculation, the search engines do consider domain name. It’s just one of the criteria that they look at.

Therefore, when coming up with a domain name for your company, try to find one that best represents your company brand and that uses your most important keyword. It’s OK even to create a separate brand online that will serve as an extension of your off line business.

I think there is a bit of confusion among new Internet marketers about what constitutes a good keyword phrase. Many new marketers will perform their keyword research then use every phrase that is offered as related by whatever tool they are using. It doesn’t matter which tool you use for your research - they will all return keyword phrases that make no logical sense. It’s your job to turn those phrases into something meaningful.

Here’s an example of what I mean. This marketer is obviously targeting the phrase “online advertising internet marketing online businesses” as it is repeated verbatim several times throughout the blog post. Can you tell me what that phrase means?

If your keyword research tool returns something of this nature as a suggestion for related keywords, take that phrase and massage it into something that makes sense. Don’t just use it because your keyword research tool suggested it.

As a general rule, don’t use any keyword phrase that repeats a word. The redundant use of “online” in this phrase is useless. The search engines will likely view it as spam and your pages won’t rank well. Secondly, choose one synonymous phrase and stick with it. “Internet marketing” and “online advertising” mean almost the same thing. Not exactly, but they are close enough that you should focus on one and let the other drop. If both phrases are important to you then write one blog post or web page that focuses on one of the phrases and another that focuses on the other. Don’t combine them. Your watering down your phrases when you do that.

Thirdly, do a little more digging on the research. Do that many people really search for “online advertising internet marketing online businesses”? I really doubt that people are searching for that exact phrase. If they are then they probably aren’t finding a lot of information because savvy marketers use phrases that actually make sense. Remember, you are writing for humans and if humans can’t make sense of your content then they aren’t going to buy what you are selling so give extra thought to how you use your keyword phrases.

There are various ways to run an Internet marketing campaign. But what if you want to succeed? Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your next Internet marketing campaign:

• Don’t just focus on one thing. Include as many strategies as possible into your campaign to improve your maximum reach.
• Use a professional sales copy writer who knows how to close the sale.
• Coordinate your e-mail marketing, blog marketing, and PPC advertising so that they all point potential customers to the right landing page to close the sale.
• Don’t leave out off line marketing. Television and radio are very effective for driving traffic to your website.
• Don’t allow yourself to get too narrowly focused.
• Define your goals early on and make everything you do propel yourself toward that goal.
• Set a realistic budget and stick with it.

This is a composite view of Internet marketing success, but these are important points. You want to coordinate your efforts in every area of marketing and not limit your ability to reach your audience. Internet marketing is not too different from traditional marketing. You still need to plan.

Marketing has been around a long time. Without it, most businesses would never have survived. Though I’ve met some business owners in some towns who say they’ve never advertised. I guess their service is so good their customers just talk about them. That’s the best kind of advertising there is - and you don’t have to pay for it.

But most of it, even if our service is darn good, still have to pay for some form of marketing.

Traditional marketing works. So why abandon it, right? Internet marketing works. So we should use it, right? Well, it depends on who you talk to.

The key to any kind of marketing, of course, is effectiveness. The bottom line: Will it increase your ROI? Traditional modes of marketing like the yellow pages are being replaced rather quickly by online versions of the same product, except that the online version is much more flexible and versatile and has the power to increase ROIs tremendously more by reaching a broader base of people interested in your core product or service. Other modes of Internet marketing are doing the same thing. But this is no reason to assume that small business owners should abandon traditional marketing streams.

Sure, you can give up on some of those methods. If you find that your reach is declining through certain traditional marketing methods that you used to see gains on then that could be a sign that it’s time to try something different. But there are still traditional marketing practices that work. That’s why I recommend something I call integrated marketing.

Integrated marketing is taking the best of traditional marketing and coupling it with the best strategies from Internet marketing to tailor a marketing strategy that works for your business. We will examine your business model to see what you have done in the past and to evaluate your current marketing blueprint. If something is working for you then we won’t change it. But if it isn’t then we can find something to replace it, something that will increase your ROI.

Today is the day to look at changes to your marketing plan, changes that could propel you into the 21st century and reach more customers with fewer dollars. Find out how now.

In-text links are very important for business. An in-text link gets clicked on more than any other type of link. And there is a company that sells links to businesses in a pay-per-click fashion so that you can attract targeted traffic through links from other web pages.

Ordinarily, I’d say buying text links are bad. But there are times when you might want to do it. Kontera is a pay-per-click company that makes this easy.

Unlike other pay-per-click options, Kontera isn’t offering display ads, which don’t get clicked on much. Instead, your pay-per-click ads appear within the text of a website that is relevant to yours. In other words, if you sell automotive parts then your in-text links will appear on other automotive sites that have opted to publish Kontera ads. You, the advertiser, have the opportunity to tap into the targeted traffic on other automotive websites.

So is this type of advertising as good as newspaper advertising? It’s better in a number of ways. No. 1, it’s targeted advertising. No. 2, since newspapers are in decline, newspaper advertising is in decline. But Internet advertising is on the upswing, which means the opportunities, the best opportunities for advertising, are online. And the best of the best opportunities are with in-text advertising because those are the most valuable links.

Is there a downside? If there is a downside it is that Google frowns upon paid links. But typically it penalizes the publishers who earn revenue from the links, not the websites to which the links point. So the downside is minimal. The benefits are a lot better.

If you spend very long online learning a little bit about Internet marketing you will hear the phrase, “Content is King.” This is Web marketers’ way of saying that what you put on your website determines whether you are successful or not. Traditionally it has meant the words that you use to sell your products and services. But does it really mean that?

There are different kinds of content. Which type of content is right for your website depends a great deal on your goals and the type of website you are building. For most websites, a mix of content is important. But what are the different types of content available?

Webmasters need to stop thinking about content as merely words on the page. Here is a list of content categories that you should consider when developing your website:

• Sales Content - You do want to close sales, don’t you? Well, you’ll need the content that does it. Words. Someone has to write it and the content writer needs to have an understanding of what motivates people to click and pull out their credit cards.
• Informational Content - More words. Unlike sales content, information doesn’t necessarily intend to get your reader to hit the “Buy Now” button. It does inform the reader and is useful in the sale process. But it’s more about pre-sales than actual sales.
• Graphics - Every website needs graphic enhancements. The graphics on a site are usually not the primary focus, but they are important content that serves to draw attention to the words you use to convey your information and close sales.
• Meta Content - Meta tags are still important. Maybe they’re not the most important thing on you website, but it’s still content that you need to give some thought to.
• Video Content - Video content can be useful and it’s fast becoming a type of content that almost anyone can benefit from. Videos make your website more interactive and interesting.
• Audio Content - Sometimes you just want people to listen. While not quite as active as video content, audio content can still be very powerful.
• Links - Yes, links are content too. How you link your web pages together, the anchor text you use, how you go about your link building campaigns, all of that is important and you should think hard about how you want your links to add up.
• Advertising Content - If you do any off-site advertising such pay per click or banner advertising on like sites then your ad content is very important.
• Other Content - Sometimes, digital information like e-books, .pdf files, RSS feeds, and other technologies can seem like unnecessary distractions, but they’re really not. It is important to think about how all of these content types can work together to make your internet marketing more effective. Even social networking content is a category you should consider when building your website. How will you use the networks, RSS feeds, etc. to drive traffic to your site. Leave no question unasked about content.

Ladies, if you’re not too busy on July 9th and you are in the Apple Valley area then you might want to drop by Enjoy! Restaurant and hear me share my secrets and insights into building a website and getting the most out of small business Internet marketing. As you know, my passion is to help small business owners just like you attract new customers and get the most out of your marketing dollar.

The Business Women’s Network is hosting the event and I am the guest speaker. The topic is “Everything You MUST Know Before Creating Your Website” and is based on my 20 years of marketing for large, blue chip corporations. I’ll take my knowledge and experience and share it with you to help you gain the advantage that small business owners already have online.

Specifically, I’ll be sharing the following information with you:

• The three elements of every successful website
• How to ensure your site will not only look great, but it will be found by the search engines and convert visitors to customers too!
• The questions to ask when choosing a web professional to help you create your site.

Remember, the event is July 9th from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and will take place at Enjoy! Restaurant located at 15435 Founders Lane in Apple Valley, MN. For more information visit the website or e-mail reservation@businesswomensnetwork.org.

An article at Small Business SEM made me think that there are two types of small business owners. Type A is the proactive type. A new technology comes along and they are eager to grasp it. They may not adopt it quickly, but they attempt to understand it to see if they’ll ever be able to apply it to their business. If they see a way to use it for their business then they’ll integrate it into their business plans and make money on it. They are proactive.

The second type of small business owner is the reactive one. Instead of embracing new technology, the reactive business owner criticizes it. These small business owners are likely to say that the Internet is killing their business and then make an emotional appeal to their neighbors to “buy locally”. Of course, consumers are going to buy where they get the best service and the best product for the lowest price. If it’s online then so be it.

Are you proactive or reactive? Are you embracing new technologies or criticizing them? Is the Internet your friend or your enemy?

Frankly, if you have not figured out that the Internet is your ticket to the future then you are likely more reactive than any of the people in Matt McGee’s article. Even local small businesses can use the Internet to increase their business revenues. Even in small towns. But you have to get out of your comfort zone, move away from the TV, and learn about the new technology. If you aren’t willing to do that, don’t call the Internet your enemy. You are your own enemy for all progress depends on embracing the new, not criticizing it.

If you aren’t familiar with DMOZ, you might want to brush up on your Internet marketing history, culture, and traditions 101. The Open Directory Project is only the oldest human-edited directory in existence and has probably twice as many enemies as they have friends. And they have a lot of friends.

DMOZ has been the subject of much controversy in the last few years because what used to take a couple of weeks (approval for a listing in the directory) now takes six months to a year. It used to be that getting listed in DMOZ was very important for a webmaster because almost all of the search engines crawled DMOZ and took information from the directory to index their sites. Google has always relied heavily upon DMOZ and still does.

The problem lately, however, has been its growth. Because it isn’t a for-profit institution, it is all volunteer run, and DMOZ gets a ton of applications from websites every day, it takes awhile to get listed. Many webmasters have quit submitting their websites altogether.

On today’s DMOZ blog, however, I found this promise from long-time DMOZer Bob Keating:

In keeping with the successes of the past 10 years, the future of DMOZ is as an information provider rather than a destination site. We will be enhancing to service to become more of a 21st century web service and simplify the integration of DMOZ data in other resources and applications, by creating “mashups”. For example if you maintain an informational site about gardening, you can use DMOZ to get you a list of hand-picked gardening sites to point your readers too, or if you are a hockey fan you can make a little widget on your blog to show hockey clubs in your local region. Stay tuned and please share your feedback here on the blog. We’ll be sharing more information here in the next month or so and appreciate your thoughts.

That’s a strong assertion. I commend DMOZ for putting together a plan for making itself relevant again. If this is followed through on then DMOZ could very well make itself one of the most important sites again. A link from DMOZ used to mean legitimacy for a webmaster. But these days you are more likely to meet with success long before you get that all-important DMOZ link, so it isn’t quite as important any more. The DMOZ of the future could make the directory more important than it ever has been, but for different reasons.

The mashups are a good idea. And it will likely mean that DMOZ will pick up new website applications from people who had written it off as irrelevant. It will also mean that webmasters can add credible information on their sites about other sites within their niches. I can hardly wait to see what this looks like.