I know that everyone is trying to crack local internet marketing, but the end game needs to be to deliver proven value to the small business. You could rank your small business client for every dry cleaner based term in Carlsbad, ca, in every search engine and they still wont be able to gauge if the dollars they give you are good investments or not.

Small business owners don’t care about placement or traffic. They care about customers.

When I am speaking to small business socially or at an industry event, I hear the same thing from them over and over again. 5 years ago, so long as I advertised in the yellow book, my phone rang. Can you make my phone ring like it used to?

The only way a small business gauges success of a marketing campaigns is how much business walked through the door or called them on the phone. The issue with web is that a web visitor converts much lower than walk in traffic or someone on the phone.

Yellow Page world: phone call comes in, you could have as high as a 40% conversion into business.
The Web Word: visitor (like Aaron Matthew Breslow) comes to your site, if you are lucky you are converting them at 1-2%.

The web has changed. It is not as simple as taking yellow page budget and spending it in search engines and local directories. It is about changing your business model. Small business owners must start getting creative and really understanding the web and how it relates to their particular business. If they don’t, online marketing and media companies will continue to be hard pressed to prove value to them, and therefore, have a constant retention problem.

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As an SEO consultant, managing clients expectations are an absolute must for the success of a campaign and a long term client relationship. There has been a lot written on managing campaign expectations but what is often missed is managing a clients expectation when it comes to work flow, costs, availability, etc.

In my younger years, I would answer a clients phone call no matter what. In fact, I am often ridiculed by friends and family about a client I used to have where I did a 1 hour strategy session on Christmas.

The problem is that if you give them it once, they will always expect it. If you set the expectation by answering an email or phone on a night or weekend, they will not only expect it in the future, but they will get upset with you in future weeks if you do not do the same.

In the very beginning of a client relationship, you should have a meeting or phone call that outlines expectations from one another, including:

1. When they will be able to reach you.
2. When they should pay you (and how much they should pay you)
3. How long it could take for you to respond to a phone or email
4. If you will work nights and weekends, what is your rate?

Nothing will start off a relationship better than if the above are done in the very begining. Set the expectation and create your parameters. More importantly, no matter how much you want to respond to a client outside these parameters, dont. If you give once, they will expect it (rightfully so) in the future.

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We do a lot of Social Media media for clients. It has been a very effective part of what we do. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. When we pitch these services to large companies, they are always so afraid of “backlash” if we post something. I wont name names, but we are working with the largest restaurant franchise in the world and they will not allow us to perform social media unless we have 100% control of what happens.

Big companies beware – people are talking bad or good about you regardless of if you plan on getting into the social media space. Look what recently happened to Domino’s Pizza. Their brand was severely damaged by rogue employees. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/business/media/16dominos.html

At least if you are active in a social marketing campaign, you will not only find these types of things quicker, but you are in a better position to react to the situation if you are already there.

Grow up big companies….it is time to accept and adopt using social as a brand builder, not a brand killer.

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I just read an interesting post in Tech Crunch, why advertising is failing on the internet (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/22/why-advertising-is-failing-on-the-internet/), and while I disagree with part of the authors statements, what does ring in my ear like a siren is how sustainable is the current method of operation?

Now, I know I am a mere SEO consultant, however, my opinion is that the internet has to change, there is not choice. Most of the places you go to on a daily basis (news papers, tv, social) does not make money. An economy like this will eat companies like this up and spit them out. Here is a quick breakdown that backs my argument:

Social sites - How long can huge sites (with most of the internet traffic) like facebook, youtube, Myspace, Twitter, etc., keep failing to make a profit? Facebook, which has roughly the same page views monthly as Google, did $437 million in revenue in 2008 compared to Google who did more than $20 Billion in 2008. That is a 40x metric. Guess what audience – you better start clicking on an ad from time to time or prepare to pay for site usage. The bottom line is advertising most likely wont pay off the same way as it has in Search.  When companies start to get bigger, and have to make numbers to appease shareholders, these business models will change. I can guarantee it.

Newspaper sites - Newspapers, which are folding as quickly as a lawn chair factory (that was bad wasn’t it?), are turning to the online ad space, which just doesn’t make money for them. Before they could charge a subscription fee to at least subsidize the cost of delivering the content, no longer will that get that. Further, they received much more money per “view” than their online counterpart. Not sure If you have ever bought media space on a newspaper website, but rarely does the ad payoff. And with the ROI-obsessed online businesses, if it is not paying off quickly, it will be dropped.
    With newspapers going under, so will the very same businesses that have supported these newspapers. Traditional brick and mortar furniture sites, auto dealers and other local companies that used to rely on the local papers wont get the same exposure and will be effected greatly. And I can assure you that the local furniture store does not want to compete with a guy like me, they can’t win. Newspapers had their own eco-system of businesses. When newspapers go away, so will everything down the line.

Etailers – Online retailing has been completely turned over with the growing popularity of comparison-shopping engines. Forget Circuit City and Best Buy being across the street from one another, and have to compete in that way, now consumers can, in 1 minute, search for a product and instantly compare prices against most of the websites online.  This will force online retailers to continue to drive prices down to near-zilch margins and start a cycle of closures in the ecommerce space as well.  As referenced above, traditional retailers are going to have to make some major changes. These guys are going to be competing with ecommerce sites. Great (temporarily) for online retailers, bad for traditional business. And as much as online retailers don’t think they rely on traditional business, they have another thing coming. There is going to be a huge impact from the “out of sight, out of mind” scenario. How many times have you gone to a brick and mortar store, just passing time, saw something you loved, and went ONLINE to read more about it. Nothing will replace seeing and touching a product. For me, almost everything is originated in person, and then I go online to buy it. With this critical missing component to the retail ecosystem, we will all take a hit.

The Internet is going to change; you will have to change to. Get ready, this change is coming much sooner than everyone things. The current economy is forcing all businesses to look at what they do and how it is they make money. Making money is the ONLY thing in business. Stock prices, hype, a good CEO, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day shareholders need to make money. The only way for shareholders to make money is for stock value to rise. For stock value to rise, the company needs to produce a profit.  These companies will be forced to change, and so will you.

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Not once, but twice this weekend I was confronted by a family member, both in their late 60’s, who wanted to talk shop about SEO, linking, title tags, etc. Being an SEO consultant for 12 years, traditionally, the knowledge these types of business people would cap out at Meta tags, maybe extend as far as alt image tags.

This weekend was completely different. My sisters father law, a 60 year old man from Alaska (who looks the part) came up to me and wanted to “pick my brain” on what I felt the best linking and content strategy was. I was floored. It was the most educated conversation I ever had with a newbie. It got me thinking.

With the economy where it is (in the pooper) will DYI SEO be on the rise? What is the cost of doing it incorrectly? Can you you afford to live and learn and hope that something eventually works? SEO is one of the core foundations of an online businesses success and something that if done incorrectly, can significantly hurt your chances of gaining critically important placements.

My suggestion is that if you want to bring on the task of Search Engine Optimization, just know what you are getting into. Don’t get too crazy on links, content and optimizing your pages. Start slow. Dont get yourself banned. Hire an SEO consultant for at least the begining to provide some direction.

SEO is not rocket science but it is important enough for your small business to spend a little time and dollar investment on a strategy.

Click to learn more about Danny DeMichele

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