While many see a cloud of economic doom descending on the country, Internet marketing expert Aaron Rose sees web sales as a silver lining in that cloud. And he has plenty of evidence to back him up. According to a report released by ShopperTrak for early December, online sales were up 7% while store sales were down 3.5%.
but emerging trends enable us to get our clients actual leads, registrations or downloads for as little as 25 cents each. Ad rates are coming down quickly.
While many see a cloud of economic doom descending on the country, Internet marketing expert Aaron Rose sees web sales as a silver lining in that cloud. And he has plenty of evidence to back him up. According to a report released by ShopperTrak for early December, online sales were up 7% while store sales were down 3.5%.
Rose, CEO of Sherman Oaks based 4CInteractive.com (www.4CInteractive.com), has a decade of experience in Internet marketing, and is a survivor of the burst of the dot com bubble. Over the years, he has worked with high visibility partners like Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Wildlife Federation, Snap TV, Yahoo, and the Game Show Network, so he always has a keen eye on Internet marketing trends.
"The brick and mortar slow-down is going to mean real opportunity for savvy store owners," Rose said. "With less discretionary funds, customers will be spending more time at home and more time on the Internet. These people will be value shoppers, but they will be spending money."
Rose believes that business people who turn their attention to the Internet will have an increased potential for success, but they need to play the game by the new rules.
Rose says, "For the next year or so, those who wish to succeed at Internet marketing must realize they are going to find the 'one big deal' more elusive and must depend on incremental sales.
"This means that those doing online sales must offer a lot of value to site visitors, and that includes offering better bargains. Value pricing is still a winning situation for online retailers because overhead costs are lower."
He also believes that companies of all sizes must be cautious of over-spending on marketing efforts for their websites.
Rose said, "Our company does a lot of free one-hour consultations with prospective clients, and we have discovered that most people who need our website creation and marketing services are not in touch with emerging trends. They don't realize that they don't have to pay just for impressions and clicks anymore, but instead pay based on actual customer acquisition. That means lower ad costs and higher return on investment for site owners."
Rose cited a report by ChannelAdvisor Corporation that 6,000 e-retailers it monitors were able to turn 20% of their site visitors into holiday sales. The key is how much they are paying for traffic. "The average is up to 49 cents per click just to get potential buyers to your site," Rose said, " but emerging trends enable us to get our clients actual leads, registrations or downloads for as little as 25 cents each. Ad rates are coming down quickly."
Rose believes that online entertainment companies will especially thrive during the economic downturn. "They have the perfect niche to be able to acquire visitors who want low-cost entertainment, such as games or videos, and to convert those visitors into sales."
"Internet marketing is a challenging field, but can be a highly profitable one," Rose said. "Online entrepreneurs need the right website with the right look, and to understand the ever-changing dynamics of the Internet industry. Our experienced team of professionals are helping business people through the maze to find profits in these uncertain times."
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The air seems to be coming out of the Web 2.0 bubble, squeezed by the economic downturn and the absence of many solid short-term business plans.
Dire market conditions have forced virtually all social-networking firms to scale back. In October, Hi5, the third most popular social-networking site, announced that it would cut between 10 percent and 15 percent of its staff. And in November, the business-focused networking sites LinkedIn and Jive said that they would slash their work forces by 10 percent and 40 percent, respectively.
The dominant social-networking sites are certainly better equipped to weather the storm: MySpace and Facebook have estimated revenues of $750 million and $300 million, respectively, while LinkedIn is expected to pull in between $75 million and $100 million this year. However, the overall value of these companies is still largely based on growth potential, which now seems shaky. Microsoft's investment in Facebook valued the company at a massive $15 billion. But in November, Twitter refused to be bought by Facebook for a reported $500 million of its stocks plus some cash.
The last week has also seen the demise of two prominent (and promising) Web startups: Pownce and Values of n.
Pownce, which offered a microblogging and file-sharing platform, was acquired by the blog software company Six Apart, while Values of n, which produces organizational and social-networking tools including Stikkit and I Want Sandy, was sold to Twitter.
Both new owners promptly announced that they would shut the original services down, suggesting that their acquisitions were more about acquiring talent and technology than about investing in viable new businesses.
Chris Alden, chairman and CEO of Six Apart, says that there simply isn't enough capital in the current market to sustain so many social-networking companies. "You'll see more consolidation in the next year or two," he said.
The current situation might seem gloomy, but the first signs of a coming shakeout appeared before the market took a turn for the worse. In August, for example, both the social-news site Thoof and the social music site Social.fm ceased operating. Also, long before the downturn began, investors started raising concerns about how social media firms might make money.
It's hard not to compare the current shakeout with the dot-com bust of 2000, but those within the industry dismiss the comparison. "That burst with a thunderclap; this'll burst with a pop," said Paul Gillin, a social media strategist based in Framingham, Mass. He believes that this will be a less violent contraction cycle, less intense than that suffered, for example, by personal-computer makers during the 1980s.
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4CInteractive.com is a full service web design and internet marketing company whose mission is to implement a powerful web strategy that specifically caters to your company's needs, budgets and goals.
We know that a logical, cohesive, and integrated strategy will place your business way ahead of the competition. With our emphasis on creative thinking, vision, consultation, and strategic solutions, our goal is to help your company maintain the highest profile necessary to increase sales and awareness online.
Not just another web design and internet marketing firm. 4Cinteractive.com's management team has been in the internet industry for 9+ years and with this hands on experience we understand the pain points of marketing and web design out sourcing. Not only do we deliver quality on-time services we put a strong emphasis on educating our clients about the latest trends and technology in the internet space.
The site offers the following educating resources web resource articles & free marketing tools. These free resources will be expanding daily.
Most web design and marketing firms over charge and under deliver and we know this is a consistent problem in the marketplace. We have developed a unique methodology for deploying client projects and plan to meet and exceed expectations. 4CInteractive.com's success is truly found in educating clients as much as possible. With this education, clients will view our company as an empowering resource as opposed to a company that they simply pay for services.
4Cinteractive.com offers the following services
Web Design & Development
Search Engine Optimization
PPC Management
Web Technology Consulting
Contact 4CInteractive.com for your next web project, we offer a free website consultation with no obligations.
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Here’s the TOPSEO's list of the top 30 Organic Search Engine Optimization firms that are selected for 2008:
1. Bruce Clay Inc.
2. Increase Visibility Inc.
3. SEOP Inc.
4. Intrapromote LLC.
5. ArteWorks SEO
6. SEO Image Inc.
7. Portent Interactive
8. Customer magnetism
9. Direct Hit Solutions, Inc.
10. Web.com Search Agency
11. Yellow7 Interactive
12. eVisibility Inc.
13. SEO.com
14. SEO Inc.
15. eBrandz Inc.
16. Getupdated Internet Marketing
17. High Position Limited
18. Weblinx Limited
19. Sems
20. Whoast Inc.
21. iProspect
22. 1st of the List Promotion Inc.
23. First Page SEO
24. Infatex
25. Reprise Media
26. Inteliture
27. Seer Interactive
28. Trafficdeveloper
29. Mannix Marketing
30. RegisterEverywhere.com
The compilation of this list is subsequent to a detailed evaluation process. The list vouches for its reliability because of it strict selection process. Some questions asked to clients of the organic optimization firms for evaluation purposes are:
1. What are the most competitive keywords you have been able to rank on the major search engines and how long did it take you to achieve those rankings?
2. Did the agency modify the way they achieved higher rankings for you based on the Universal Search model introduced by Google? How?
3. How comprehensive, specific, and useful are the reports that are offered to the client? What metrics do they cover?
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I always caution people about researching SEO on their own, as there is entirely too much misinformation floating around on the topic. Still, its something that you absolutely must learn if you plan to make money online.
SEO Lies by Justin Brooke is 35 Pages of Actionable Content
In SEO Lies, Justin Brooke does something that this industry has needed for years now: He takes all the crap you’ve heard about SEO and tells you what is wrong and why - and what is correct. It is simple and to the point, and cuts through all the contradicting fluff you’ll read all over the web and then shows you just how simple Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be…
Most people over-complicate SEO. It’s really not that hard. Its just optimizing web pages to rank well in the major search engines for specific keyword phrases.
Simple SEO doesn't really cut it for most people though, as it raises questions such as:
* What qualifies as duplicate content?
* What about nofollow links?
* Exactly how much content do I have to write?
* How many months does it take for this to work?
* Blah Blah Blah...
Justin Brooke answers all of these questions and more in SEO Lies. And its not just rehashed information, but the results of Justins own research and testing over the last 2 years.
There are a couple of typos and grammatical errors in the report, and it doesn't always read that smooth, but the content itself is excellent and provides some very detailed information about how to easily achieve top search engine rankings.
The research tools that Justin mentions are well worth the one dollar alone. I’ll confess I wasn't even aware of them myself. There are 2 tools mentioned on page 21 of the report that I’ve been playing with all morning. I actually printed out SEO Lies, so I just googled them and they were very easy to find.
One of the tools is about Audience Intelligence, or “intent”. The tool is a bit limited, but valuable nonetheless. For example when it comes to Commercial Intention, About.com brings in visitors with a 79% informational intent. Amazon.com has a 51% commercial intent, and CircuitCity.com has a 60% commercial intent.
Even more interesting was the Bonus Tool mentioned on the same page (p. 21). Using this free tool I discovered that the majority of the searches for the term “Internet Marketing” come from Indonesia, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. Interesting to know, You bet!
It also told me that “internet marketing blog” is a rising search (nearing ‘breakout’ even), which is awesome… since this blog is ranking well for that phrase.
Bottom line: this is information you need to know. Don't believe everything you here and put SEO to work for you and discover what works and what doesn't. If your not sure about certain things test them and see what the results are, don't go to some SEO forum and expect anyone to tell you thr truth or actually help you.
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