“We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone,” the company said in a statement. “We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.”

If you haven’t heard about the new Google+ Your World, check out this article over at Venturebeat.com.  I’m not really sure this is a big deal at the moment, as Google+ adoption as slowed considerably, but, if it continues to gain mindshare, we could see another antitrust suit levied against the search giant.

What are your thoughts?

Ironically, Danny’s theory of solving speed and reliability issues on the internet was proven by an event that also took his life. News outlets and government agencies scrambled to get their websites “Akamaized” to ensure they could handle the unprecedented amount traffic that was being driven by the events of 9/11.

Danny Lewin’s spirit and amazing energy live on at the billion dollar company he founded and there isn’t a terrorist anywhere in the world that can ever take that away.

It doesn’t get much easier than that.  MOO alllows you to create high-quality, unique Business Cards or MiniCards where you can showcase yourself or business with a unique image on the back of each card.  Take advantage of this offer now.

If you’re one of the first 75 people to follow this link, you’ll be able to order a set of round or rectangular stickers completely free!

So, before you ponder the merits of mobile marketing and your specific business goals, let’s first take a look at evolving online marketing tactics and the associated opportunity cost of excluding … [Read more at OPEN Forum]

Here’s an example. Maybe you’ve recently deployed Google Analytics on your website and you’re wondering why you haven’t been able to leverage the great data that’s being gathered such as:

• Total Unique Visitors
• Pageviews
• Bounce Rate
• New Visits
• Traffic Source
• Average Time On Page

Read more…

Phil Simon offers a comprehensive view of technology past, present and future as it pertains to empowering small business owners to compete, adapt and grow as effectively as possible.  Many of the stories and examples highlighted in the book include lessons learned from Simon’s past experience working with big companies – mostly how NOT to operate your business.

The New Small takes a holistic view of working smarter  by identifying major technology trends and explaining how the landscape has changed and why you need to understand the impact on your business.

Employees can be only as productive as their company’s tools let them be.  Even the hardest working person who requires zero sleep cannot move heaven and earth.  Many New Small founders know from their previous jobs the frustration of having to make do with outdated technology.  As such, they do not want their employees to struggle using inadequate tools.  The New Small wants -and needs- their employees to be as productive as possible.  Emerging technologies are crucial in this regard, especially collaborative ones.

Before giving you examples of successful New Small business owners (and there are plenty of great stories in the book), Simon explains the evolution of technology and the impact it can have on your business.  Simon refers specifically to “The 5 Enablers” as follows:

1. Cloud Computing
2. SaaS
3. Free and Open Source Software
4. Mobility
5. Social Technologies

Once you understand these “game-changing” technologies and the impact they can have on your business, and combine that knowledge with the real world examples in the book, you’ll be ready to enter the realm of the New Small.  Kudos to @philsimon for combining technology and business insights in one book that is well written and so densely packed with nuggets of insight and inspiration that it will certainly become more of a “operational reference guide” in the future.

I recommend this book to any small business owner that embraces the fact that change is inevitable/ongoing and you must be ready and willing to adapt to the uncertain world around you.

There are so many choices that it’s impossible to keep abreast of new technology, new versions of existing products and new companies popping up in already crowded markets. The alternative, however, is to stick your head in the sand and be left in the dust by your competitors.

Phil Simon has written a book that offers real world examples of small businesses that are enjoying success by harnessing the power of emerging technologies. Please look out for a full review in the coming weeks and be sure to check out the book yourself.

1)  Website Grader

Website Grader actually gives your website a grade, X/100, based on it’s adherence to “searchability” best practices relative to the other sites that have been tested. (currently 2,973,941 sites have been graded) A report is generated and offers areas for improvement including the following:

• Checks for a blog and gives a grade
• Number of indexed pages
• Readability level
• Inbound links
• Do you have a permanent 301 redirect of yourcompany.com to www.yourcompany.com?
• Is your domain going to expire soon?  (it’s important to show the search engines you’re in for the long haul)
• Do you have an RSS feed?  Do you have a conversion form?

2)  W3C Validator

The W3C Markup Validation Service checks the markup validity of Web documents in HTML, XHTML, SMIL, MathML, etc. The whole concept behind the W3C organization is to encourage the use of standards compliant, user-friendly and accessible code. The feedback from this tool is extremely technical and would be best suited for your website developer.

3)  Pearanaltyics

Pear Analytics has a more friendly user interface and offers great detail on how to fix website issues and the degree of difficulty for each recommended change.  Some of the relevant checks they perform are as follows:

• 404 error handling
• Do you have analytics installed?
• Domain age (the older the better)
• Duplicate content
• Do you have a sitemap?

4)  Reactionengine.com

The Reaction Engine is another bare bones technical tool that is geared toward the developer crowd.  The key difference with this tool is that it analyzes the SEO performance of a URL based on a given key phrase.

5)  Woorank.com

Woorank is a very comprehensive reporting tool with a great looking interface and the ability to save a copy of the report as a pdf.  You can drill down and gain a great deal of insight from stats such as:

• Traffic to your site
• Valid robots.txt file
• Usability
• Related websites
• Directory listings
• Social media presence

The one caveat I did find when trying each of these tools?  Some of the results are inconsistent, for example, Pear Analytics reported that I did not have an H1 heading and the others saw that I did.  So, if you’re going to take the plunge and optimize your site using free tools, make sure you get a second opinion before making any big changes.

Of course, if you’re not comfortable doing this yourself, please reach out and we’ll give you a hand.

I read an article about a company called Dukky in the July 2010 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine where the founder of Dukky, Shawn Burst, had an idea to revive the dying direct marketing and print industries.  Let’s face it, more than 99% of “junk mail” goes directly into the trash. But, with this solution, you have a lead generation system that marries the offline marketing world with the online marketing world. Take a look at the video below to get a better understanding of exactly how Dukky works:

Friends of The Small BizNest are eligible for a 50% discount on admission to the Small Business Technology Tour in Boston next week.  Ramon Ray, founder of Smallbiztechnology.com, has put together a great series of events to educate growing companies – whether you are an entrepreneur or a small business owner – in how to use technology as a tool to grow your business.  The next event will be taking place on October 25th at the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center. (NERD)

Check out our latest newsletter for more information on enrollment and other cities where you can attend this great event.

To go one step beyond simple search, let’s take a look at ways you can proactively deliver your message to prospective customers based on their geographic location:

1)  Twitter

I just read an article this morning about a local bakery, Sugar Coated Bakery, that has managed to thrive in this difficult economy even with the rising cost of ingredients like flour and sugar.  They have a Facebook page but no Twitter account listed on their site and I immediately thought of a product I read about last year, Baker Tweet, which enables you to scroll through your list of baked goods and Tweet when a new batch comes out of the oven.  Also, Advanced Twitter Search allows you to identify people based on their location, follow them and, hopefully, they’ll follow you back.

Give people the opportunity to friend, follow or like you in any way they choose and then make sure you keep the conversation going.

2)  Foursquare

I’ve written about Foursquare before and it has defined the location-based marketing space by proving the value of building a participatory community as opposed to the more conversational platforms like Facebook.  This is a solution where you can reward your best customers and build an army of evangelists simply by letting them take part in your success.

This is one of the best ways to build loyalty and generate repeat business from your most loyal customers.

3)  Location-Based Advertising

If you’re having trouble building a following within social media platforms, help may soon arrive in the form of location-based advertising from Twitter.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could reach your core demographic within 20 miles of your business with a very focused value proposition?  Foursquare has stumbled in their efforts to deliver location-based advertising options but maybe it’s a sign that their platform is best suited for DIY campaigns only.  Google just announced that Marissa Mayer has been promoted from VP of Search and User Experience to a new role focused on location-based services.

Three big players all vying for your advertising dollars.  Let’s hope at least one of them comes up with a solution that delivers.

Self-promotion is an integral part of social networking but you can’t change your message or image simply because it’s different from more traditional channels. The unique advantage of new online communities is that they are bidirectional and in real time so feedback is instantaneous.  In the future, when you’re interacting with prospects and customers online, make sure you follow these three guidelines:

• Be honest
• Be consistent
• Listen

Personally, I use CoTweet as my main dashboard for posting updates and then send them to LinkedIn via Ping.fm but, for someone who spends the majority of their time on LinkedIn, this is a very easy way to position yourself as an expert from within the most powerful business networking platform.

The process is very simple and can be seen in the video below:

The main takeaways from this survey are as follows:

Key Web Analytics Challenges Include Talent, Measuring ROI and Multi-Channel Support

Top challenges for online marketers include:

1. Difficulty finding and training top talent
2. Determining what actions to take based on their data
3. Maximizing marketing ROI through full funnel measurement and automatic multi-channel integration.

Do you find yourself or your staff spending large chunks of time developing programs and campaigns, delivering them across an assortment of online marketing platforms and then wondering if they had any impact?  It looks like you’re not alone.  The most telling statistic from this study is glaring proof that, since many of the emerging online marketing platforms are very much in their infancy, businesses are unable to track their success as illustrated below:

Marketers know which metrics are important to measure, however they are not capturing all the metrics they need to achieve their goals.  Eighty-two percent of survey responders believe ROI is somewhat to very important to measure, but only 30 percent of marketers can effectively measure marketing ROI!  Additionally, 86 percent of respondents think conversion rate is somewhat or very important to measure yet 27 percent of marketers cannot effectively measure conversion rates.

We all know measuring the success of offline marketing is difficult to nearly impossible but that’s because there’s no system available to allow for granular collection of metrics.  Conversely, online marketing offers so much data that we become overwhelmed by a never ending stream of seemingly valuable information .  They key, however, is knowing how to interpret that information and turn it into an actionable plan that exploits the repeatable successes you have unearthed.

If you’re going to “try” a mobile marketing campaign, social media campaign or viral video campaign, make sure you develop a system to track and measure success against your business goals.  Work smarter and not harder.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of The Referral Engine from John Jantch and I have to say that this is one of the best small business marketing books I have ever read. For those of you who don’t know John, he’s a marketing and digital technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author Duct Tape Marketing.

This book is equal parts human behavior, marketing insight and phenomenally relevant stories from real people who have successfully built their own referral engine around their business. It actually kicks off with a quick physiology lesson illustrating how our hypothalamus registers “pleasure in doing good and being recognized for it”. Let that soak in a bit. Human beings are conditioned to refer their favorite businesses to others because it makes them feel good.

With that in mind, John takes us on a journey of discovery that empowers small business owners to understand how they can build a systematic process to harness peoples’ innate need to make referrals. Some key quotes are as follows:

• “Repetition consistency and authenticity build trust and are the foundational tools of the referral trade.”
• “Commitment to a remarkable difference demonstrates that yours is not a gimmick.”
• Establish a “give-to-get mentality”.
• “Expect Referrals”

The referral mindset isn’t just a necessity of your sales and marketing efforts – it should span the entire organization from management to customer service.  It’s also something that can spread exponentially by empowering prospects, partners and customers alike, so make it easy for people to to make referrals.

This book gives every small business owner a blueprint for 1) developing your referral engine strategy, 2) mapping your referral mindset across your organization and 3) implementing the tactical components that make up a successful referral system.  The rich marketing content coupled with stories from hundreds of interviews John conducted with some of the coolest and most successful companies make this an absolute must-read for every small business owner.

* The Amazon link to the book in this post is an affiliate link.

You would be surprised how many prospective customers are asking questions on sites like Answers.com and Yahoo Answers.  And, for the most part, they’re more than happy to award you “the best answer” moniker for taking the time to give thoughtful and insightful answers.

Much like blogging, it might take you awhile to find your “voice” and style for answering questions but this will develop over time.  The most important thing to remember is that you don’t want to be the “blah, blah, blah, hey look at me” guy/girl.  Here are a few guidelines for effectively highlighting your knowledge and experience:

1. Make sure the question is clear.  Don’t be afraid to ask for quick clarification.
2. Get right to the point.  Don’t yammer on like Ron Burgundy about being “a big deal”.
3. Be authoritative.  You need to do x, y and then z.   Don’t do a, b or c.
4. Tell them why.
5. When possible, insert links to your site, white papers, etc.

Although it isn’t included in the image to the right, LinkedIn is another great place for you to build your reputation as an expert.  Since this is a business site with millions of members the competition for “best answer” is substantial as compared to the standard answer forums.

Take a look at these sites to get an idea of the questions you can expect and study the responses of the people who have given the best answers.  It’s not that complicated.  People have questions and you have answers.  So, get to work!

Commercial and industrial loans at U.S. commercial banks declined by $900 million during the week ended April 14 to $1.27 trillion, according to Fed data released on April 23. In March, such loans hit the lowest point in more than two years.  Revolving debt, such as credit cards, which are often used to finance small businesses, fell by $9.4 billion in February, the biggest decline in three months, according to Fed statistics.

Lawmakers recently passed a “jobs bill” (and I’m disappointed that Scott Brown supported it) that will do absolutely nothing to empower businesses to hire.

Real Example:

Michael Chapman, the owner of a building company with 20 employees in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has had trouble getting a bank loan and this month he let Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig know it.  Tight credit in commercial real estate “has really made it impossible for banks to lend to people like me,” the president of Chapman Homes said during a question period after an April 7 speech by Hoenig. Chapman said his company, unable to get a loan to hire 15 workers while big Wall Street firms get record bailouts, is “too small to succeed.”

We recently learned that GM was using bailout money to pay back their initial bailout.  This is a real slap in the face of honest, hard working business owners who play by the rules can’t get a bank loan.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that funding unprofitable companies with tax dollars isn’t going to get us out of the recession.

Are you listening, Washington?  Start taking the bailout money that has been repaid and offer interest-free loans to honest business owners across the country.  These people will be grateful for the opportunity to grow their business, they’ll repay the loans and they’ll create new jobs.  It really is that simple.

Sentiment Analysis is a quickly growing data set that listing services are collecting and publishing, so, what are your options when dealing with negative feedback that finds its way into your business listing?

• If a review was posted directly to your business listing in Google, you can flag it and then you’ll have to prove that the post violates published terms and conditions.
• Are you able to identify the person who posted the negative comment?  If so, reach out to them, listen to their feedback and try to address their concerns.  Ask them if they would be willing to change or delete their negative review.
• Google suggests you contact the webmaster of the 3rd party sites if the negative review wasn’t posted directly to your business listing.  Some of these sites do allow you to post a “response from management” but that won’t show up in Google Maps.  (Google does not allow you to post this type of response)
• Google lists 5-6 reviews so  you can solicit new reviews from satisfied customers in an effort to push the negative ones off the page.  Be careful, though; too many reviews being posted in a short period of time will trigger spam alerts and hurt your ranking.

Obviously, it helps to have a solid customer support system in place and an easy process for sharing feedback directly with you so these types of issues are not broadcast to the general public.  Reputation management is an important aspect of your daily marketing life and should be treated as such.

Good morning/afternoon, my name is John/Jeff and I would like to empower/scare you with some scientific research data that illustrates how great/terrible the outlook is for small business owners.

Yesterday, the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE), SCORE, and the Association of Small Business Development Centers (ASBDC), along with Constant Contact, released survey results stating that Seventy-nine percent of small businesses revealed a confident to neutral outlook for the U.S. economy over the next 12 months.

Key findings from this survey of nearly 7,000 small business respondents are as follows:

– Small businesses anticipate growth in 2010

– Small businesses are doing more with less

– Small businesses look for new efficiencies as costs increase

– Small businesses question government support

However, this morning, the National Federation of Independent Business monthly business index stated, “U.S. small business owners have little confidence in the economy and are in no rush to hire or expand, despite signs the recovery is picking up”.  The interpretation of this number is extremely negative and points to a lack of confidence in the economy but, more importantly, a realization that Congress and the Obama administration have offered nothing to help small businesses grow during these difficult times.

So, what does this mean?  Are things good or are they bad?  I’ve begun to just chuckle at this type of seemingly impossible conflict of data collected from the same overall pool.  I’m sure both are scientifically sound but to have such disparity in results is confounding for business owners.  Should we double-up or start building the fallout shelter?

Maybe we should just stop reading the news.  Either way, the only thing that matters is your personal experience and, in many cases, what your instincts tell you.  We all have to be cautions in uncertain times but must also recognize when to take risk and build our own foundation for recovery and growth.

Click to view interactive online marketing ecosystem.

If a business embraces a service like foursquare, they instantly connect with their customer base in a way that promotes customer loyalty and offers a compelling reason to come back. (along with bragging rights)

If there are people already visiting your establishment who use a smart phone, then all you have to do is notify them that you are offering specials via foursquare.  As stated on their website, “foursquare aims to encourage people to explore their neighborhoods and then reward people for doing so. We do this by combining our friend-finder and social city guide elements with game mechanics – our users earn points, win mayorships and unlock badges for trying newplaces and revisiting old favorites”.

In a difficult economy, a free cup of coffee or free appetizers at your favorite establishment means as much as the new lawn chairs my parents acquired from collecting S&H Green Stamps when I was a kid. (I know, I’m dating myself)

The ability for your customers to send out their location (your establishment) via social networks such at Twitter and Facebook creates a “viral invite” that can boost foot traffic exponentially.  There are also some fairly simple tools available to track your best customers, deliver special offers when someone checks in, and keep your best customers engaged and involved.

All you local business owners should at least give this a try and see if you can increase business by developing a marketing strategy around foursquare.  Trust me, you’ll still be way ahead of the curve if you do it now and you’ll have your system perfected by the time foursquare explodes.

To get started, visit each of these sites to determine if your business is listed and what people are saying.  Claim your business, manage the conversation and address issues as soon as possible.  You can’t make these sites go away so your best bet is to develop a strategy to make them work in your favor.  This is an yet another social medium that isn’t perfect and is continuously evolving and your strategy will have to do the same.

Click to see interactive online marketing ecosystem.

By now you’ve heard all the hoopla about Yelp having “long faced criticism that it gives preferential treatment to businesses that advertise with the company.”  Although Yelp maintains that there is no connection between the two, they did announce significant changes to the service this week.

Service providers like Yelp have proven how lucrative the local search advertising market is and Google is currently testing Enhanced Listings in Google Local Business Center that would allow business owners to create a unique, differentiated listing.  Google’s beta service currently offers the following:

• Add yellow tags to promote coupons, a photo of your business, and more.
• Stand out in local business results on Google & Google Maps.
• See your performance in your account anytime.
• Cancel anytime. Pay just $25 a month.

Will Google face the same scrutiny as Yelp?  We’ll have to see how this plays out but, if Google can collect $25 per month from a large percentage of small business owners, there’s a good chance we’ll see this rolled out in the near term.

The bottom line for businesses, especially “local” businesses, is to be aware of all these feedback sites and to monitor your reputation regularly.

Click image to see interactive online marketing ecosystem.

As you can see from the graphic above, there are several options available and one that I see more an more often (since they’re now supported in Facebook and Google) is Get Satisfaction.  They allow you to interact with customers regardless of which community portal they’re using and are  easily extended throughout your Web presence via simple widgets and open APIs.  A Get Satisfaction community invites customers/visitors to participate in the conversation and provides a platform for conversation anywhere in the online experience.

Getting your message to the masses is only half the battle when it comes to building your online marketing ecosystem.  You also have to consider which operational enhancements are required to automate the management of your online presence.  Proactively engaging prospects and customers allows for diffusing negativity and garnering valuable feedback and insight as you interact with your customers on an ongoing basis.

The greatest marketing challenge facing small business owners today is simple.  Lack of time.  But, if you can create a community in front of your support solution that lets customers and prospects get answers from each other first, (often with faster response times than through traditional ticketing solutions) you have created a virtual support department. You can publish, archive and search every exchange, so there’s never a need to answer the same question twice.

So, the main thing to remember is that online marketing is no longer a unidirectional process – it has evolved into a collaboration of community where instant feedback and conversation can mean the difference between success and missed opportunity.

Click to view interactive online marketing ecosystem.

Many of us said we didn’t have time to blog but now it’s a regular part of our daily/weekly routine and has become second nature.  So, the next logical progression is to begin integrating some interactive and engaging video content that will boost traffic and also keep visitors on your site longer.

Is there someone you would like to interview that your readers would find interesting?  Could you create a demo of a product or service that would be more compelling than a simple blog post?

So, you’re going to need a video camera (if you don’t already have one that can be plugged into your computer), editing software, and knowledge of integrating video into your website.

If you don’t feel comfortable getting involved in the editing and slicing of your content, you should check out a new service from Pixability where they send you a Flip camera, you shoot your video and send the camera back, and they create a professionally edited video masterpiece and send it back to you.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to put your effort into a network of like-minded business people who are actually interested in professional networking, business deals and partnerships? I have been using LinkedIn since 2003 when it was in beta and it is, by far, the most effective business networking tool I have ever used.

Click image to view interactive online marketing ecosystem

Of course, the only way to know which network is best for your particular business model is to test both platforms.  An easy way to do this is to run some simple advertisements on LinkedIn and Facebook.  You set all demographic criteria to narrow down your target audience.  You can also set a daily limit for spend and choose to pay per click (PPC) or per thousand impressions (CPM).

Building your marketing ecosystem is a balancing act where you must test, evaluate, rinse and repeat.  It’s important to build your online presence but it’s even more important to optimize your efforts which is a perpetual learning experience.

We "digg" the stuff you write on your blog!

If the first two requirements of effective blogging are 1) an enticing headline and 2) valuable content, then #3 would be choosing a topic that is so hot that your readers are going to share it with the masses on sites like Digg and Reddit.  These types of crowdsourced buzz platforms allow the collective community to drive awareness and create buzz around user submitted news and blog posts.  As you have more than likely already learned,  the more posts you write, the better you’ll be able to understand what type of headlines and content are catching people’s attention and you’ll begin to discover your “voice”.  Promoting your blog to these platforms is a bit different from the basic SEO strategy implemented within your site, so I’ll review some of the specifics to help you develop your own “external buzz strategy”.  (Since Digg is currently the most popular platform, I’ll use that as my point of reference when citing examples and tactics)

Click image to see interactive online marketing ecosystem

Once a post makes it to one of these sites, you can notify your network to start fanning the flames by voting and forwarding the link.  Of course, as is true with many of these “exposure platforms”, there is etiquette that must be followed in the course of presenting content to the masses.

Here are a few tips:

1. Don’t submit your own content to Digg.  If possible, ask friends to submit for you.
2. If your friends are going to submit your content, make sure they also submit additional content from other sources at the same time.
3. As mentioned in the beginning of this post, write a compelling headline and description.
4. Be active in the Digg community by voting, developing your profile and inviting friends.

This might sound like a lot of work but getting “Dugg on Digg” can drive substantial traffic to your site.  Actively participate in the community and you should be justly rewarded.

Make Sure Images Help "Tell The Story" To Search Engines

Always be optimizing. This is the mindset required to drive and strengthen your online presence to the point where you are always “found” wherever people are searching for your keywords. This includes prospects who are searching Google Images.  You have to view images as additional mechanisms for delivering your keyword content.

Believe it or not, images do more than simply make a blog post more appealing to the eye. They actually allow you to include additional “search engine friendly” content within your images that compliments your overall page/site SEO goals.  Once you implement this process in your overall routine, you’ll see it become more and more automatic over time.

Content management systems (CMS), like WordPress, Joomla or Drupal help automate the process of optimization and keep you from having to write any html code yourself.  If you are actually writing your own code, the syntax is very straightforward and you can learn more here.

The main theme here is to treat images like the rest of your content and make sure you do the following 3 things:

1. Give your image a descriptive title.  As soon as you download an image from a service like iStockphoto, change the cryptic file name that looks like 08948istockphoto23bizimage.jpg.
2. Make sure the body content and image content are consistent and working toward the same target audience.
3. When possible, choose content that is very popular at this moment in time and somehow relates to the information you’re presenting.  See my post regarding Susan Boyle.

Just remember that content is still king and there’s no excuse for missing an opportunity to boost your exposure/rank with the search engines by delivering the most optimized content possible.  If you’re posting images on your websitesite/blog, you must now add “image optimization” to your regular operating procedures.