For some strange reason America has become desensitized to the death of large and small businesses. It’s almost like Darwinism, in the strong surival kind of sense. According to the SBA, over 50% of small businesses fail in the first five years. What goes wrong? The death of these businesses is often blamed on a number of reasons including: Lack of experience, insufficient capital, poor location, poor inventory management, and low sales. The scary thing is, a lot of business owners believe their doors will never close and that these outrageous numbers do not apply to them, after all…they are special. Right?

Ever wonder why Facebook is blue? Maybe it's some scientifically calculated blue that makes people stay hooked online for hours at a time liking cat meme's and Miley Cyrus Videos. Nah...it's actually because Mark Zuckerberg is red/green color blind; and blue is the color Mark can see the best. 

Google has chosen the digital capitals of each state. Why? Just for fun, and probably to create some digital business competition.

“Given the importance of the web in growing our local businesses and our local economies, we worked with independent research firm IPSOS to analyze the online strength of local businesses in cities and towns across America. Businesses in these communities are embracing the power of the web to find new customers, connect with existing ones and fuel their local economies." - Google

What does this mean? Google has chosen the cities based on business’s embracing digital and online business tactics. The towns who adapt to change the quickest and adopt new online techniques win the title for 2013 eCities! Kind of fun right?

Did Your City Make the 2013 List?

Sitting at my local Starbucks and staring at this blank sheet of paper, I realized something. People are so used to hearing what they should and shouldn’t do for marketing and especially internet marketing. They are probably tired of hearing you need to blog, it will do x, y, and z for your business. Blah, Blah, Blah… I don’t want to keep repeating what everyone else is saying, and I want to give you something you can use, or at least relate to.

There are many factors that can help your business be found online. One of these important factors is website keywording. When businesses add keywords to a website they are telling Google and other search engines exactly what words and or phrases they want to be found for on Google. Adding keywords to a website is a skill. As a business owner you should be involved in the keywording process, and make sure your SEO agency or webmaster is adding keywords to your site without turning away customers and making your business look like a chump.

Landing pages are a fundamental and undeniable part of a successful internet marketing strategy. Think of your landing pages this way, they are the hub, the center, bullseye of your marketing and lead generation efforts. Every offer, PPC ad, and other marketing efforts you use should be directed back to a landing page that is clear, to the point, and can convert visitors into customers. Not sure if you need landing pages for your business? Think again!

Have you hired or are you considering hiring SEO services for small business? If so then there are a few things you should know about SEO and the companies that offer SEO services for small business. Put plainly, we don’t want you to get taken advantage of, and we want to help you make the right choice. Even if we’re not the right choice for you.

If your company is thinking about blogging then it is very important that you understand why you should and shouldn't start blogging for business. In all honesty I tried to think of 5 reasons you wouldn't want to blog, and it was hard! Blogging does so much for an internet marketing strategy, and that is one of the reasons we always insist our clients include a blog on their website. Here is our version of 5 reasons why you shouldn't blog for business.

Is email marketing part of your overall internet marketing strategy? MailChimp is one of the leading email distribution companies used by businesses and business professionals. To show just how powerful this email platform is let’s checkout these stats: 

On a typical day MailChimp will email 100 million emails!

MailChimp sends 2 billion emails a month

They have about 3 million users in more than 150 countries

13.3 million API calls per day

20.3 million opens per day

5.8 million subscribers added per day

Social media has become increasingly important in 2013. There have been a number of updates to the way sites are ranked in Google search results. Google has increased the weight and value of credible, relevant, rich content on websites. The days of paying for links has come to an end, and we are on the rise of content creation.