Memorial Day Thoughts

Unless you have actually been in a war, it is hard to understand why veterans hate war and will do anything to prevent it. War is barbarism. War is seeing your friends die...everyday. War is giving up hope of ever returning home again to your loved ones. War is despair.

There is no such thing as a "smart bomb." Once the "dogs of war" are let loose, there is no controlling them. Death sweeps the land and feeds on itself. War quickly becomes senseless killing.

I cringe when I hear politicians who went out of their way to avoid the draft and Vietnam talk about "sacrifice" and "supporting the troops." Yet, they are so willing to send our sons and daughters off to the black hole of Iraq to die for their discredited beliefs.

If there could be just one change to the Constitution, I would like it to be that politicians could not vote for - or simply launch - war unless they committed to have their own children, brothers, sisters and other relatives between the ages of 18 and 45 actively participate in a combat zone. Do you think that would have changed the Iraq vote?

Have a Great Idea? Sell It on a Single-Page Website!

Do you have a great idea? Did you come up with a better "widget" that you know will knock the world dead? Well, now you can begin marketing your widget worldwide within just a few days.

A great way to give your idea life is to launch a single-page Website as a 24x7 marketing machine that has but one purpose - to generate widget sales or capture leads. And you can accomplish this for under $4 monthly!

If your widget really is a great idea, you will be surprised how effective a single-page Website is. It is easier to optimize for the search engines too. For example, if you get a pertinent domain name, such as http://www.widget.com/, implementing the right meta tags and keyword densities is much simpler than a normal business Website. And you can have this for under $4 monthly in hosting fees!

The good news is that you don't have to understand how to put up a Website, how to write persuasive site content, how to create and insert order forms or set up online payment. We can do all that for you. Moreover, your "great idea" can be transformed into a dynamite Internet marketing machine within just a few days. Throw in some targeted pay per click advertising and watch your sales grow.

Contact us to learn just how affordable it is to launch your better widget.

The Evolution of Online Advertising

There are changes occurring in online advertising. Google is experimenting with pay-per-conversion advertising, wherein advertisers will only be charged when a prospect actually takes a desired landing page action (e.g., filling out the lead capture form) and winds up on the site's thank-you (i.e., "conversion") page. This will take of click fraud. It is also a more meaningful way of charging for online advertising. Expect Yahoo and others to follow Google's lead on this.

Another innovative approach is "pay per call" advertising introduced by Ingenio. It works in much the same fashion as current PPC advertising. You create an ad, set your bid price for calls, and then your ad appears across the Ingenio Advertising Network which includes AOL Search and other sites. However, you are only charged when an interested prospect actually calls you!

Search engine advertising, which is the fuel driving Internet marketing, is evolving. Just look at recent innovations in local PPC advertising. What's exciting is that this change is being driven by both technology and customer demands. I think this is a good thing. It will benefit all small businesses by letting us get more "bang for the buck."

Business Plan Sanity Check

For a small business or start-up, getting a "sanity check" for your business plan from an experienced consultant can mean the difference between success and failure. The small expense of having an experienced person review your business plan (or simply your strategy, whether it's written down or not) is more than recovered by the insights gained and the avoidance of costly pitfalls.

And for those of you who do not have a written plan that has been scrutinized by someone who is "business knowledgeable," recognize that you are winging it! Are your goals realistic? Are they achievable? Are they even the right goals for your business? And do you have realistic action plans to achieve your goals? Are you leveraging your strengths while minimizing your weaknesses? If you don't know the answers to questions like these, you may already be headed for serious trouble.

Too often, start-ups and small businesses don't even see trouble coming until it is too late to do something about it. That's the purpose of a well-thought-out business plan - to look ahead and increase your odds of success by avoiding likely speed bumps. The failure rate of businesses who don't take the time to think through their objectives and strategies is dramatically higher than those who accomplish this upfront and perform at least annual reviews.

Without a roadmap for your business, how will you know if you're going in the right direction? If you don't have the experience, aptitude or skills to prepare a business plan, then employ a knowledgeable consultant to help you put one together. It will be the best money you ever spend.

Are You Invisible on the Internet?

Here's a good exercise. Create a matrix with five columns and five rows. Blank out the upper left cell, but label the other four top horizontal cells, "Google," "Yahoo," "MSN," and "Ask." Then place your Website's top four keyword phrases in the left column. Now, do a search under each search engine and list your position among the returns in the appropriate cell. For example, if one of my key phrases is "curved widgets," and my site came up on page 2 in the number five position when I enter that phrase into the Google search box, I would enter "page 2 - 5" under the Google column for that phrase.

If you do this for your top four keyword phrases, you will get a real good idea of how well your site is optimized for the four search engines that account for at least 98 percent of all Internet searches.

If your Website isn't showing up within the first three pages of search engine returns (for your strategic keywords or phrase), then you are invisible on the Internet! If your site shows up on page 1 for all search engines for all keyword phrases, you walk on water. If it's somewhere in between, you have some work to do.

For anything but the "walk on water" results, there are two things you can do to drive more traffic to your Website. First (obviously) is to improve your search engine optimization as necessary. This is a long-term solution that takes time to implement and show results. Secondarily, you can utilize targeted, local pay-per-click advertising to get economical leads while your organic search-engine ranking climbs a competitive ladder to success.

Go ahead - grab a pencil and perform this exercise. The results may surprise you. Need help?

Every Small Business Needs An Internet Marketing Strategy

It is almost impossible for a small business to survive today without a Website. If you don't have one, you are just not credible. Moreover, since most Americans go online to find goods and services, you will miss out by not being included in the world's largest virtual directory. Of course, this means that a small business must also have its site optimized for its keywords, or it will still be invisible on the Internet. And, as long as your business is online, why not leverage it to capture sales leads or boost your revenues by letting customer buy online?

Plus, it is easy and economical to employ local online advertising to boost awareness of your business. Free local listings are available from Google and others. Moreover, local pay-per-click advertising is very cost-effective. This is where your ad only appears to those in your local marketing area and you are only charged a small fee if and when they click on it.

So, if your business doesn't have a Website, get one! And if your Website is doing nothing for you, fix it. Contact me, and I'll give you a quick evaluation of your online situation and how you can turn it into a money machine.

Always, Always Back Up Your Data!

For those in business (and really anyone), nothing is more important than backing up your critical information on a regular basis. If you have ever had the horrifying experience of a disk crash or a paralyzing virus attack (and I have), then you know what I'm saying. Your business can quickly grind to a halt if, for example, you lose customer contact and purchase records, critical projects or WIP, photos, accounting records...use your imagination. Put simply, it can be catastrophic and hard to recover.

At minimum, get a Zip or external backup drive. They are cheap today. I just saw an ad for an external disk drive that offers over 300GB of storage for $139!! Whatever you do, be sure to backup critical data immediately after you create or update it. Better safe than sorry, so make this a standard practice.

A "hands free - worry free" solution is to subscribe to a Web-based automatic backup solution. these work in the background, always backing up new files over the Internet while you continue your work. Obviously, you want to make sure that transmissions are secure and that the repository is itself backed-up on a regular basis.

These online solutions used to be costly, but now they are quite affordable. I use Carbonite myself, which cost just pennies a day. It's a small price to pay for peace of mind. If I ever do suffer a disaster, I'm confident I'll be able to recover and stay in business. ;~)

Constant Contact Email Newsletter Online Service - Product Review

Constant Contact is one of the premier online services for creating, managing and distributing an email newsletter.

I am a Constant Contact affiliate and offer it to my clients when appropriate. On my Real Estate Internet Marketing Website, I even provide a service to get Realtors off to a fast start by setting up their Constant Contact account, newsletter parameters, and importing their images and email lists. Most start out taking advantage of the Constant Contact 60-day free trial, then transition to a monthly subscription ($15 monthly for up to 500 email contacts). Those with 50 email contacts or less can use the Constant Contact service for free!

Being very familiar with Constant Contact, I have prepared a product review for visitors to my Small Business Smart Marketing website. This is an objective analysis, pointing out some "gotchas," and pinpointing Constant Contact's best market fit. If you are thinking about using an online service to generate, distribute and manage a newsletter or other type of email campaign (electronic postcards, promotions, events, etc.), then do yourself a favor and read this Constant Contact product review first.

Drive Qualified Traffic to your Website with Press Releases

Press releases are an excellent means of capturing qualified traffic. After all, if someone is interested enough to read your online press release, then click on your embedded link, you have a qualified prospect who is motivated!

And never underestimate the wide circulation that press releases achieve! Using a service like PRWeb for online distribution allows you to assign keywords and tags for RSS feeds and blogs. You will be surprised at how much traffic a single press release can send to your site. Your press release shows up in other Websites, newsletters, blogs, forums and then gets archived there.

Think about what it does for your search engine ranking to quickly gain a large number of one-way links from highly-ranked sites!

And online press releases live on forever. I'm still getting traffic from a press release I did two years ago!

Small business people and entrepreneurs can utilize our economical PR service at http://www.smallbizsmartmarketing.com/ to create and distribute press releases. Realtors should check out out unique low-cost PR service at http://www.renewsletter.com/.

Looking Towards 2007

I'm one of those people who makes resolutions each year. I also make predictions of things that might happen during the coming year. At the end of each year, I compare my resolutions and predictions to actual results to gauge my achievements and (often with fun) my ability to foresee the future. To me, 2006 has been an interesting year with some wins and some setbacks....like everyone else, I imagine.

As I look towards 2007, I pray that someone with common sense takes the reins in Washington. The endless war in Iraq goes on and on with no realistic plans and no possibility of a good outcome. As a Vietnam vet, I feel for the people on the ground. To me, they are being sacrificed in a fruitless attempt to salvage Bush's legacy (is that an oxymoron?). In Vietnam, we lost 1000's of young men while first Johnson and then Nixon sought "peace with honor." We all saw the final, inevitable outcome of that conflict. I wonder how the parents, wives and children of the dead feel about their needless sacrifice... Sorry, but as you get older, you tend to see things in a different perspective.

I also hope that we as a people find a way to feel good about our lives. We need to have national goals and programs that unite rather than divide us. We need leaders that focus on hope and what we can accomplish rather than name-callers and those vested solely in their own concerns. We need demonstrated competency, not more Katrina's.

And believe it or not, I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I'm a registered Independent who remembers when the Constitution was respected and out country was admired around the world.

I urge you to take time out, clear your head, and jot down some personal and professional goals for next year. Then put them where you can't help but stumble across them every so often. Just having a visible reminder is an indicator of what we could be, of what each of us could achieve if only we applied our willpower and creativity. Think about it...and I promise to focus again on business in these communiques starting in January.

To each of you, I wish a very happy and prosperous 2007.

It Doesn't Cost a Lot to Promote your Business Online!

Most small business operators have the misconception that they cannot afford to promote their business online. In fact, just the opposite is true - they cannot afford to not promote their business online!

Small businesses can have a Website for under $100 annually. Local and nationwide pay-per-click advertising, when prepared and managed by a knowledgeable person, is affordable and can yield a very high ROI. Simple things like distributing a monthly e-mail newsletter will significantly boost sales while incurring minimal cost. Low-cost link exchanges with complementary Websites will drive qualified traffic to a small business. Doing online press releases and distributing free articles will add hundreds (if not thousands) of interested monthly Website visitors.

Want to learn more? Click here.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. In today's troubled world, I hope you take time out to count your blessings and let your cared ones know how much you love them. ;~)

Pacing Yourself

In order to succeed at anything you do, you have to learn to pace yourself. There must be a balance to your life or you will burn out.

This is a problem that all entrepreneurs face. We work too hard. There are too many projects to complete. But in doing so, there is the danger of losing creativity and your perspective. Teach yourself to take time out to smell the roses. Spend time with your family. Relax. Take a bike ride, go to the beach, have coffee with a friend, but do something to break up the intense pressure and wind down. Breathe, and rejuvenate yourself.

A lesson we all have to learn....again and again.

Landing Page Essentials

Whether performing PPC advertising, running a special or doing a seminar, it is critical to have a landing page where interested parties go when they click on the action button. This is the page where your sales argument is presented. Everything on this page should be designed to entice the visitor to take a specific action, such as providing their vital statistics in exchange for a free widget. Typically, the purpose of a landing page is to capture a sales lead or to sell something via a credit card transaction.

The essentials of a landing page are to have a Header and Sub-Header that reinforce the benefits presented in the ad or webpage that led the visitor to the page. The textual content is a persuasive dialogue, sprinkled with testimonials, that leads the visitor to conclude that this is a good deal...something he/she can't live without.

Credibility is critical. Hence the testimonials. If others have been successful with the offering, it alleviates the fear of proceeding. No one likes to be a pioneer. Offering a "satisfaction guaranteed" policy with a full refund within (say) 30 days usually overcomes any lingering doubts.

Boosting the transaction with freebies to raise the ante is a powerful enticement. Putting a time limit on the offer creates a sense of urgency and spurs the visitor to action.

And the "action" must work flawlessly. Be sure to test-drive your transaction process to ensure everything works as it should. A significant percentage of potential buyers drop out at the purchase stage when it takes too long, has errors or is just plain confusing.

So, careful design of your landing page is essential to achieving a high conversion rate. Always remember that it's like a funnel which guides users to the decision you want them to make.

I'm Back!!

The curse of independent consulting is the business cycle. When it's dry, it's really dry. BUT when it rains, it pours. Kinda hard to predict cashflows, but always welcomed.

In case you've noticed my absence during the past few weeks, it's because I have been caught up in a typhoon. Interesting work - putting up a Website for a public access cable company, for example - but time consuming. I now have several Internet marketing consulting clients, and I enjoy the variety of assignments and creativity they demand. Sometimes, however, they all enter a hot phase at the same time, and I hang up my life for a few weeks. Well, not entirely. There's still time for the occasional golf game or bike ride along the beach. After, why work for yourself if you don't take time to smell the roses?

No matter whether you work for yourself or for an employer, it's still the same. You gotta take time to smell the roses, to take your sweety to dinner, play with the kids and just unwind. In today's fast-paced society where it's hard to escape the phones, email and IM's, that's easier said than done. You can tell the ones who are successful - they are calmer and often wear smiles.

Just a thought ;~)

Use Negative Keywords to Fine-Tune PPC Advertising

When employing pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, don't forget to make use of features which allow you to specify "negative keywords." These are keywords that you do not want to cause your ad to appear. Proper use of this feature will help you to target your ads towards real prospects and can dramatically reduce erroneous click-throughs, thereby making your monthly PPC budget go further.

Successful PPC advertising is all in the tuning...

Don't be Afraid to try Something New!

If your site statistics indicate that you are receiving a good traffic volume, but most visitors leave within 30 seconds, it's time to try something new.

The key is to experiment...and keep experimenting until you see a favorable shift in your site's "stickiness." This can be measured by sales conversion or simply a positive change in the duration that typical visitors spend on your site. Look at return visitors too - the more the better.

But the bottom line is that a Website is dynamic. You always have to be adding new content and adjusting your offerings, layout, navigation, incentives and attractiveness until you find a formula that works. That's why it is so important to carefully review your site statistics on at least a weekly basis.

Hint: Make small changes and give it a few days to see if the change is having a positive effect. If not, try something else. Keep experimenting and sooner or later, you'll find the right mixture that puts money in your pocket!

Valuable Content is Key to Website Marketing

Many small businesses treat their Websites as nothing more than an online brochure. This is OK if all you want is a place for sales and support people to point customers and prospects. But it foregoes the opportunity to tap into a worldwide, 24x7 market.

The best and simplest way to turn your small business Website into a marketing machine is to add valuable content that is periodically refreshed. This can be free useful tools, authoritative whitepapers, articles or eBooks, a directory to useful sources, etc. These build credibility, a preprequisite to collecting names, phone numbers and email addresses. And if you are selling online, achieving credibility among site visitors is an absolute prerequisite for success.

Add valuable content means that your site is more likely to be bookmarked as well, leading to return visitors. If your content captures attention, it is more likely to get passed on to colleagues and business associates too. This is called "viral marketing," a phenomenon that can significantly increase your business.

Happy 4th of July!

How do you know when you are a workaholic? I think I answered my own question. Here I sit during the morning of what is suppose to be a relaxing holiday, banging away to complete client assignments. Even worse, it doesn't feel like work to me. I enjoy what I do...maybe a little too much.

Time to stop and take the dog for a walk before the Pacific sun burns away the June gloom.

Happy 4th, everybody.

New Service - Affordable Online Marketing Appraisal

A lot of small businesses put up a Website and promote it as best they can. Yet, they seem to hit a wall. Their site never appears within the first three pages of search engine returns for their keywords. In effect they are invisible on the Internet. Or despite a healthy flow of traffic to their site, sales never seem to increase. Where to go from here?

If you find yourself in this position, you might feel a sense of hopelessness. Maybe you've tried several things but nothing seems to work. It's like an invisible barrier keeps your online marketing efforts from succeeding. You would give anything for a knowledgeable Internet marketing expert to look at your site, but have neither the time or money to spend on a consultant.

Now there is a way to get the answers you need to revitalize your online marketing, to point it in the direction of success. A simple course correction can often make all the difference in the world. We know that online marketing works. Now let's make it work for you!

Pacifica Endeavors is proud to introduce our exclusive Online Marketing Appraisalsm service. Our new Online Marketing Appraisal service provides everything you have been seeking. A Pacifica Endeavors online marketing expert will personally review your Website and its underlying code. Assessments and recommendations will then be presented for:

• How you can improve your search engine ranking
• What you can do to improve sales conversions among site visitors
• Inexpensive online marketing methods for your consideration that will dramatically increase Website traffic

You will receive this insightful feedback in the form of a documented PDF report within a few days of applying for the Online Marketing Appraisal service. And every part of the appraisal report will be "meat;" there is no fluff in the Online Marketing Appraisal package. You will get a penetrating report with solid recommendations guaranteed to increase your online business.

Learn more...

Be Proactive!

Lots of people complain but fail to do anything to turn their Websites into proactive marketing machines. And there are a number of actions that can be taken, each of which can boost the traffic flow and (if applicable) sales. If your Website is not living up to its expectations, find out why and do something about it.

Sometimes, just the simplest action can make all the difference. Don't be afraid to experiment. Read and learn; educate yourself...or hire someone knowledgeable to audit your site and make suggestions. But whatever you do, don't just sit there and let it go on. Every Website has the potential to become a mean, lean money-making machine...yours included!