Two major search engines have made recent changes to their local small business listings and offerings to make it easier, and more affective for small businesses to market online.

Both Google and Yahoo have made changes to their local section to help make it easier for searchers to find their local small business, and to make it easier for business owners to get their business found.
Check out this Google Youtube Video promo for their Google Local Small Business website.
Google is now offering small businesses information about their website, and their visitors. Their also offering local businesses help for common problems. The …read more

Online marketing can be a great promotional tool for your business, but it also takes a little patience and effort to be affective. I do quite a bit of web marketing for myself and others, so it’s a subject I’m familiar with.
I know you’d like to do a few blog posts or articles, sign up for Twitter, or Facebook and hope everyone comes to find you and tell you how great your product is. Well, it doesn’t usually happen like that (it can, but not usually). Marketing online can take a little patience and persistence to get it right.
If …read more

How easy is it for customers to find you? They used to say the most important thing about your business was location, location, location. Where you were located could make or break your business. That’s still true today, but these days you need to look at your physical location, and your online locations.
Getting people to find your business online can be just as difficult as getting them to find your actual store front if you have one. If you build it they will come is not necessarily true in real life or online.
You have to promote your online store, as …read more

When you are marketing online, it’s easy to spend tons of money. If you are looking to save money when marketing online, here are some tips you should follow:
Do it yourself
If you need to do small scale online marketing, it usually makes more sense to do the marketing on your own. Hiring a professional will just waste money that could otherwise go to marketing.
Shop around
If you need something like a banner advertisement for your marketing campaign, be sure to shop around for the best price.
Research
Stay on top of the marketing trends by constantly researching the industry. If you can beat …read more

Millions of people around the world are active on message boards and forums. With topics that range from business to celebrities and from sports to cooking, message boards and forums are a way of life for many people. In fact, many people consider the fellow members at the message boards and forums they visit as part of their extended family.
With that in mind, it’s no wonder why a ton of money is made per year by marketing on message boards and forums. If you own a message board or forum, tapping into the loyalty of your members is the key. …read more

Testimonials can be a very powerful marketing tool. Customers want to trust a company before doing business. Testimonials of positive experiences can help build that trust. Here’s a step by step process on how to use testimonials in marketing:
1. Get the testimonials
Getting the testimonials can be difficult. But after successful transactions, it’s appropriate to ask for a testimonial. The easiest way to ask for and receive a testimonials is via email. Whatever you do, don’t make up fake testimonials.
2. Collect a group of testimonials
One or two testimonials aren’t very helpful. You should have at least a handful of testimonials …read more

There are several reasons to use Facebook for your business. Networking with your current customers, finding new ones, launching products or pushing information out to a large group. All can be beneficial to keeping your business in front of people.
You can create a fan page based on your business or product, if it’s something that’s appropriate for what you do. People are fans of more than just musicians, causes, and TV shows. If your customers are naturally congregating on Facebook, you can give them a place to hopefully talk with other customers about your product. And you can push information …read more

The marketing world is changing. More and more campaigns involve some form of online marketing. If you are new to online marketing, you may be interested in the Inbound Marketing University free retraining program for online marketing.
The free online marketing retraining program will feature a curriculum based on internet marketing skills and it will feature an impressive list of professors. Here are the professors that are scheduled to be a part of Inbound Marketing University’s program:

Ann Handley of MarketingProfs
Brian Carroll of InTouch
Chris Brogan of New Marketing Labs
David Meerman Scott of New Rules of Marketing & PR
Elyse Tager of Silicon Valley …read more

When marketing online, a visitor to your website is valuable. However, if that visitor leaves and is never seen again, that value is limited.
One way to extend that value is to accumulate email addresses from visitors of the website. By getting the email addresses, you can contact the visitors at a later point and continue to get value out of that initial visit.
Why is it important to get email addresses from visitors? Here are four reasons:
1) Customize Marketing Pitch
On a website, you can’t cater to each individual who ventures onto the site. Via email, you can accomplish customization much easier.
2) …read more

ASTRALCOM Digital Business Solutions has released a new innovative marketing test to assist businesses in improving their online marketing strategy. They announced on Saturday the release of their free Customer Experience Quotient test. This test aims to help “quantify, measure, grade and make recommendations on a business’s online marketing efforts.”
The online CEQ test asks specific questions about performance and metrics in four main categories (website, search, email and social networking). Participants receive a score as well as comments and suggestions specific to the information they input. The short test takes less than 10 minutes to complete.
The test is a free …read more