The Business of Search

Just got back from the Search Expo at the Javits Center on Tuesday. The event took up just one corner of the of the convention hall. But the 50-plus exhibitors there seemingly had a unified theme — namely that your busainess needs to have its own Internet marketing campaign and that monitoring SEO and SEM are as important as paying the utility bill each month.

There’s a lot of competition for your ad dollars and how to use them. That’s a good thing. If you have a product and aren’t selling it with the aid of an Internet ad campaign — what are you waiting for?

In fact, there’s an arguement going around that a strategic SEM (Search Engine Marketing) campaign makes spending regular money on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) a moot point. That’s because many people try to fake their way to the top of the search rankings. It’s far simpler to buy an ad on the first page.

I will say that most small businesses don’t have web sites properly configured for SEO. In that instance, spending some money for one-time search engine optimization is a smart investment. Many firms can do the job. (Gratuitous sales pitch) My company, Build N Click, offers a $300 SEO package. If you want to talk, drop me an email: sales@buildnclick.com

But the point of the Search Expo was to sound a warning. If you aren’t investing in online advertising, you better have your web site positioned for maximum results. Neither is a luxury anymore.

Blog originally posted at LI Entrepreneurs.com

Web Analytics

One of the seminars I sat in on at the Web 2.0 Expo last week at the Javits Center was one on web analytics. The headliner was Avinash Kaushik, the so-called Analytics Evangelist for Google. And he made what’s usually a confounding and boring part of the web utterly come alive and seem vital to any business.

The bottom line is there are several free tools online that you should be using to measure traffic to your web site. (If you don’t alraeady have a web site, well, that’s another story. What are you waiting for?) Start with Google Analytics.

Then buy Kaushik’s book: Web Analytics An Hour A Day. Trust me, he breaks down countless ways to wring useful information from your web traffic, tools that can help optimize your site and profits.

Blog originally posted at LI Entrepreneurs.com