• In Tools > Rules and Alerts, click 'New Rule.'
• Check 'Check messages after sending'. Click Next > Next
• Answer ‘This rule will be applied to every message you send’ with Yes
• Check 'Defer delivery by (a number of) minutes'
• Click (a number of) and select a number, 3 is good. Click OK > Next
• Check 'except if the subject contains (specific words)'
• Click (specific words). Press space 3 times and click Add.
• Click OK > Finish.

New data is available from WebVisible and Nielsen Online. Of particular interest to local business owners, consumers are using search engines much more than they were only two years ago.

When considering local Internet advertising spend in the upcoming year, it is clear that an increasing shift to online behavior among consumers must be followed by small business marketers.

In fact, the research shows that if more local business owners mimicked their own online shopping and research behavior in their marketing efforts they would have a much better chance at capturing more local business.

In this survey, half of the respondents said search engines are the FIRST first place they looked when seeking a local business. And of all the different sources, search was by far the most popular:

• 82% Search engines (such as Google or Yahoo!)
• 49% Internet Yellow Pages (such as yellowpages.com or superpages.com)
• 57% Yellow Pages directories
• 53% Local newspapers
• 49% Television
• 38% Direct mail
• 32% White Pages directories

Called "The Great Divide," this study surveyed nearly 4,000 US Internet users. It was conducted jointly by Nielsen Online and WebVisible.

For more information and an interesting viewpoint, check out Business Week’s coverage. Also, the full survey will soon be available on WebVisible’s Web site.

-- Contributed by Jeff Werner

In my last post I talked about my background in local Internet advertising and search marketing. I’ve been with WebVisible for four years now. When I started, we had about 20 employees. Now with over 100 employees in that short time span, are we still a small business? Or have we outgrown that status?

The SBA defines a small business as an independent business having fewer than 500 employees. Yes, we are still in that small business category. Is that bad? We can’t be a small business, look how much we have grown and accomplished! Does that term imply diminished value? Don’t kid yourself, here are the facts.

Small Businesses
  - Have generated 60-80% of new jobs annually over the last decade
  - Employ half of the country’s private sector workforce
  - Hire 40% of the high tech workers eg: scientists, engineers, computer techs
  - Generate the majority of the innovations from all US companies
  - Pay more than 45% of total US private payroll

And we are in great company as there are over 27 million small businesses in the United States. Oops, spoke too soon, here comes the bad news.
  - In 2007 there were 637,100 new small businesses start ups
  - There were 560,300 small businesses that closed
  -  In 2007 there were 28,322 small business bankruptcies

Now some more cold hard facts:
  - Only 66% of new small businesses survive (2) years – that leaves 420,900 from the original 637,100
  - Of those only 44% will survive (4) years – now we are down to 185,196
  - And only 31% of those survive at least (7) years – 57,000

In seven short years of the original 637,000 new business start ups, only 57,000 survived. Congratulations WebVisible, you just celebrated your 7th anniversary in 2008. Kudos, high 5’s, way to go WebVisible, you beat the odds and have surpassed all expectations. We should all pat ourselves on the back, as Hillary said ‘It takes a village’. Congratulations Terry and Kirsten, your baby has now graduated.

-- Contributed by Vicki King

Conversion ratio is often used to determine the success of local Internet advertising. There's not one set conversion ratio for everyone since businesses all operate in differing segments of various markets. Since different businesses perform differently, it's good to look at your own increase in your monthly sales, or number of new contacts filling out forms on your site, as a metric of performance. You will have to have a good solid understanding of your past performance to make this a meaningful number.

Tracking the performance of your site means being familiar with your web statistics package and Merchant Center for your web ad. Learn which search engines are driving traffic, which keywords people are using to find your site, and which pages they visit when they get there. When you understand your customers' browsing habits and learn what is holding their attention, you can work with that information to improve the site's 'stickiness' -- that which makes customers want to read deeper and stay on your site.

Your campaign's click-through ratio (or CTR) describes the effectiveness of your ads in drawing clicks from the searching public. It is expressed as a percentage of ad views divided by clicks -- if you drew 1 click for every 100 ad views your CTR would be 1%. This is the industry average return for web ads.

Your campaign's CTR performance will certainly change as the Geneva software platform develops a performance history and bid strategy for your campaign. This normally takes about 2 months and during that time period it's not unusual to see performance go up and down quite a bit. This is nothing to be overly concerned about. It’s just one number of several we can use, along with your Merchant Center and other data, to assess your site’s performance.

-- Contributed by Dan Lozano

What is StART? The Standarized AdWords Reseller Training (StART) Event is a free* beginner-level training program designed for new reseller partners or new AdWords users that are looking to increase their AdWords Product knowledge. It's designed to supplement your training experience with the information available on the program website and AdWords Learning Center.

The StART Event is a unique opportunity to meet your Google counterparts and receive in-person AdWords training provided by an expert Google trainer. The event also provides a forum for you to meet other resellers, network and share best practices to launch your business. For our customers, it means a higher level of expertise managing their local Internet advertising.

In preparation for the StART training I was asked to review and study several components of Google AdWords as there will be a couple of tests following the training session. Well, knowing that there was going to be a test the first thing I did was to put on my thinking cap and do a few searches on Google for some “Cheat Sheets.” After several failed attempts at finding the easy way out I knew I had to improvise, overcome and adapt to avoid studying. I quickly realized that there was no way I was going to find a cheat sheet for a Google test on Google, so I started my search on both Yahoo! and MSN.. To my surprise…nothing, nada, a big fat zero! So, with that, the only thing left to do was study and study I did. I read every bit of the AdWords Learning Center training and viewed every video. Then proceeded to take all 77 quizzes to ensure it was all sinking in.

The lessons are laid out in a logical fashion and are fairly straight forward, but don’t expect to sit down and knock it out in a couple of hours. You’ll want to give yourself at least a week or two to plow thru the materials. I chose to multi-task, in other words, I read the text lesson and listened to the video simultaneously. This is only for skilled professionals or those looking to get thru the lessons as quick as possible. As a study aid, I recommend regular intake of coffee or Mountain Dew whatever keeps you going. Even with these quintessential items, plan on the occasional zone out. Something about the monotone presenter voices in the video’s is so soothing, the warm sound of their voices, the…zzzzzzzzzzzz…. and the next thing you know every muscle in your neck gives out.

It is not a requirement to take the GAP (Google AdWords Professional) exam prior to attending the StART Program, however it is a good idea and I strongly recommend it. To make a long story short, I took the GAP exam and passed with flying colors. I also passed the other tests associated with the StART Program. I was told I got the highest score in my group, but who’s counting, I bet they say that to all the kids. Let me close by saying that the training took place on the Google Campus in Mountain View, CA and if you have not been to the campus before let me just say, ShamWow! But I’ll save my impressions of Pleasantville for another time.

-- Contributed by Totally Renarded

Your Web site is packed with information -- there are lots of great images and a lot of supporting information for your customers to read. However, there may be too much for a customer to process.

The average customer has an attention span of under 20 seconds when they first hit a new page or a new site, and many sites have exhaustive lists of pages and options. Give customers a few top-level options, and branch out from there. Keep the path to the info no longer than 2 or 3 clicks -- but it can go deeper than that if you want to add more info. Just don't put it all in the entryway to your site. It can overwhelm a customer and make them leave before they settle in.

As a customer, I would be pleased to read a smaller site with the same info -- a representative sample of the products you offer, with perhaps a compact text list of the full line you offer, would make your pages tidier and wouldn't cost you any points with the search engines. And streamlined sites can really maximize your local Internet advertising dollar.

The search engines can read text and very little else on your site, so get those brands and keywords in, but maybe offer just a couple of the nicest images for each section if your products are similar.

Adding images is easy with slideshow builder tools, which are available for free on the web -- slideroll.com is one I have used in the past. You can feed it your images and it will make you a professional looking slideshow for use on your site, saving lots of space and giving a great look to your site.

Remember to have friends review your site thoroughly, looking for things you may miss -- broken links, text, or images; empty or incomplete pages; incorrect spelling or awkward grammar; and frantic, busy animation, can all have a lethal effect on your visitors. Check it yourself too, as if you were a new customer who had never before seen it and had many other sites to choose from.

These are a few major changes that can help straighten out an awkward site. Get a feel for your competition by visiting their sites so you know what your customers have access to in your area. Build your site out until you're really proud of it, don't be afraid to prune it, and be sure to keep backups.

-- Contributed by Dan Lozano

Warillow and Co. published an excellent report recently citing the top two reasons small businesses outperform in recessions.

Large companies routinely barrow from banks to improve their return on equity and use the strength of their balance sheet to borrow at favorable rates and leverage up their returns. With credit markets stalled, they have to cut barrowing or barrow at higher rates. In contrast, this review points out that most small businesses are cash-flow positive enterprises and don’t regularly rely on outside capital (other than family and friends). Only 11% rely on bank loans to start or acquire their business.

Large businesses, by nature of being so highly diverse and essentially the market themselves, are slow to react. Like an aircraft carrier, can take a few shots and keep on moving, but is slow to turn. Small businesses, however, are much more nimble. They are able to re-invent themselves and find new niches opportunities. Warrillow cited a great example:

An after-school dance studio for kids started to suffer. The owner learned one student’s parents enrolled in ballroom dancing lessons at a rival studio as a stress reliever. The owner re-invented her studio to teach ballroom dancing to stressed-out (in some cases laid-off) financial workers and business is booming again.

Using local Internet advertising data can serve as a mini focus group and help small businesses be nimble when looking for new opportunities. For example, a car dealership could use keyword traffic reports to determine what models are generating the most interest in certain areas and adjust target online advertising accordingly. Or, a contractor could gauge what types of jobs or remodels are in demand and shift emphasis.

Hey, if Google can use search data to predict flu outbreaks, business owners can use it to make informed marketing decisions! The opportunities are endless. And small businesses are nimble enough to capitalize.

-- Contributed by Jeff Werner

1. Small businesses are at an inherent disadvantage when it comes to SEO, as they generally don't have the time and resources to generate the content required to compete effectively.
2. Small businesses, however, can be highly relevant for specific, targeted terms, and should focus and deeply optimize for those terms.
3. Understanding which terms to optimize for is a learning process, and the best way to discern which terms are most important to potential customers is to set up a search engine marketing campaign.  In that campaign, you can learn where people search, what people search for, what they respond to, both in when they click, and what they do after they click on the ad.
4. When an interested consumer clicks on an ad, the destination page needs to reflect in good part the specificity of the ad and associated keyword(s).  In the same way that I've seen Fortune 500 companies drive paid search traffic to their home pages, most small businesses do the same thing.  If I respond to a specific ad, but cannot locate the information after the click, I'm likely to click the [BACK] button and try another site.
5. You site should also reflect your paid search keywords so your ad quality score is higher, which over time will likely improve your campaign performance.  This can be a lengthy local online advertising discussion, which we frequently have with our clients.
6. Before undertaking a SEO project, make sure you know which terms will be fruitful for your business, and have reasonable expectations.  Doing search engine marketing in Chicago will provide more relevant details than a nationally-targeted campaign, especially if the focus of your business is the Chicagoland area.

• Over 300 targeted visitors to the company's landing page
• Nearly 40 connected phone calls from interested prospects
• Several people printing out the landing page and carrying it into the signmaker's office
• Search data showing that vehicle graphics and lettering are the most demanded and high performing services in his campaign

WebVisible launched a new online marketing campaign this week to make it easier for local businesses to learn more about our local Internet advertising services. The ads support our direct WebVisible sales brands: ChamberClicks, designed for chamber of commerce members, and AdvancedLocal, geared for any local business.

The banners, skyscrapers, squares and leader boards will be displayed to a nationwide audience on sites where small business owners frequent such as smallbusiness.com, allbusiness.com and entrepreneur.com. The headlines feature our core messages of making online advertising easy for local businesses and getting found on major search engines. The campaign is off to a great start with a lot of interest and requests for consultations with one of our representatives about targeted online advertising packages!

-- Contributed by Kevin Reid