While small business owners often focus much of their attention on staying active in social media, they tend to end up ignoring a valuable asset: their website. As many web designers will tell their clients, a company's website should always include search engine-friendly content as well as useful information that is readily accessible. More often than not, getting one's online properties to the top of the Google and Bing SERPs is one of the most important goals in any SEO campaign.

Smartphone adoption and usage continues to increase in the US and throughout the world. Alongside this growth, however, is the surge in m-commerce behavior users engage in on their smartphones. The devices allow consumers to manage their entire shopping experience from gathering product information and comparing prices to making the final purchase. As such, mobile purchasing is increasing with just under 30% of smartphone users in the US having made a purchase using their smartphone. Marketers and e-retailers alike feel this number could and should be higher. Only 14% make purchases using the device with high frequency, according to ourmobileplanet.com, and 81% do so with low frequency. Opinions are mixed regarding the main roadblock to purchasing on smartphones, but a closer analysis tells a deeper story.

Social media and video marketing are increasingly more important in the internet marketing efforts of businesses. More people are online and searching for business information than ever before and videos that businesses create and then promote can increase the exposure businesses get and the ability to build their outward image and communicate a specific message. All of this can be wrapped up neatly in a short video that is tastefully shot and skillfully produced with even small features such as text, images, and transitions.

Over the last several years, the world's largest search engine has expanded beyond even the wildest of expectations. Google's humble beginnings as a research project by Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin now seem like a distant memory and the company is now a world leader in not only Web search, but in several other areas of the technology industry, as well. Although the Google brand may be best known for its revolutionary search engine, some of the company's newest and upcoming offerings may truly solidify its place in history as one of the world's most innovative brands.

As Google launches its Drive service, we check in with WebiMax CEO Ken Wisnefski. Alisa Parenti also gets an update on Facebook, just a few weeks before its IPO.  Listen here

WebiMax, the top-rated search engine optimisation (SEO) firm in the United Kingdom, has recently launched their London Internet Marketing Initiative offering a comprehensive suite of web-based marketing services. The initiative brings their award-winning solutions to London-area and UK businesses catering specifically to the influx of visitors to the city and surrounding areas in the coming months.  Read more

Companies that conduct the majority of their business on the internet are always fighting an uphill battle to gain loyal fans and regular website visitors. With many industries experiencing an overcrowded marketplace and unprecedented levels of brand saturation, small and medium-sized business (SMB) owners are trying to gain that most desired of customer values: trust. Aside from the strength of their online presence, many large corporations have an easier time attracting internet shoppers due to simple brand recognition which lends itself to trustworthiness. When faced with an unknown mom-and-pop retailer and a company that has twenty years of advertising power behind it, there's no doubt that the average person will choose to conduct business with the more well-known store.

When new venues for internet advertising go live, every online marketing firm and PPC company takes note. Just a few days ago, Google announced the launch of its AdWords for Video program which it claims places more ad control into the hands of small and medium-sized businesses (SMB). Putting its money where its mouth is, the company is also giving potential SMB clients an incentive in the form of over $50 million in account funds to new AdWords registers. Those companies that sign up for AdWords for Video will be working with a free $75 in ad credits from which to drive their PPC campaigns.

The Internet has changed many things, the least of which how people get their news and consume information, as well as businesses promote themselves and connect with their audiences. For decades the work of PR has been kept to a handful of broad forms of media - print, TV, radio, and live in-person events. For a while now, the internet has been changing how businesses connect with their audiences in order to extend their message and purposefully engage. In short, more is possible, and the new functions that are emerging leverage the power and reach of the internet. Social media and SEO are two elements of online marketing that essentially change the landscape of PR and enable businesses to do achieve more by doing more.

Attention, health care providers. If you're looking to attract an online audience, then it's essential that you start providing information about health care and your practice through social media.

Google has been making many updates.  Have you heard?  Don't worry; the search engine optimization world closely tracks the search giant's moves.  We must.  There's too much invested in the process.  Our consumers depend on us to do a good job for them.  Your consumers depend on you too.

The internet has not only become a tool for people to conveniently search for products or services online, but a dominant source to learn about businesses. With the various online review sites available, customers can read reviews about businesses as well as provide their own review. And 'word on the internet' spreads like wildfire. But, does everyone really trust online reviews?

Here we are at last, loyal readers: the final installment in my three-part coverage of the best social networks for social media marketing. Some of you may have been following my blog posts for the past couple days, but more than a few of you may be jumping in only now. In my previous discussions, I went over the importance of location-focused social websites as well as those with the best potential for growth. Now it's time that we take a look at the overall best social networks for business owners in 2012.

With continued increases in the sales of goods and services through online platforms both here in the US and abroad, there exists several standard musts for companies in order to succeed. These are not necessarily groundbreaking or even new recommendations, but new research out regarding the industry in international markets suggest e-commerce companies are not engaging in these important practices. 

Social media should be a part of any successful Internet marketing campaign, but measuring the impact of your efforts previously required additional tools or creating advanced segments in Google Analytics. Now, social media traffic is much more accessible to the more casual GA user.

Again, this title is tongue-in-cheek, as there is certainly no one size fits all plan, as the implementation of one would achieve only mediocre results, miss out on great potential, and potentially damage a brand's image in certain markets. There are strategy points that can be catered to each market, though, and one underlying guiding principle - understand each local context, what is popular, what the trends are, what the web behaviors are, and what characterizes their online activity to name a few elements ,and analyze how your business can operate in that market. With this post, we are continuing the subject and now addressing social media in Europe.

The latest mobile app, Draw Something, created by gaming developer OMGPop, has captivated the interest and time of cell phone users everywhere. Since its release on February 6, the game has attracted over 35 million users.

Yesterday I kicked off a series of blog posts dedicated to choosing the best social network based on the needs of a business. For small and medium-sized company owners, there is no certainly no lack of choices to be made when selecting which social sites to operate on. Many SMBs tend to lack the sort of SEO experience and social media awareness to really take advantage of each network's full capabilities. Fortunately, each site can be boiled down to a few key attributes that can make picking the right one an intuitive, and even enjoyable, process.

As social media websites become the focal point of countless internet advertising firms, so too have small business owners come to depend on social networks for their ongoing marketing campaigns. While Facebook is the primary social website for many companies these days, the fact is that there is no shortage of social media sites to pick from when trying to improve a company's conversion rates and traffic. Although social media companies often ignore many sites when campaigning, the options available to businesses advertising on social networks are rather robust.

Yes, that title is tongue-in-cheek, as there is certainly no one size fits all plan. Reading any of my previous writings here, if there is one recurrent theme or underlying message toward international SEO and internet marketing in a new international market, it is that marketers must cater to the new context. They need to do their homework in understanding the local environment and how culture, language, and the societal structure (political, judicial, etc.) will impact the operations of the business - and act accordingly.

Tons of resources are regularly devoted toward evaluating the strength of business sales strategies.  Evaluation and implementation play integral roles in the strength of the strategy and there are methods businesses can use to refine their message.  Analytics potentially provide the most effective evaluation and illustrate measures that other tools simply cannot.  Below are 4 ways website analytics can help businesses refine their sales strategy

I shake my head each time I read an 'excuse' in regard to disappointing revenue numbers, especially excuses aligned with 'slow seasons' or 'traditional downtimes.'  Does search engine optimization know of such ineffective times?  Depending on the vertical, off to online marketing may be similarly or grossly contrasted; but, can present-day brands use traditional outcomes when it comes to online marketing's nascent years?  Are some brands simply not giving SEO a good enough try?

Over the past several years, search engine optimization (SEO) has become increasingly popular for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Although large scale corporations and well-known retailers may rely primarily on TV and print for most of their advertising efforts, many companies also supplement their marketing campaigns with SEO-based operations online. What used to be a relatively unknown advertising method has now become a common business strategy for countless retailers, restaurateurs and service providers the world over.

In yesterday's post, I opened the discussion of Twitter's varied use by non-marketers and covered two interesting and innovative applications of the technology. The first is that of Francis Kariuki (@Chiefkariuki), the Kenyan administrative chief that uses twitter to get important messages out to his community members. Secondly, we looked at the twitter bot named Where's My Bus (@whensmybus) which offers travelers real-time London bus information.

Twitter is impressive, the technology itself in what it allows you to do but also in how people are actually using it to improve how they interact with the world around them on a daily basis. The platform has seen solid growth and now has over 100 million active users, those that sign in at least once a month. The US slice of Twitter use is expected to rise to 21 million this year (eMarketer) as people continue to see worth in its use, even if to simply track that which they find interesting rather than creating and sharing content themselves.