But you might say: What has it got to do with me? I am just a small business owner in Marbella! What can the Internet do for me?

Here are your options:

1. Google Local Search

Google invented a system that displays local businesses in the search results and on Google maps. Your business can be listed on those local business listings , displaying the name of your business, your contact details, a link to your website and a spot on the map to tell your costumers how to find you.

Local search results always appear at the top of the main search results whenever the algorythm detects a search for a local business.

The major search engines often have partnerships with local information providers, such as Ask Jeeves’ partnership with Citysearch.  Professional SEMs can utilize listings from local search providers so that they get greater search engine visibility and branding impact on the major web search engines.

Lets say for example, you own a Restaurant in Marbella.

Did you know that in average 1700 people search for “restaurant in marbella” including several similar phrases per month?  The word “marbella”  is actually searched for 550.000 times in a single month. That is 6.600.000 searches per year.

Here is how the search result for “restaurants in fuengirola” looks like:

Restaurants in Fuengirola

You can see on the very top of the search results the “local business results” . Which consist of a the map and the first ten results of the businesses listed in Google local search. Under the listings is a link to all local businesses listed.

Do you need a website to be listed in Google local search?
No , you need to give Google a valid domain to information about your business but its highly recomendable .  If you don’t have one, Smart Media can design you a small but professional website for as little as 500 Euro.

2. Local media

Smart media is building at the moment local blogs, called the souts. There will be a individual blog for each of the bigger towns on the Costa del Sol. Blogs are becoming the the most popular social media on the web.

Record numbers of people are now visiting blogs, proving that blog visitation is now part of mainstream online behavior for many Internet users.

Once bastions for the tech elite, blogs are now as ubiquitous to the web as reality shows are to television. Blogs are redefining how people experience the web and, in many ways, have helped precipitate the shift towards user-generated content on the Internet (otherwise known as the Web 2.0 movement).

Our first local blogs  are:
http://www.marbellascout.net

http://www.fuengirolascout.net

The blogs will be promoted using Adwords, back links from other blogs,  online advertising in other local media ( www.surinenglish.com ) and on the sites of the local puplisher we work with.  Most importantly, we will use our skills in search engine optimization to assure the blog does get listed well in the Google search results.

You own a restaurant in Fuengirola

You can have a full page article about your restaurant on this blog. The page will include as much text as you want, a picture gallery with up to 12 pictures, your contact details and a map for people to find your restaurant.

Here an example:
Restaurant Old Swiss house in Fuengirola

Your advert on the scout in Google local search

What really makes marbellascout.net unique is this:  You do not have to have a website to advertise your business in Google local search! We simple create a sub domain for you like this:

http://yourrestaurant.fuengirolascout.net

Then we submitt this address to Google for inclusion into Google local search and Google maps. This is probably the most effective way for you as a small business owner to advertise your restaurant to thousands of people that are actually searching for what you have to offer.

Matt Cutts and small business owners

This video is an interview with one of Google’s senior managers. He gives tips to website owners about how to increase the visibility of your website and explains Google local search. Matt Cutts actually recommands the use of blogs and social media for small local businesses.

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In this Interview he gives tips to small business owners. He again insists on creating blogs and recommends wordpress.com as being seo friendly blog software. Smart Media uses exclusively the wordpress.com software to run our blogs.

For a limited period of time Smart Media offers small business owners in Marbella an entry on marbellascout.net for as little as 200 Euro for a whole year!

The entry includes:

• A full page advertorial artikel about your business
• A picture gallery of up to 12 pictures
• All your contact details
• Link to your website if applicable
• Sub domain pointing to your advert
• Inclusion in Google local search

Interessted?
Call us today under +(34) 665 841 138
Or email: info@smartmediaspain.com

These types of pages are all the same, that’s what makes them boring. If you read 100 about us- pages you will possibly read 100 times the following:

• We are the best in what we are doing and possibly in everything we will ever do
• We really care about our clients even about the ones we don’t like
• We think the client is always right
• We have the best  customer service all day everyday
• We offer inexpensive solutions, or we are less expensive then the competition
• We are different – don’t know what it is that makes us different but we are!

I actually wonder, when Google will start filtering all about us pages as duplicate content.  It wouldn’t surprise me.  At the risk of being called insane, but with the hope of baiting some inbound links, we try here a totally different approach:

What you think about this?

I’ll go through each and every one of the points above and show you why
WE are INDEED different. When reading this you might well think I am joking, no I don’t, believe me I really mean it!

1. So we are the best in what we do and in everything else?

Well here at Smart Media we do exactly what it says on the tin:  Smart Advertising.  We market your company and services to the biggest audience and fastest growing media on the planet: the World Wide Web.  In simple terms:  We make websites sell something.

Apart from that we are a bunch of completely useless www – geeks.  Never ask us to do something else than online marketing,  like repairing a car, changing tires, washing up, software installation, fixing your network problems,  or (god beware): hardware support.  We just don’t know this stuff and to be honest we are not bothered either.

It does what it says on the tin:  Smart Media

2. So you think we really should care about every client?

Well at Smart Media  we don’t. We are totally selfish and only care about client’s that make us money. Yes, right we are in this business to make money not to stroke your EGO. Does this one really make us different? Does that come as a surprise? No. Everybody else is in business for the exact same reason – we just happen to admit it.

Here is what does make us different: If we don’t like you we get rid of you,  if you don’t make us money we don’t take you on, as simple as that. That gives us more time to focus on projects we really enjoy doing and to work with client’s that appreciate our efforts.

We care about good clients and we choose them!

3. The client is always right?

At Smart Media  we think the client can not be right! Think about it, if what you are doing with your website was right, why would you talk to an online marketing consultant? You have a problem; your website does not sell anything or does not sell enough, that’s why you are talking to us. You are doing something wrong  so how can you be right?

The definition of insanity is doing the same things all over again and expecting different results!!

4. We have the best customer service?

No we don’t. Actually our customer service is almost non existent. We don’t serve customers – we serve websites. Customers are actually a nuisance, distracting us from our job with endless meetings and discussions about pretty pictures and how a website should look like,  in their clueless opinion.

Every minute we spend with a customer is taken away from the  job we are getting paid for: to  increase the performance of your website!

5. We have competitive prices?

If you are looking for a cheap SEO solution we are not the right partner for you. Good SEO and online marketing can not be done cheap, it’s just not possible. We pride ourselves in being the leading Internet marketing consultants in Spain. We play premier league and we charge prime money.

We are very expensive!

You’ll get what you pay for, no more no less!

6. Now you know what makes us different:

We allow ourselves the luxury of being slightly arrogant and direct to the point. We don’t believe in wasting time and our only concern is the performance of your website.

….and we do get results!

Regards

Wolfgang Brand

It seems quite simple. It actually is, if you know how it works, like everything in life. Do you have enough time and money to finance the learning curve?

You want to manage the campaign besides your daily business routine or want to entrust your apprentice with managing an adwords account, because he is doing so well with computers? Great idea. Your competitors will love you and Google will also be happy. The worse your campaign is, the more money it will cost.

Maybe you ask yourself what you may have done wrongly. Here a list of common mistakes:

• Keywords  too generic
• Not enough keywords
• Too many keywords
• Wrong keywords
• Advertising positions too high
• Advertising positions too low
• Bad landing pages
• Landing page does not fit to keywords
• Landing page does not fit to advertising text
• Landing page does not work
• Boring advertising text
• Exaggerating advertising text
• Too general advertising text
• Advertising text does not fit to keywords
• No controll of figures
• 16. No permanent monitoring and optimising of the campaign

This list of possible mistakes is not complete. It should only show you, that this has become a science for itself over time. With every single new advertiser, targeting the same potential customers, mistakes will have a greater negative impact on your campaign such as:

• Little amount of clicks (wasting time)
• too many or wrong clicks in relation to sales (wasting money)
• bad or wrong keywords, adverts or landing pages (ruins company image)

Is one of the above your case? Now you may ask yourself whether or not contracting a professional would get you better results. A bad one will ruin you totally and a good one must be quite expensive.

In classic advertising its hard to control which means where more successful then other but with a PPC (PayPerClick) campaign you can exactly compare input and output of your campaign. These permanent control and optimisation will get much better results than old school advertising. Who ever you get to manage your campaign always remember: Trust is good – control is better!

What can you expect from us?

Better results for less money. We will not tell you to spend aditional money. Generally our services are financed by a fixed monthly amount out of the saved budget and a performance based commission out of additional sales as a result of our work. After an analysis of the status quo we will individually agree on a performance target. We do have that much confidence in our work and this way ensuring a long lasting and profitable cooperation profitable for all parts involve – except your competitors…

Regards

Wolfgang Brand

Why corporate presences fail in Second Life.

Nothing is wrong with Second Life, but there is a lot wrong with how companies present themselves in Second Life. I am now a resident of the Second Life community since about one year . Gosh time goes by so fast doesn’t it?

I have been around a lot in Second Life done this seen the other, talked a lot to other residents and most importantly I have seen quite a bit that is working and what is not. I have seen busy places marketed well, busy places marketed ‘with outright SPAM and lots of places which are just that: DEAD.

Even places of big brands such as BMW, Mercedes and Deutsche Bank have hardly any visitors. Why? Companies are doing the exact same insane mistakes they do with their web presence. By not understanding or simply ignoring the different behavioral pattern internet users have, their presence in Second Life lacks interest and is only wasting server space. As usual the owner does not admit his failure but blames Second Life for it.

Here the most common mistakes in Second Life marketing

Duplicate your real life business

It is amazing how much even high profile agencies lack of imagination and creativity. Instead of create memorable experiences which residents will use and appreciate they show the same boring static stuff we have seen already a thousand times in real life. The normal rules of physics, and business do not apply in Second Life, and nor should they.

I have been recently to Mercedes Benz Island. You know what? You can test drive the C Class., you can buy a virtual car and you can click on screen to go to their website! Amazing isn’t it. What whole new concept, what imagination – a virtual test drive, I hardly can control my excitement. A similar experience, if not worse, I had on one of the BMW Islands.

There is some kind of an auditorium, you sit in front of a screen waiting for the presentation of the new CO2 emission reduced technology to begin…but: nothing happens, just nothing! We are talking here about two of the the biggest car manufactures in the world. Multi billion dollar operations with a completely useless presence in Second Life. Well done guys, I just hope you use a bit more imagination in buidling even better cars.

Build it, and they will come

This is classic in Internet Marketing. Just like many websites you build it, you wait for the visitors to come. You wait and you wait some more, but nothing happens and you are wondering why you did get one of these in the first place. Nothing gets noticed without promotion. If you’re building a virtual presence, whatever that may be, and you want people to come to you, you need to promote it. There’s a lot you can do, but sitting around waiting for hordes of people to descend on your SL presence is not going to work past the curiosity phase.

Forget to staff your business

Amazing as it may seem, many real life companies with a stake in Second Life have no one there to help the people that do bother to come and see them. At both presences, BMW and Mercedes, there was nobody to talk to. Though comparisons to real life are limited, this one is not. You’d not build a business in real life and leave it empty would you? SL is about people, it’s a social space, an interactive space, and a space that demands human contact.

Assumptions about the Second Life community

There are clever people out there. They are amazingly clever. They are so clever that they judge the likes, wishes, preferences, demographics, motives and behavior of Second Life Residents just by hearing the word Second Life. These same people in real life do in depth feasibility studies, market research and other means of getting facts first before making a decision, but when it comes to Second Life they know it all.

Ever been to Second Life? Have a try: www.secondlife.com

Regards

Wolfgang Brand

1. According to Forrester Research, Internet-influenced sales generate three times as much revenue as Internet-bought sales. In other words, people prefer to research their purchases online and then go the shops to actually buy them buy offline.
Source: Microsoft Business central

2. According to research company Nielsen, there are upwards of 34 million Britons with Internet connections. And as of May 2002, there were some 185 million Europeans with Internet connections.
Source: Microsoft Business central

3. Recent research reveals 58% of house hunters are using the Internet as a primary source of property information.
Source: HBF Press Release

4. According to a study at Stanford University, people do judge a company’s credibility and professionalism by the design and content of their website.
Source: Consumer Web Watch

5. The biggest markets in Europe for Internet Marketing are; Germany- 21% of all European Internet users are German; the UK – 16% of all European users are British; Italy – 12.9% are Italian; and France, 11% are French.
Source: World Internet Stats

Conclusions

Most businesses in Spainl do not realise the importance of their internet presence and online marketing. In the past, customers weren’t too bothered about this part of a company’s profile, but nowadays it is entirely different. In fact, a good website is the single most important part of a business’s marketing strategy.

While some businesses still try to get around it and attempt to do it by themselves, many now account for a website and Internet marketing services in their budget.

In light of the above, you should ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do I have a website that enhances the professional image of my company?
2. Do I know how to market my Internet presence? If so, why does it not work?
3. After spending thousands of Euros on a website, why am I not getting results?
4. Can I afford not to invest in Internet marketing services?

Think about it; how much will it cost your company should a prospective client choose to go to a competitor because your website isn’t up to scratch, or they couldn’t find it in the first place? It’s a scary concept.

Regards

Wolfgang Brand