Exclusive Internet Marketing Business Network and Forum for Loudoun Businesses

Would you like to discuss and share information and ideas regarding local online marketing in Loudoun County? KME Internet Marketing now offers an exclusive business network and forum regarding Loudoun-specific SEO/SEM tips and hints, specifically geared towards this Northern Virginia area. We will obviously chip in to moderate, and help explain things for the group...

This forum is available ONLY for our Northern Virginia Internet Marketing clients and partners - and, since we don't work with competing businesses, your situation, questions, advice etc. aren't shared with your competition.

To participate, contact us for Internet Marketing, Website Management, Advertising listings on Dulles South Online, or reciprocal business arrangements or links. We'll work together to market your businesses and bring in more local customers, and you'll then be able to take advantage of this exclusive business network.

Is now a good time to spend on Internet Marketing?

With the current economic downturn and therefore slowing of consumer spending, leading to depressed business revenues, is it a good time now for spending on Internet Marketing? Like on Wall St., Internet Marketing is best done with a "buy low, sell high" mentality.

Yes, many small and medium-sized businesses, faced with immediate revenue decline, will likely cut advertising as fast as they can call the newspaper. However, there are many, many ways to advertise on the Internet that are powerful, free or low-cost, and should absolutely be taken advantage of regardless of the market. Typical search engine optimization (SEO), search engine markeintg (SEM), and social media optimization/marketing (SMO/SMM) techniques (1) can be done with little overhead expense, other than time (or reasonable service charges to your Northern Virginia Internet Marketing Experts and (2) certainly take a while to develop quality referrals and consistent search engine results.

So, while the market is low (and it actually may be more sustainable and fundamentally healthy than you'd think, here among Northern Virginia Businesses), take the opportunity to turn UP the Internet Marketing machine, and be ready to roll in the dough when the consumers come back in force.

FAQ - why should my small business create a blog?

This question came in recently from a small business client, who wanted to understand why a blog might be useful - here's our short answer....

"Basically, it's a way to get new material, specifically concerning your business and capabilities (and laced with great keywords), out there on the Internet on a frequent basis. Especially if you can't (or it doesn't make sense to) update the primary website very frequently. Search engines love fresh, relevant content, and sites that get updated frequently. It's simply good for SEO.

For your small business purposes, the blog is basically just an easy content management system - i.e. you can upload content without having to do any programming (HTML coding). Plus it allows you to tag things, and automatically does things for you (like pinging update services, creating RSS feeds, archiving posts, etc.), and it's another category of "site" that Google likes to search, that you don't have to worry about (like you would have to worry about when updating a regular website).

So, the first objective of the blog is just to get more great content out there, with keywords and links to you, for search engines to find. Secondary objectives might be to actually make the blog a destination, to discuss things with customers, receive comments (moderated), share "behind-the-scenes" news", whatever. However, most mature blog destinations are only blogs, that is, they're not substitutes or proxies for regular websites. The best long-term thing to do is to actually host blog capabilities right on your own site.

We actually do this with "Gateway to Loudoun County".....our main site is www.dullessouthonline.com, and the blog is at http://www.dullessouthonline.com/loudoun_county_gateway/ . Note the blog is under the Dulles South domain.

Now, in order to "capture" sales, you should be focusing your visitor traffic to your primary "landing page", that is, the page that says "we're great, cheap, you need us, call now...". So the blog shouldn't be that page, but should funnel readers to it. All external links on other websites should be to that page, which in most cases is your own home page."

Loudoun SEO points out more cool Government 2.0 activity - at DHS/TSA this time...

In our ever-consuming campaign to get the government drawn, kicking and screaming, into the Web 2.0 and perhaps even 3.0 context, here's another great example we've just seen - a blog by TSA to address traveler concerns...pretty good stuff, and lots of comments already...

Evolution of Security: Wow! What a Response

Social Media Dangers

While leveraging Social Media Optimization techniques, and participating as a business in social media forums (like Facebook, Myspace, Blog-rings, etc.), is a very effective way at drawing traffic into your online sphere of influence (and possibly actually selling or promoting something), don't forget the potential personal dangers lurking in these venues, especially directed towards your children.

Read more at Dadministrator Internet Safety.