WebVisible Provides ‘Reality Check’ for 2011 Digital Marketing Trends -- And Offers Small Business Point of View

--(BUSINESS WIRE)--WebVisible:

WHAT:	Small business online marketing experts at WebVisible (www.WebVisible.com) provide a reality check for some digital marketing predictions for 2011, offering the perspective of small businesses and what to expect – or not – from them in digital marketing in the coming year. The predictions are based in part on data from the Q4 2010 WebVisible Report, to be released the week of January 24, which examines trends among more than 21,000 small business advertisers in the US, UK, and Australia.
WHY:	Most of the trend predictions offered by industry experts don’t take into account the perspective of the small business owners – who usually don’t have the time, expertise or resources to keep up with activities or marketing initiatives that might be expected from large corporations.
HOW:	To speak with WebVisible CEO Ron Burr in more detail about small business online marketing predictions, contact:
	Ken Greenberg, Edge Communications, Inc.
	[e-mail], [phone]
BACKGROUND:
	About WebVisible, Inc.
	WebVisible has been the leading provider of local online marketing software and services since 2001. WebVisible was among the first to pioneer the use of search as a reliable, measurable avenue to connect directly with a buyer’s needs, providing solutions through some of the world’s largest Interactive Yellow Page companies, directories and other media vendors. The company has served over 100,000 customers from 4,000 industries in 14 countries. The company also delivers solutions directly to small businesses throughout the United States. WebVisible is based in Irvine, California with offices in Los Angeles, Charlotte and Mumbai. For more information, visit www.webvisible.com, follow WebVisible, or call 949-255-9677.

THE TRENDS – AND THE SMB POINT OF VIEW:

Trend: “Don’t forget YouTube!”
From: 11 Search Trends for 2011 http://www.clickthrough-marketing.com/11-search-trends-for-2011/

SMB POV: (Thumbs Up) Certainly, YouTube is a popular channel, but a video on a small business’ landing page or website is also effective in driving new business and helping customers decide to buy from or hire a small or mid-sized local business. According to the Q4 2010 WebVisible report, 26 percent of all advertisers included video on their landing pages, up from 19 percent of advertisers using video a year ago. Viewing video was the second most popular conversion action after clicking through to the SMB advertiser’s website. In other studies, we found that search landing pages with videos convert visitors to leads 8.3% better on average than those without videos, and for some verticals (such as Physicians) the conversion was 40% higher.

Trend: “Speed matters”
From: 11 Search Trends for 2011 http://www.clickthrough-marketing.com/11-search-trends-for-2011/

SMB POV: (Thumbs Up) Google is now using page download speed as a quality signal. If online ads and Web pages take too long to load, they may have a problem ranking well in Google search results. Even worse, if a potential customer does find a website or ad when searching, he or she likely won’t stick around longer than a few seconds waiting to see the content. Studies show that 40 percent of online viewers will abandon a web page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load, so fast load time is critical to converting searchers into customers. Finding web hosting and advertising platforms that sit on the “edges of the Internet” – which means they will load fast – is critical for SMBs.

Trend: Bing Will Continue to Gain Marketshare
From: SEM Trends for 2011: http://searchengineland.com/sem-trends-for-2011-what-to-expect-what-to-do-57439

SMB POV: (Thumbs Up) In the Q4 2010 report, WebVisible shows the Bing-Yahoo partnership precipitated a shift in spending away from Google last quarter. Google’s share of spending dropped 26 percent, to 41 percent of US search spending in Q4 2010, from 56 percent in Q4 2009. In November and December, the Yahoo!/Bing platform accounted for 56 percent of overall ad spend compared to Q4 2009, when Yahoo captured 26 percent and Bing captured 11 percent, for a combined 37 percent of total spending. Small businesses benefited from the lower-cost traffic on the Bing-Yahoo platform – data showed that in November and December 2010, the average cost per click on Bing-Yahoo respectively was 23 percent and 29 percent cheaper than Google.

Trend: “Mobile will finally take off.”
From: SEM Trends for 2011: http://searchengineland.com/sem-trends-for-2011-what-to-expect-what-to-do-57439

SMB POV: (Thumbs Down) Sure, mobile has taken off for consumers, and recent stats suggest that about half of all mobile search is local in nature, but other stats report that almost 40 percent of small businesses still don’t even have a website! While large companies with “Digital Media Directors” on staff may allocate a good chunk of advertising budget to mobile this year, SMBs are in the early stages of making sense of all the digital marketing options available to them. They need to crawl with an effective online presence before they can sprint with a mobile ad strategy, and they need service providers who can simplify that progression before SMBs can give serious consideration to mobile marketing.

Trend: “2011 will be the coming of age year for social media marketing”
From: 2011 Predictions: Online Marketing Trends http://blog.ineedhits.com/small-business-news/2011-predictions-online-marketing-trends-23388825.html

SMB POV: (Thumbs Down) While there is value in engaging customers through social media, the reality for SMBs is that there are few people to do the “engaging”, and they have other obligations – like, say, running their businesses – that don’t leave time for creating Facebook campaigns. If it’s a small team doing all the work - sending out the invoices, following up with potential clients, handling the problems - it’s tough to make social media marketing a priority. One of the key messages delivered at Internet Summit 10 was that social media is only as effective as it is interactive. Until SMBs have easy and affordable services available to manage that interaction, the marketing opportunity in social media is severely limited.

Trend: “SEO Will Become Even More Complex”
From: 2011 Predictions: Online Marketing Trends http://blog.ineedhits.com/small-business-news/2011-predictions-online-marketing-trends-23388825.html

SMB POV: (Thumbs Up) Search engine algorithms are constantly changing, as are the online channels where you can place content, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, etc. Adding location-based services and video to the mix, it’s getting more and more difficult to publish enough content in enough places with the right format and quality to ensure a high placement with SEO. SMB owners don’t have the time or the expertise to develop an SEO strategy to get new customers, one reason why they increasingly rely on turnkey online advertising solutions, which are far more predictable and trackable. Although Cost Per Click (CPC) continues to rise, internationally search advertising is quite affordable. WebVisible’s Q4 2010 report shows average spending per advertiser up 30 percent year-over-year in the UK, where CPCs are a fraction of the cost in the US. The report also contains data from 2,600 small business advertisers in Australia, a small but rapidly growing market.