One of the things that helped catapult Google to the top of the search engines was its embracing PPC advertising. The income earned from Google AdWords has allowed the company to expand and grow beyond all comparison. Faceboo, too, has grown, but its growth has largely been seen as a grass roots effort. It has focused on one core competency and delivered on quality (for the most part).

But when I read something like this it takes my breath away. If this is true then it says a lot about how people search for online businesses. I didn’t even know Google was the number 1 traffic source on Yellowbook. If Facebook has surpassed Google in that regard then it says something important about advertising.

Online advertising specifically. First, Yellowbook; then what? Will Facebook become as ubiquitous as Google? Will Facebook ever become as dominant as Google due to its influence in advertising? Will that affect other social media sites as well?

When the economy goes south one of the first things business owners tend to cut back on is advertising. This is usually a big mistake. That’s when you should be spending more on advertising. Here’s why:

• Your competition is cutting back. If you move forward then who do you think customers will see in the limelight?
• A loss of revenue + less investment in your business = less revenue.
• People don’t stop spending money in a recession. They may spend less, but they still eat, sleep, drive cars, etc. Chances are, they are still going to need your services even if in a lesser amount.

You put these three things together and it means advertising is still relevant and necessary. Instead of cutting your advertising spend, try to find ways to get more mileage out of the spending that you are doing. If you can increase your business by spending the same amount on advertising even when the economy is down then you know you are on the right track with your business. If you spend less on advertising you will likely earn less.

Banner advertising has slowly been losing favor for a number of years. Finally, a survey reveals that more than 50% of small businesses are abandoning online banner advertising next year in favor of SEM, e-mail marketing, and social media. This doesn’t really surprise me. Small business owners are wising up.

It just so happens that SEO, SEM, and e-mail marketing are the three top result getters in online marketing. It’s no wonder then that small business owners are ready to start spending money on these forms of online marketing instead of spending money on banner advertising and watching it evaporate into thin air.

SEO is still number one for results. Google is still the top referrer for most websites and organic search is still the No. 1 traffic source for most websites. Pay per click marketing, however, or SEM, is No. 1 for most cost effective means of online advertising. And e-mail marketing is tops for targeted captured results. That is, your opt-in subscribers are ready to buy if you give them an offer they can’t refuse.

The surprising piece of this puzzle is social media. It’s taken small businesses awhile to come around to trusting this form of online marketing. And the results are really starting to show for the first time, which might have something to do with building that confidence.

I just wanted to take this time to applaud small business owners for coming around to knowing what we Internet marketers have known for awhile. Online banner advertising is very low on results so why throw good money away? Divert it to forms of marketing that have proven to work.

You don’t have to go back far in time to when anyone looking for a service in the U.S. picked up the phone book and dialed a phone number. Twenty years ago it was an every day occurrence. Even ten years ago most of us were still using phone books. Five years ago? We may not have picked up the phone book every time, but we still used it. Now? I wonder how many people even consult a phone book.

It may not even matter any more. The Yellow Pages industry is creating its own opt out service.

The argument is that online yellow pages saves trees. That’s good for the environment. So if you’d prefer to search online rather than using the print yellow pages, well, then opt out of receiving the print phone books. Makes sense, right? Except that by offering the opt out in the first place, the phone book industry could be channeling all of its business online. How long will it be before the phone book is completely obsolete?

I have to admit, this is a smart move on the industry’s part. They know many of us aren’t using the phone book. They know how many of recycle the phone book. If they can get a definitive answer on how many of us opt out of receiving it altogether, that will change the dynamic of the yellow pages industry completely. The economics will change. The whole world will change. Good or bad, that’s the way it is. And, of course, advertising will change. It already has.

Julie Martin at WorkZ has a great article teaching small business owners how to sell banner ads. Good post.

On the banner ad topic, which falls into display advertising, if you’re ready to sell ads on your site then you might make good use of Google Ad Manager. This is a tool for webmasters who don’t want to use up their server space to manage ads. It’s pretty useful.

In effect, Google Ad Manager acts as your server. But it’s really more than that. Not only does it store your ads but it can also help you sell them. How it works is like this:

• You create the ad parameters for the ads that you want to sell
• Advertise on your site that you’re ready to take orders
• Sell ads and collect the money

The biggest danger for a small business website owner in selling ads is that you don’t sell ads to your competitors. Keep a close eye on the ads you sell and you can even reject offers from your competitors if you don’t want them advertising on your site.

It seems that display advertising online is effective after all. Many Internet marketers had written it off as ineffective, but according to a news article in WebProNews, it may very well be one of the best ways to advertise online.

The interesting thing to me is 31% of people who respond to display advertising do so by clicking the ad. Almost as many (27%) conduct a search for the brand name. My guess a number of those people are searching for negative information on the company to see if they are reputable or have any bad reviews. Another 21% actually type in the URL into their web browser and head straight for the company’s website. That’s a total of 52% that head straight to the company website, either by clicking the ad or typing in the URL.

A total of 82% of Internet users respond in some way to display advertising online. That’s pretty remarkable. And I’d say it’s a good way to spend your ad dollars online. The difficulty with display advertising is that it isn’t always easy to judge ROI, but if people respond, like TV advertising, and you get traffic to your site, wouldn’t that be worth it?