You’ve created your website, and you’ve even gone to the trouble, and perhaps expense, of creating a video. Your small business is all set to be found on the ‘net.
But nothing’s happening.
You checked your rank, again and again. You’re not gaining ground. Google, or none of the other major search engines seem to be checking you out.

What can you do to establish your presence on the Internet?

One of the best ways to improve your rank is by having inbound links, (also known as backlinks).

When it comes to videos, make sure you’re using a strong site such as YouTube. Google looks at the page rank of the site you are linking to—and determines how important that link is. The higher their page rank is, the higher you’ll (eventually) rank as well.

Your goal is to get that video seen and one of the best ways is simply by asking for links–from people and companies who know you and those you have something in common with.

Type in your keywords and find other similar sites. Visit them, leave a good comment on their blog, and ask them for a reciprocal link. Instead of seeing them as potential competitors, view each other as cohorts–you can exchange links and ideas–and each of your can specialize in your own niche market and still leave plenty of room for the other guy.

Remember on the Internet, broad keywords won’t yield as good of results as finding your audience by what you specialize in. Make your keywords specific–there are still thousands looking for exactly what your small business has to offer. When you narrow the search, you increase your odds of being found.

If you’re going to the trouble to make a video, then be sure to create a press release/news release promoting it. News/press releases are easier than you think. Check out my post on Press Releases to get some pointers and find some great free press/news release sites such as 24-7 PressRelease, ClickPress, and PRLeap. Consider paying to post your news release. Paid sites have good ranks, and they will link people directly to your site.

Don’t wait to be found–submit to those directories and social bookmarking sites yourself.
Be sure to submit to Digg, Technorati, Delicious—and don’t forget that StumbleUpon will allow you to submit your site for links. Don’t forget your social media sites. MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn all rank well. When you upload your video there, be sure to let your “friends” know you’ve got a new video.

Webmasters everywhere are looking for content. Your video is content!
Again, start with your keyword search and email some website hosts and introduce yourself, mention your website and that you have a new video—would they like to post it on their site? If you created a good video that’s more than a simple advertisement—meaning, you actually offer content that’s helpful, then they’ll appreciate your video and want to post it.

These helpful tips can help to highlight your small business video on the web.
Make it easy for others to find you by getting those inbound/backlinks you need to rank well.
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There is no more powerful combination than that of the mind and emotions together. When people get excited about something that sparks their imaginations, that`s when big things happen and that`s where viral marketing comes in.

You need to make people feel something strongly in order to start viral marketing. Whether this is a good or bad feeling, strong emotions make for hot marketing. If you`ve said something to incense a group of people, you can be sure it will make the rounds in no time at all. All you need to do is apply this to your marketing to get the best use of it.

However, wild passion might burn through a few marketing milestones, but if you are making an appeal to the audience`s mind, as well, you`ll find that they will take it even further and what starts out as a simple viral marketing campaign can go sky high.

Appeal to both emotions and mind with your marketing and it could very well end up being a viral marketing plan.

Every small business requires marketing, but unlike larger companies with full on marketing and advertising sections who can afford to be everywhere at once, small business marketing requires focus. You`ll need to really pinpoint your efforts if you want to be successful.

Focused marketing means taking the time to identify one or two types of marketing that would be most useful to your company. You will also need to know precisely what your target market is so you don`t end up spending money to advertise to the wrong people.

By using focused marketing techniques to increase the amount of time and money you spend on a certain demographic, you should see more results. Most people only respond to a message after having seen it multiple times, so skipping from one ad campaign to the next won`t have much effect. However, giving them the same message over and over again is definitely a good thing.

Focused marketing is a must if you are a small business on a small budget.

Viral marketing sounds like a great way to do business, it basically involves having other people do your marketing for you. But how exactly do you make your marketing viral? Here are a few tips to get you started.

Viral Marketing Tips

• Choose the right medium. Video is one of the most popular viral marketing tools because people LOVE to watch video. If you can come up with something worthy of sharing, then you can watch it skyrocket in popularity.
• Give it a headstart. Whatever your viral marketing medium is, it`s not going to go viral on it`s own. You`ll need to “sneeze” it out. That means getting others online to link to it and share with their friends. If you have a good social networking group, that`s a great start. Asking other bloggers to review can also work.
• Keep it short. An hour long video or a two page essay is not going to get spread too far, but something that only takes 15-45 second of your time is certainly a good candidate.
• Be shocking or funny. These are two main ways to get major traffic and they really do work. If you can`t be funny, look for a way to make your viral marketing shocking.

Viral marketing only needs a starting push from you and then it should take off on its own. Obviously the results vary from time to time and depending on the audience you`re looking to impress. It`s a fun way to get some extra publicity.

Digg may soon allow publishers the chance to operate under the Digg umbrella by managing sub-Diggs. Is that good?

It can’t hurt. In fact, by allowing users to manage sub-Diggs, the largest social bookmarking site becomes that much more competitive and that’s a necessity in today’s highly competitive landscape. Secondly, if you are a publisher within a niche then you can run your own sub-Digg and control who lands on the front page of your sub-Digg. This is a powerful marketing opportunity for niche publishers who may not have a chance to ever hit Digg’s front page. If your cookie-dough-recipe website struggles with 1 or 2 Diggs per submission then you may get a little discouraged. But being able to manage your own sub-Digg for the niche of baking, or recipes, might give you a little bit of an advantage and you could see yourself getting more votes if you are able to promote your sub-Digg.

This is an interesting development, but don’t count your chickens yet. Read Write Web is reporting it could be six months.

One restaurant owner in Arizona drove to pick up a customer who had been involved in an automobile accident and was in danger of missing his reservation. Now that’s customer service! And it got such word of mouth buzz that the restaurant attracted press stories - and not just in its home town.

The story is the perfect illustration of how exceptional service can lead to word of mouth buzz. It’s uncommon and this type of service doesn’t happen every day, which is what makes it worth talking about. And if you perform that kind of service for your customers then you’ll be talked about too.

Never deny the power of word of mouth advertising. It’s cheap advertising, but by cheap I don’t mean non-valuable. The value is immeasurable. It’s inexpensive because you don’t have to shell out dollars and hope it works. It is costly, however, because exceptional service requires some level of risk that must be managed. Still, it’s worth every ounce of it. There is no substitute for word of mouth buzz, even for a small business.

An article at Inside CRM lists 15 websites that can influence your business for good or bad, but the article is rather flawed. Here are the 15 sites the article lists that are influential enough to make or break your company:

• Google
• YouTube
• Amazon.com
• Wikipedia
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Digg
• TechCrunch
• Colbert Nation
• Valleywag
• Twitter
• The Smoking Gun
• Oprah
• The Consumerist
• The Huffington Post

The problem with this list is that most of these websites don’t give a hoot about your small business enough to pay it one iota of attention, let alone boost it on a pedestal or drag it through the mud. Of this list, most small business owners need only consider 4 of them, maybe 5, as potential websites to concern themselves with in protecting their brand.

Those 5 sites are:

• Google
• YouTube
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter (wild card)

Google, of course, is the most popular search engine today. They really don’t care about your site. An impartial source, Google algorithms do all the work. It’s up to you really how well, or how poorly, you are perceived through Google’s lenses. Google does nothing; you do everything. They catalog information; you present it. But you can build a solid business online without being listed in Google (though I wouldn’t recommend it).

YouTube is a video sharing site. Yes, you can have videos go viral. Many have. But look at the odds. Seriously, millions of videos uploaded, only thousands with a record of success. Possible, but don’t bet money on it. Just build your brand honestly, create and upload videos if they’ll benefit you, and just do good business. To be honest, YouTube isn’t for everyone, but for those that it will benefit it has potential.

Facebook is one of the best ways you can build your brand. Like Google, it does nothing. You do everything. These sites provide the opportunity; it’s up to you to take advantage of it. Network, network, network.

MySpace is for teens. Does your business cater to teens? Use it. If not, forget about it.

Twitter, I’ve never used it. I’ve heard it’s great. It probably is. Many people use it and say sweet things. If you want to give it a go I see no reason why you shouldn’t.

But what about the rest of these sites? Amazon.com is an online book store and product retailer. Do you sell through them? Is it a place that you could sell through? Then by all means it could help you. If you’re not a retailer then Amazon likely won’t be much good for you.

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. Most of us don’t need to be listed there. Have you made any significant accomplishments? Maybe they deserve a mention. But don’t expect a flood of business just because your friend Biff went up and told the world that you won the Blue Ribbon Award for Dog Grooming in Nantucket, Illinois (Is there a Nantucket in Illinois?).

TechCrunch, Valleywag, The Smoking Gun, The Consumerist, and The Huffington Post are all news sites. If you aren’t newsworthy then you likely won’t be mentioned on any of these. TechCrunch and Valleywag only deal with technology so if you aren’t a technology company then don’t count on it. The Smoking Gun destroys reputations. Sound inviting? The Huffington Post is a political site. The Consumerist is The Smoking Gun of the marketplace, but if you aren’t a big brand worth talking about then they likely won’t care that you ticked off Bongo the Clown because you didn’t have any red balloons.

That leaves Oprah, Colbert Nation, and Digg. Oprah is very influential. But you have to work your soles off to get on her show and it’s a task. Unless you have something that has a very wide and potentially popular appeal, don’t waste a lot of time chasing Oprah.

Stephen Colbert is a funny guy. Why would he care about your small business? Only Colbert knows.

And Digg, hmmm. Interesting site. Can help you get a lot of traffic. But if you look like you are trying to get publicity through Digg then you’ll get blasted by the in crowd at Digg. They either like you or they don’t and they generally don’t like marketers. But you can get some traffic here. Personally, I think you’re better off with StumbleUpon and a few other social sites. The most popular isn’t always the best.

Honestly, Yahoo and MSN Live can do you better service than some of these sites. As a small business, just stick to the basics and you’ll do fine.

Do you have a small business Internet marketing blueprint?

Viral marketing is a phrase you´ll hear tossed around a lot online, but rarely explained. What exactly is viral marketing, how can it help you and what makes something viral? These are all questions that plague anyone who is getting started in internet marketing for their business.

First things first, viral marketing is simply marketing that spreads itself. It is something, often an ebook or video, that catches people´s attention and they pass it on to friends and clients. You start the process and it then continues on its own . . . it´s a great way to market for anyone!

It should be pretty obvious by now how viral marketing can help you. You´ll be getting plenty of attention and hits on your website, simply by putting an article or video out there. It will have your link in it and everyone will be coming by to see what else you have to offer.

So, what makes something viral? It really depends, but there are a few common factors among viral marketing campaigns.

• The item to go viral is free
• It is extremely useful or funny
• It makes people go, “Oh, of COURSE!”
• There is anticipation
• It´s seen everywhere at once

You can probably figure out the first few on your own, so we´ll just look at the last two points here. Anticipation is huge when you want something to go big. Let people know ahead of time what you´re planning. Get your business networking contacts to talk about it to their clients. Basically, create a bit of hype before the product is even released, people will be chomping at the bit to get their copy!

You can ensure that your ebook or other viral marketing item is seen everywhere at once, giving it the instant impression of being immensely popular. The best way to do this is to send copies ahead of time, along with a press release, to popular blogs and websites. These people will then hopefully give you some publicity. It doesn´t hurt to offer them something, like a mention in the book or make the book brandable so they earn any affiliate commissions from the people who download it from them.

Viral marketing takes work. Very rarely will an ebook go viral without the forethought necessary, so make sure you think it through and plan your viral marketing campaign carefully. Then go for it. It could be the best thing to ever happen to your business.

Caroline
Small Business Mavericks
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Viral marketing is proven to work extremely well to bring in traffic and potential customers to your business site, but many people don´t really understand what viral marketing is or how it works. What makes something viral? How can you create your own viral marketing campaign?

While the name doesn´t sound so nice, viral marketing is called this because a good campaign will spread like a virus. Maybe only one person has it in the beginning, but a cough or a sneeze and BAM! Ten others have it. Each of those people infects ten and so on and so forth. Within days, it´s possible for a virus (or marketing campaign) to become an epidemic . . . even though just one person had it in the beginning!

It can be tough to predict exactly what will go viral, but you can certainly get a good idea by paying attention to what has already been used as a popular viral marketing campaign. Most viral items have a few things in common:

Emotion. They evoke an emotion, happiness, anger or empathy.

Useful. While the odd thing goes viral simply because it is so bizarre, the majority of people will be far more interested in something that is useful to them.

Free. Putting a price on your viral marketing project will instantly cool the hype surrounding it.

Well written. Let´s face it, you aren´t going to pass an ebook so full of grammatical errors that you can barely understand it!

Another way to help what you are offering to become viral marketing is to allow anyone and everyone to distribute it without paying royalties. This will really give folks a reason to help you out. If they enjoy what you have to offer and feel that it would be useful to their friends, family or readers, you can bet they will be happy to share!

Viral marketing can be a very handy way to spread the news about your business. Study existing viral marketing campaigns and figure out why people passed them on. Look at the emails that you forward to friends, why do you do it? What elements are in these emails that you could include in your viral marketing campaign?

Caroline
Small Business Mavericks
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We´ve all heard about viral marketing, but if you find yourself thinking that it´s something only big companies can do, with their massive marketing power, you´re wrong. In fact, viral marketing is something that works even better for small business. All you need is a good idea, and, as I´ll show you in a moment, you don´t even have to think that good idea up yourself!

One of the best forms of viral marketing is an ebook. Giving away an ebook and allowing others to do the same, as long as the links to your site stay intact, is a great way to go viral. Viral marketing isn´t automatic, though. You will need a product that offers people a solution to a problem. It has to be of value, or no one will bother passing it on.

A very good example of viral marketing that is going on right now is the Bloggerproof Workout that is circulating the internet. This is a very simple ebook of just 7 pages, that solves a common problem (blogger butt) with a unique twist (chair lifts and other interesting, computer-related exercises). The writer allows everyone to give his book away as is, with links back to his website on every page. And this ebook has got everyone buzzing about it.

So, as you can see, you don´t need a 500 page ebook or anything, just a unique idea or useful content. The best part is, if you aren´t great at coming up with ideas, that other people are already telling you what to write. Just pop over to Yahoo Answers and type in your industry to find out what people want to know. Pick a few questions, write an answer and publish it as an ebook and you´re ready to go! Just make sure it´s a common enough problem that everyone will want to read your ebook. Then let people give it away to their website readers and friends. Upload it to bit torrents and within a week, you will have viral marketing at its best!

Caroline Melberg
Small Business Mavericks
Small Business Mavericks Blog