NEWS UPDATE - WebitMD Interactive Internet Marketing Agency is moving offices from our location at the Rio Vista Tower in Mission Valley to Sorrento Valley!

Here is the new address:

5775 Oberlin Dr.
Suite 301
San Diego, CA 92121

Tel - (800) 601-2990
Fax - (800) 601-2409

Expanding office space was vital due to the overwhelming number to prospects and clientele in recent months. Our new location will allow the team to keep up with the work load of our expanding business.

Contact one of our consultants for a FREE Internet Presence analysis of your business and get started with WebitMD today!

Cheers.

Over a third of respondents were more likely to click on a mobile ad that was customized for their specific location. Almost half said that it would not make a difference. Overall, 76% of users preferred ad-supported free apps over paid ones. This presents a huge opportunity for businesses desiring to utilize location specific advertising, as more than one-half of mobile device users had clicked an in-app ad, went to the advertiser’s website, or made a purchase.

Similar measurement problems existed in mobile, social, and video channels. Overall, 80% of respondents stated that it was important to measure ROI from online activities, but only 31% could effectively do so. Respondents indicated that having a talented staff with expertise was necessary to effectively measure marketing effectiveness. However, lack of budget is indicated as the top reason they lacked the talent they needed.

Monster.com also found that college students and recent graduates sought out friends and family (78%) and online job boards (67%) the most for job opportunities. Social networking sites were only utilized by 38% of respondents. However, this shows a huge gain over last year’s survey, when social networking sites were utilized only 15% of the time by new graduates.

While social networking sites continue to proliferate in their uses, the line has become increasingly blurred between public and private content. 55% of college job seekers said they have tailored their online profiles to make them more appropriate for viewing by potential employers.

iPhones continue to dominate ad impressions within the smartphone category, followed by BlackBerrys and Androids. Androids have seen that largest increase in ad requests, rising 72% month over month. March was the first month the Android phone was one of the three top smartphone operating systems. Requests were up 20% from Apple phones and 25% from BlackBerrys.

On other mobile devices, such as iPads, iPod touches and connected video gaming devices, Millennial Media found that those devices took a significant share of impressions. iPad impressions climbed 713% during the first full week the device was available for purchase. Numbers will only climb as the iPad and similar mobile devices continue to proliferate.

While Apple’s tight hold on the smartphone market continues, the Android has gained significant ground because of its high customer satisfaction and loyalty. Indications that Android also represents a robust mobile app platform also point to a greater share of mobile ad impressions in the future.

For all the pain of nurturing a start-up, Graham believes that founding a company is the most efficient way to create wealth — for investors, for founders, for society at large. “There’s this classic pattern that has happened over and over again throughout history in which something is made one at a time, very expensively and unreliably by hand, and then someone comes along and figures out how to make large numbers of them cheaply and reliably,” Graham says. “We’re pulling this kind of transformation with venture funding. We’re mass-producing the start-up.”

Graham is something of a folk hero to a generation of ambitious techies, who debate his essays, read his books, and pitch him start-ups by the hundreds. His philosophies are simple: founders should live as cheaply as possible so that they can first become cash-flow positive. Wealth will follow.

Indeed, there’s something exhilarating about Graham’s optimism, especially at a time when so many once-great companies are sitting on the verge of bankruptcy. Graham believes, deeply, that start-ups are the answer to the world’s problems; that they are easy to make if you are determined enough and cheap enough; and that it’s getting a lot easier to start one.

“For the few marketers who do attempt to apply quantitative measures to their social marketing efforts, the metrics they use are not terribly sophisticated,” noted eMarketer CEO and co-founder Geoff Ramsey in the eMarketer Insight Brief “Seven Guidelines for Achieving Social Media ROI.” “Most marketers today do not invest sufficient time, effort or money on social media measurement.”

Datran’s respondents, with about 72% having Facebook and Twitter profiles—were most likely to track all their online campaigns based on clicks, conversions and impressions. A gap exists, however, between finding and monitoring appropriate metrics and actually quantifying the results in a meaningful way. To remedy this, marketers must connect business goals, such as increased sales and leads, to social metrics before they can quantify social media return.

In a recent survey, SEMPO found that a majority of marketers planned to shift marketing budgets away from other channels such as direct mail and spend more on paid search and search optimization. Marketers see search optimization as a valuable means for increasing Website traffic and generating leads. In turn, site traffic metrics could measure the success of campaigns, such as conversation rate.

Respondents, however, are concerned about measuring return on investment, effectively optimizing their sites, and choosing the best keywords. Further, markets were also daunted with the challenge of integrating paid search and search optimization with other online and offline marketing strategies.

According to comScore, a digital marketing analysis firm, consumers are intending to purchase the iPad over all other e-readers, such as Amazon’s Kindle or Sony’s Reader. This is most likely due to the fact that iPads can do much more than simply display black-and-white text. comScore’s surveyed respondents intend to use the iPad for Web browsing, music, and e-mail over reading books and newspapers.

While many respondents stated that they would probably not purchase apps for the iPad, a majority intended to purchase specially formatted content for it. Current iPhone and iPod touch users were over two times more likely to purchase newspaper and magazine content for the iPad than those without an iPhone or iPod.

“The tablet and e-reader market is developing at a breakneck pace right now, and Apple’s entry into the market is sure to accelerate mainstream consumer adoption,” said Serge Matta, comScore executive vice president, in a statement. “These devices have the potential to be incredibly disruptive to the way consumers currently access digital content.

Those two locations will join Scottsdale, Ariz., and Mission Viejo, Calif., as the only places where one can experience the Microsoft Store in person, though Microsoft also has an online version of the store.

The Denver and San Diego stores are expected to open this summer, according to a source, with other outlets likely by fall.

Microsoft’s retail approach takes a lot of cues from Apple, with a heavy focus on presentation, as well as a theater for training and an answer bar where customers can get technical help. There are also some unique-to-Microsoft touches like the tabletop Surface computers, Xbox displays, and a line of flat-screen displays creating a video wall that rings the store.

The company sells PCs from a variety of makers, though the systems come with a “Microsoft Signature” collection of software found only at Microsoft’s online and retail stores.

Info provided by: CNET News

Every marketer is forced to develop digital asset optimization strategies, while not forgetting about the basic search engine optimization components, for their clients through an integrated approach. Every approach must now include structured data in the form of microformats and rich snippets, as well as feeds and sitemaps, that all play an increasingly important role in uploading content for the Google index. Google says its mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.

Because of this, it is now becoming absolutely essential that companies develop a plethora of digital assets that must include not only links and sitemaps, but a variety of real-time feeds from social media sites, videos, pictures, and blog posts. By developing these assets, marketers can deploy a better more holistic SEO strategy, which realizes the benefit of inclusion and visibility where customers are looking.

Many search marketers already optimize holistically under the premise of, “What can be searched on can be optimized.” Until recently, most companies avoided entering the content marketing business. SEO consultants have typically been left to deal with whatever content they could to optimize and promote for link building.
In essence, the weight given to content optimization versus digital asset optimization should clearly match the opportunities presented by an ever-changing search results page.

As long as there are search engines, there will be some kind of optimization for improving search engine visibility for your clients! What companies need to consider are all the digital assets they have to work with to give both search engines and customers the information they’re looking for in the formats they’ll respond to. Stay competitive and offer what assets you have against your competitors!

Information Provided By: Lee Odden, ClickZ
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

According to a Tellabs survey conducted by The Nielsen Company, two-thirds of mobile users around the globe are interested in “smart” services that would feed them information based on personal preferences, location, time of day and social setting.

Looking at the graph provided here, mobile users place a significant amount of trust in their mobile carriers in terms of protecting their information and actions on their phones. They also overwhelmingly selected their mobile carriers as the “most appropriate” provider of services for their devices like phone service, Internet accessibility, and applications.

Within the survey, consumers preferred to find their news, media, and entertainment content provided by their mobile carriers, then followed by other web providers, and then a combination of the two.

When it came to shopping services, however, there was a notable difference: Mobile carriers dropped somewhat in importance, and advertisers became a much more prominent source of information.

US marketers have already begun experimenting with exactly this type of smart shopping service. “Geo-fencing” of “Geolocation apps” provide personalized marketing messages to shoppers based on their location or proximity to a marketer’s store. A recent experiment from a store called 1020 Placecast, piloted a ShopAlerts program that was embraced by mobile users:

* 60% said the location-triggered messages were “cool” and “innovative.”
* 79% claimed to be more likely to visit a store.
* 65% made a purchase.
* 73% were likely to use the service again.

As technology continues to become more innovative and creative, we will soon be living in a world where you cannot escape the annoyances of advertising. Soon enough, we will have ads sent to our phones in correspondence to our physical location and time of day! This is very exciting yet horrifying but I am excited to see what the latest technological advances can do for companies that can benefit consumers.

Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

According to a recent survey, conducted by BIGresearch for the Retail Advertising & Marketing Association (RAMA), they found that in-person, face-to-face communication was a social media users’ top reason to start an online search for a specific product or service.

The study revealed that social media users were even more influenced by face-to-face word-of-mouth than an average adult’ opinion found online.

This preference of face-to-face communication held across all age groups within the survey, and the only difference among any age group was that 18- to 34-year-olds were more likely to search online because of something they had seen on cable television, which was a smaller force among older users.

The study also demonstrated that online communities, such as MySpace and Facebook, influenced less than one-quarter of social media users to search for a product or service which is still a notable percentage. When it came to gender differences, men were marginally more likely than women to report such an influence from a social networking site and age had an even larger effect. Among the 18-to-34 group, nearly three in 10 searched because of social networks, compared with less than 20% of 35- to 54-year-olds and 15.3% of those 55 and older.

More than 71% of the respondents communicated about a service, product or brand in person after an online search, compared with only 21.6% who spread the word via sites such as MySpace or Facebook. Not all digital communication was shunned, however; about one-half used e-mail to tell others what they had found.

Social media users are particularly attractive to marketers because they are more likely to both look for and give purchase advice than the general population. Word-of-moth marketing continues to be one of the most valuable marketing tools available to companies so they should be focusing a lot, but not all of, of time in the online arena, especially in social media.

Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

He recommends using the following steps to improve your ranking on Google Maps:

Step 1: Do Lots of Searches Related to Your Business & Region

Actively search and understand your competitors within your business and understand what they are doing online, where they are located online within local directories, and how they are getting to the top of Google Maps. You’re seeking results that show competing or closely related businesses in local search results, so get creative and do a thorough search of the local market.

Step 2: Identify a Handful (or a Few Dozen) Businesses that Consistently Get Top Rankings

You could build a formal spreadsheet and perform tracking to identify these top ranking competitors or start with gut feel and expand later on in the process. For less competitive listings, an informal approach may work just fine but what you want to do is get a full understanding of why the top competitors are on the top!

Step 3: In Google Maps, Go to the Local Business Profile for Each of These

Don’t click the name of the listing itself. Instead, follow the links to the “reviews” about each of your competitors’ businesses. You’ll get a page with information about the business, reviews and lists of data that Google has found about them.

Step 4: In the Business Listing, Click on the Links to “More About this Place”

The “more about this place” section of the business listing shows brief snippets, titles and URLs where Google has found relevant information pertaining to the business. This is your potential goldmine for discovering listing sources.

Step 5: After Reviewing Relevant Listing Sources, Go to those Sites & Get Your Business Added/Updated

The domains that are listed are places where Google is pulling information about your business. This is where the Maps algorithm comes into play - it relies on not only the number of listings, but the quality of the sources and the consistency between them. You want every listing to perfectly match one another, right down the the suffix on the reservations phone number and the formatting of your suite number (e.g. 1221 E Pike Street vs. 1221 East Pike Street vs. 1221 E Pike Street Suite 200 vs. 1221 East Pike Street #200 are all DIFFERENT - don’t make that mistake).

In addition to the potential local ranking boost, a majority of these sources offer the potential to earn links! Even if you don’t care much about the local results themselves, this is a pretty terrific way to get some good quality, trusted sites linking to you.

Step 6: Repeat Step 4 & 5 for the “Reviews” and “User Content” Sections

If you’re hungry for even more sources, you can look at where listings come from on other competitors and/or go back to the business listing’s page in Google Maps/Local and choose from the “reviews” and “user content” sections for even more potential spots. Much like manual link building back in the late ’90’s, perseverance and careful attention to detail will take you far.

There are automated services out there to help with this process, but I haven’t yet seen one I feel completely comfortable about. The biggest issue is the dramatic value of and need for consistency in the listings. When automated systems submit, they can mix in a suite number in the wrong place, cut off a phone number because the form doesn’t accept hyphens or confirm a URL that doesn’t match what you’ve submitted elsewhere. For now, I recommend playing it safe and spending the hours (even if that’s a dozen or two) to get those 50-250 listings correct. Google will reward you with local rankings and high quality traffic.

Essentially, you want to research and understand what your competitors are doing to receive high rankings on Google Maps and mimic they ways they are receiving links, gaining customer reviews, and other methods that help them get to the top. Hope this series of steps can help get your business on the map, literally!

Information Provided By: Rand, SEOmoz
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

Last year, according to the firm’s “Annual US Local Media Forecast,” US local ad spending reached $130.2 billion, or 55.3% of the total. That was lower than what BIA/Kelsey projected in February 2009 forecasting $141.3 billion and a significant drop from the $156.3 billion spend on local advertising in 2008.

BIA/Kelsey believes that the total local advertising spending will continue to stagnate through 2011, while 2012 will bring more “meaningful recovery” to the ad market.

Some important points to be noted within this study suggest that:
• Buys Online will continue to get a larger share of the local ad spending pie with increases from 12% in 2009 to a projected 14% in 2010.
• By 2014, BIA/Kelsey expects one-quarter of all local advertising spending to be online!
• In January, Barclays Capital also reported 2009 local ad spending down significantly from the year before, by about 22%. Barclays similarly expects a flat local ad market through 2011.

Here are some graphs to show details concerning the ad market in 2010:

Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders