Small Is Beautiful

It’s All About Local Organic Domination

Jul 2, 2009 at 6:31am ET by Hanan Lifshitz

Lately I've been speaking with SEM experts about what small business owners should do to increase their online visibility. While opinions vary, most experts agree about the importance of ranking high on Google's various organic search results. Listening to them explain what a local business can hope to achieve, I found that the language was hardly ever about being the "only winner" in a category, but rather being in the "leading group of search results". This is consistent with the reality of search, where we are used to seeing multiple results in each page. Being "among" the 10-pack is oft [...]

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Do-It-Yourself SEO Advice For SMBs

Jun 18, 2009 at 7:00am ET by David Mihm

In last week's Small Is Beautiful column, Hanan Lifshitz posed the question "Do SMBs Still Need the Middleman to Advertise?" It's an especially timely question, given the recent Borrell report about the number of small businesses who cancel their contracts with online advertising providers within a year. The short version of my reaction to the study is that there are simple explanations for this churn: a sales mentality rather than a service mentality on the part of the providers, and an exclusive focus on scalable Pay-Per-Click offerings as opposed to organic SEO, which req [...]

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Do SMBs Still Need The Middleman To Advertise?

Jun 11, 2009 at 6:59am ET by Hanan Lifshitz

Having worked in the local search space for a while, I am often asked how is it that SMBs are so slow in adopting self-serve systems in their online advertising. And indeed, in the age of Internet advertising, when anyone can purchase keywords on search engines, is there really a need for a middleman anymore? While an important function of these middlemen is to convince the local plumber or dentist to spend their hard earned money on online advertising, they also help guide the SMB owner through the planning phases of the ad campaign, explaining the various options and helping to optimize t [...]

Filed in: Small Is Beautiful

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