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Well, after tonight’s debate, we have a new national figurehead for the small businessman - Joe the Plumber. While Joe is probably scratching his head trying while trying to muddle through the debate-speak to figure out who will really help him and his small business colleagues more, there is something he can do tomorrow morning to put some more kick into his business… even as the country grabs for their 401k statements. That, of course, is shift more of his advertising spend to search engine marketing!

Five ways SEM from WebVisible can help Joe the Plumber:

1.     Measurable results – with online advertising, he’ll know how exactly many people saw his ads, how many visited his web site, how many called his number, and more! Would he get that from print?

2.     Locally targeted – with “geo-targeting” he can reach local consumers in his neighborhood!

3.     Pre-disposed buyers – reach people actively searching for his service!

4.     Predictable – he can budget his spend to receive a steady flow of leads, enabling to generally predict new service call volume sales over the course of the campaign

5.     Easily customizable – he can change his ads to reflect your seasonal promotions (plumbers are busy at Thanksgiving!) special offers, etc.; and align them with his other marketing efforts

59% of small businesses still lack a Web site (Warrillow, 2008) and even fewer engage in online advertising. To help more local businesses leverage the power of the Internet and search engine marketing, we’re pleased to announce our partnership with American Classifieds.

Under the partnership, American Classifieds will bring the power of search engine marketing to more local businesses through their network of more than 80 independently operated papers and Internet properties across the nation. The AmazingClicks program is designed to attract new customers and more effectively compete with larger organizations by enabling them to be found on search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask. AmazingClicks offers the option of customized ‘landing’ Web pages to coincide with and maximize the effectiveness of their marketing program.

“American Classifieds is an established leader in online classified and display advertising. We’re excited about the opportunity to extend their product suite with scalable technology and expert creative services that will bring their customers the ‘best in breed’ of search engine marketing,” said Kirsten Mangers, CEO of WebVisible. “Through our partnership, American Classifieds and their customers will generate more business and strengthen the local economies in their markets.”

BtoB recently quoted Carey Ransom, VP-corporate development and strategy at WebVisible in an article titled “Technologies change equation for local product sourcing” which highlights the dramatic shift from traditional print yellow pages to local online search. The article sites a July 2008 report from Borell Associates that says print Yellow Pages directories are expected to lose 39% of their annual revenue over the next five years based on Internet usage. Once online, consumers are increasing using search engines to find local business and services and research purchases. “People don’t go to Web sites anymore; Web sites come to them,” says Compendium Blogware CEO, Chris Baggot, illustrating the importance of a quality online search presence. As people rely more heavily on the Internet to find and evaluate information, they expect more from the web and from their search results. Carey sums it up. At the end of the day, “it’s not really about search. It’s about find.”  

Do women bring an extra something to technology research and development? This was the question posed by Entrepreneur Magazine in a recent article. WebVisible co-founder and CEO, Kirsten Mangers, who was profiled along with several other women helming their own tech companies, definitely thinks so.

“Being a woman has served me well in moving from right-brain to left-brain activities, such as going from creative concept to implementation,” says Kirsten who is celebrating seven years in business with her company that is projecting $30 million in sales this year. She attributes her patience and leadership style come from being a working mom. “Working mothers embrace the art of multi-tasking: running a company and supporting customers and business partners without losing an eye for innovation,” she says.

Kirsten Mangers, CEO of WebVisible, will keynote the Annual Women’s Leadership Forum co-hosted and produced by the Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce and UC Santa Cruz.

The Marketing Skills for the 21st Century program will focus on topics including online marketing, social and viral marketing, brand power and market ethics. Also speaking will be distinguished marketing leaders including Laura Lowell, author of The 42 Rules of Marketing and the founder of IMPACT Marketing Group; Linda Popky, the founder and president of L2M Associates, Inc, a strategic marketing company; and Karen Orton, Vice President of Enterprise Solutions for Lithium Technologies.

The event will be held on September 25, 2008 at the Cocoanut Grove in Santa Cruz. For more information and registration, visit the Santa Cruz chamber of commerce.

The E-Commerce Times quoted WebVisible CEO Kirsten Mangers today in an article discussing the proposed Google-Yahoo advertising partnership. Mangers touched on the issues faced by small business advertisers trying to compete with national advertisers in the possible new partnership.

“ANA represents the largest brands — the P&Gs of the world,” Kirsten Mangers, CEO at WebVisible, told the E-Commerce Times. “We deal with local merchants and smaller advertisers, and we are very concerned about these companies having to compete against large national ad dollars on this type of combined platform.”

Picture a local plumber in Los Angeles going up against a national account like Roto Rooter Plumbers, she said. “They won’t be able to compete.”

To read the entire article, click here.

WebVisible’s Kirsten Mangers was featured at last week’s Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, paneling alongside Matt Cutts (Google), Robert Scoble (FastCompany), Danny Sullivan (Search Engine Land), and Rich LeFurgy (Archer Advisors). The roundtable touched on many topics including the importance of bandwidth, how times have changed in terms of search, and the possibility of a “Google killer”. On the subject of local search, Kirsten wisely accessed the current state of local search noting, “Local is about 18 to 24 months behind national marketers, so we learn from their mistakes. We need to be able to make it simple enough for the local people to understand. It would take your average carpet cleaner 31 hours to do what we can do in minutes. They need education.”

Click here for in depth coverage of the event.

According to an advertising pattern study conducted by The Kelsey Group and ConStat, 81% of all small- to medium-sized businesses will either maintain or increase their level of advertising spending. While half plan on maintaining their current level of spending, over one third predict they will increase spending over the next 12 months.

The two biggest factors influencing their advertising decisions were ROI and competition.

• 31% indicated their online advertising decisions were based on performance and ROI concerns
• 25% said their decisions were based on business partners or competitors.

In addition to advertising online, small and medium-sized businesses will continue to adopt other Web 2.0 technologies during the next 12 months.

• 40% plan to add customer reviews to their own Web sites
• 30% will add links or place ads on social sites or blogs
• 26% will incorporate video on their Web sites

To read the full article click here.

Total online ad spending continues to increase overall, with 2008 expected to surpass $24 billion, up from less than $10 billion, in 2004. Continued growth is expected as eMarketer predicts U.S. online advertising spending will increase 17% in 2008.

An online advertising report released by eMarketer this month show that Google continues to trump Yahoo and Microsoft in the battle for U.S. online ad revenue. In 2008, Google’s revenue is forecasted to grow 27% to $7.6 billion for the year. That’s nearly twice the estimated growth rate for the next fastest gainer, Microsoft, which will grow 14% to 1.6 billion.