Find My Niche:
Affordable Marketing Strategies
for Small Business

Prior to founding Virtual Impax, I worked for more than a decade in traditional offline advertising in an agency and in media sales.  That experience, combined with my 10 years of web development experience has results in my learning more than a few tips and tricks at creating small business web site marketing magic.

I once worked on a small business web site that when the graphics were improved, the client saw an increase of 480% in sales.  While the search engines can't see the difference in t he graphics, the visitor certainly can and, as illustrated above, it makes a HUGE impact on whether or not your web site creates  marketing magic for your small business.

Now, you may wonder how good I am at creating web site marketing magic for small businesses via SEO (search engine optimization). After all, you’ve probably never heard of me (even if I did the coding for your site for Rosemary). If you search for me or my business on Google, you'll see that I come up first for both my name and my business name. That's good, but that really doesn't showcase my small business web site marketing magic via SEO skills. 

See, most people don't search for me or my business name and since it has a unique spelling, I'm virtually assured a number one position. That's "cheap" SEO.  It doesn't take any small business web site marketing magic to get highly ranked on a virtually unheard of search term or keyword. If instead you were to search for Marketing or Web Development or even Small Business Web Site Marketing Magic, I won't come up first in your search.  The reason is that I haven’t optimized my “main” web site for any frequently searched keywords. As a matter of fact, two years ago I coded my web site so it couldn’t be indexed.  I did it on purpose because the second most searched upon term for Web Design on the web is FREE web site design!  UGH!  Like I need to deal with those inquiries all day long!

While I didn’t want to attract web site design clients (I get enough of those through referrals) I knew I needed to know how to optimize web site pages for optimal web traffic. So I created a site that lives INSIDE my Virtual Impax web site called “A Dog for the Family.” Here’s a screen shot from Google on how that site does in the search engines.

Click on this image to have it open full size in a new window so you can see how it reads.

Yippee for me!  I’m a top 10 result  in almost ALL of my keywords for the web site!

Since I’ve got a book coming out, you might think I’m set. After all, I know how to optimize a web site page to get a number one ranking on my preferred search terms.  In addition, I've done everything a new author should do: 

• I purchased a domain name (Beyond Niche Marketing) a full 9 months before the book was released..

• I started a blog on the site to promote the book.

• I put a site map in written in xml on the site so Google could index it.

Since Google gets 47% of all search engine queries, and drives up to 80% of search engine traffic, so I want to be sure to pay attention to what THEY like! Since I know all this, I’m set, right?

Unfortunately, the answer is NO!

While I've used all my marketing magic skills for my book's web site, if  on December 13, 2006 (the day it was released) you would have typed in the book's URLinto Google, here is what you'll see.

Despite all my marketing magic skills, when it comes to creating small business web site marketing magic for my new web site, I still couldn't get it indexed in Google in time for the launch.

While Google may have revealed in their recent patent application the key to ranking better, what isn't revealed is the real key to creating marketing magic for your small business web site.

In a nutshell, Google won't index new web sites.  It makes sense when you think about it.  Spam marketers love to put up a site, send spam and collect money and then close the site quickly once "the jig" is up!  The only way for Google to make certain they don't send you to one of those sites is to eliminate those sleaze balls.  As a result, when you launch your new web site, you’ll spend up to two years confined to what SEO experts have dubbed “the sandbox.”  Think of it as paying your web site dues.

However, even after spending time in the sandbox, the struggle won't end.  You’ll still have to work like crazy to create enough small business web site marketing magic to compete with older, more established sites.

If you’ve got a new web site, your only hope of creating ANY small business web site marketing magic is: Bring targeted traffic to your site with Google AdWords. 

Google knows that you need a way for people, your potential clients to find you via the search engines.  So while the "sandbox" keeps out the spammers, it also encourages you, the web site owner to spend money with Google in an effort to create small business marketing magic for your web site. (Hey, Google's stock price isn't in the $400 range per share in the US because they're bad at business!)

THEN, IN JANUARY, SOMETHING AMAZING HAPPENED

My blog emerged from the sandbox, less than a YEAR after it was launched!  Not only did it emerge, but it emerged with some nice SERPS (Search Engine Results Page). 

It appears I found the SECRET to SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING MAGIC!

Google (and the other search engines) LOVE BLOGS! 

Of course, when I made such a discovery, I had to share it with my clients.  I launched Acumen Web Services as an EASY way for even the most technically unsavvy users.

Blogs are a bootstrapping entrepreneur's BEST small business marketing tool!