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Marketing changes all the time and we can learn from the past.  The first article gives some tips for next year. The second article covers the 10 marketing blunders of 2009 so we can learn from them and not repeat them.

5 Small Business Marketing Trends For 2010

The state of small business marketing at the end of 2009 is different from where it was at the beginning of the year.

Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, and the iPhone App Store have become more important tools for many companies.

At the OPEN Forum, marketing consultant John Jantsch discusses some of the ways these tools influenced business this year and predicts which trends will shape small business marketing in 2010:   –more

10 Worst Marketing Blunders of 2009

NBC has joined the immortals of marketing stupidity. This year the molting peacock network and president Jeff “Have They Fired Me Yet?” Zucker decided to turn five of the primest pieces of prime-time real estate — the hour between 10 and 11 PM from Monday through Friday — into the Jay Leno hour.

The result? A 28% drop in viewership (through mid-November). This has not only killed network revenues but done in affiliates who have no lead-in for their late news casts.

Despite this, Jeff “10% Of Americans Are Unemployed and I’m Not?” Zucker recently said that all is going according to plan. “Right now, in terms of its performance on the television network, at NBC, in terms of ratings it’s doing exactly what we thought it would do.” Comcast recently bought NBC in what must have been an attempt to copy the government’s cash for clunkers program. Comcast shareholders can now only they are being lied to. The worst case scenario is that Mr. Z believes what he is saying.   –more

Should You Use PPC or SEO?

By: Blake Evans
The unbridled growth of e commerce means that you just cannot do without a website to take your business to the next level. But simply having a website is no guarantee to send you laughing all the way to the bank! In order to sell your goods and services via your website you must ensure that people actually visit your website. You may have heard that pay per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) are two great ways to draw traffic to your site, but then, which one should you use?

A Brief Description

Before you can decide whether to use PPC or SEO, you need to have a clear idea about what they are.

SEO:
You may know already that people who want to make a purchase on the internet take the help of search engines to provide them with multiple options which they can choose from. This is why search engine marketing methods are used to make sure that a webpage comes up towards the top of search results.

A combination of factors such as site content, coding and external linking can be altered to make sure that a site has high search engine ranking. This is called ‘search engine optimization’ or SEO.

PPC:
When the goal is to make money and promote your business, you cannot forget about advertising as a tool of search engine marketing. Pay per click or PPC is a process by which you can place adverts on various sites of your choice. Whenever a visitor to a particular site clicks on your ad and gets redirected to your site, you get charged. Hence the name, ‘pay per click’.

Your Gains
In order to choose between PPC and SEO you need to know what you stand to gain from each of these search engine marketing tools.
The benefits of PPC are:

•You do not need to alter your website at all.
•You only have to pay when your ad is clicked and not under any other circumstances.
•The results of a PPC campaign can be quantified (number of clicks etc.) and changes can be made accordingly.
•You can choose the keywords which you want to include in your ad as well as the page to which people get redirected to, when they click on the ad.
•It can provide results almost instantly, for example, within an hour or so after you have started the campaign.

The Benefits of SEO are:

•The visitors from natural search engine results do not cost you a dime.
•If you can achieve a high search engine ranking via SEO, then it will take a very long time for some other site to displace you. So you can enjoy the benefits of being at the top, for long.
•Visitors trust sites which rank high on search engine results.

The Right Choice

The best strategy therefore may be to start with PPC to generate immediate traffic for your site. As time passes you can invest more in SEO and phase out PPC, in order to build a sustainable position. Thus, an effective marketing strategy must consist of both PPC and SEO.

Author Resource:-> Want to learn how to get FREE traffic to your sites? Sign up for free SEO Video Training here => http://www.InlineSEO.com/seoseries/

Article From Article Directory Online: Free Online Article Submission

http://www.b2bm.biz Search Engine Optimisation or Pay Per Click? See both sides of the coin to better understand how to designate your online marketing resources.

Related SEO and PPC articles

• Linking To Your Website (ronmedlin.com)
• Adwords used for SEO (redflymarketing.com)
• Blogging As A Business Option (slideshare.net)
• Reaching your SEO goals (sohoday.com)