There is no short answer to this question either, but rather a substantial list of things you must do to effectively market your business on the Internet.  In a previous blog I referred to the three C’s; Commitment, Content and Communication as being the foundation for successful online marketing.  Here we will provide some additional detail for each of these core requirements.  The good news is that Yellow Marketing makes all of this very easy and relatively effortless for any business owner/manager.

Commitment
Yep, it is going to take some work.  Commitment is a prerequisite for everything else that will enable you to successfully market your business online. Even one hour per week will go a long way toward promoting your business. The more you put into it, as with anything in life, the greater the rewards.  So start with a commitment of one hour per week which can be broken down to as little as 10 minutes per day.

Content
The old way just isn’t making the grade any longer.  The mantra of the new world order for online marketing is “real time content”.  Having a Website with static content worked for while but now you must constantly provide fresh, relevant and engaging content.  All of the major search engines are diligently working on new ways to provide “real time content” in search results.  As a business owner you need the ability to create rich and engaging content such as photos, videos, coupons and customer reviews, not just once but continuously.  The search engines are scouring the Web for rich and unique content not static and mundane content.  

Communication
Once you create content you need to communicate with potential customers.  You must publish the content and leverage various platforms to get the word out.  You must publish the content in as many places as possible in order for it to bee seen, shared, and spidered by search engines.  Social media sites such as Facebook are a great venue to publish.  Having a blog is also an effective way to disseminate content.

All of this may sound a bit daunting at first but the good news is that Yellow Marketing is the only tool you will need to create, publish and distribute content about your business.  With Yellow Marketing you will create an online micro-Website about your business. You will have an easy-to-use dashboard to change your content whenever you desire. Yellow Marketing will even create a professional and stylized Facebook fan page for your business, plus where Yellow Marketing has created (and continually manages) city pages in Facebook such as Hilton Head Island, Bluffton, Beaufort, Sun City, Hardeeville, and Ridgeland in South Carolina as well as Savannah, Gergia, Yellow Marketing will connect your business to these pages for greater exposure.  

Yellow Marketing has also created a publishing tool called MediaFeedia, also a feature in your Yellow Marketing dashboard, that enables you to create new content “posts” on your Yellow Marketing Blog, your Facebook fan page, and to all of the city pages you select.  All you need to do is post once to MediaFeedia and your content is posted automatically to your Facebook fan page, your blog and to all the selected city pages.  It is really a very cool app.

Yellow Marketing enables the business to syncronize their Yellow Marketing listing with the business’ fan page so that whenever the business changes or updates its content in Yellow Marketing the business’ fan page is automatically changed as well. 

To drive more customer traffic to businesses listed on Yellow Marketing that also have a fan page, Yellow Marketing has created City Pages on Facebook for nearby cities (currently limited to Hilton Head Island, Bluffton, Beaufort, Hardeeville, Sun City in South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia), to expose area businesses to fans of these cities.  Yellow Marketing also enables business owners and Yellow Marketing Website visitors to easily become fans of these city pages and business fan pages.  More cities will be added in the near future.

But that’s not all…

But wait there’s more.  Yellow Marketing has also released a really cool application called MediaFeedia to take the work out of updating the business’ status on its own fan page PLUS on all of the city pages it wants to connect with as well.  MediaFeedia is a micro-blogging tool that enables the business owner to easily post to its own fan page plus to all of the other city pages in the area, all with just ONE entry into MediaFeedia.  For example let’s say a restaurant on Hilton Head Island wants to get the word out about a special it is offering.  The restauranteur need only go to the Yellow Marketing dashboard and access MediaFeedia, type in the special offer and with a single click will post to its own stylized fan page plus to  all 7 nearby city pages to reach all of its own business fans plus all of the fans of all of the city pages.  Is that easy or what? 

One more thing.  As of January 18, 2010, the Yellow Marketing Website has a new look . Now, based upon the city that you are searching (Hilton Head, Bluffton, Savannah, Beaufort, Hardeeville or Ridgeland) you will see more specific information about each city including the City Page for each city created by Yellow Marketing. Let us know what you think of the new look and please become a fan of our city pages…and tell your friends to become fans. Much more to come soon…  We look forward to your comments and suggestions.

For decades the local phone company published the original search engine and delivered it to every doorstep in town at the sacrifice of countless forests in the process.  If you were a local business owner during that time, you knew you had to be in that book and you would pay a king’s ransom to ensure your ad was noticed.  Depending upon your type of business you may have found it necessary to be listed under multiple headings too.  If you wanted your business to be found by residents in a nearby community you likely found it to be necessary to advertise in that city’s phone book as well.  All of this likely came at a cost of thousands of dollars per year per book. Thankfully though, to quote Bob Dylan “the times they are a changing”, and that is a good change for businesses like yours.

People aren’t “flip’n” through the pages of the phone book as they used to.  Instead they are “click’n” online looking for the products and services your business provides.  Will they find your business?  When we ask this question to business owners and managers we often get the response, “I have a Website”.   Having a Website is a good start but did you know there are over 150 million Websites in the world?  How is someone going to find your Website?  

Our mission is to help small and medium size businesses get found by online consumers.  If you already have a Website, we will help to drive new visitors to your Website. If you don’t have a Website, no problem, as our advanced platform enables you to easily create and manage a mini-Website for your business.  This mini-Website is designed so that the major search engines can find and index the content you provide.

Yellow Marketing allows every business to list their business name, address and phone number for free.  A premium listing enables you to provide more information to online consumers so that they can learn all about your business including your specialties, your hours of operation and an overview about your business. You can create a photo gallery and even showcase your business through video. Customers can email you directly from your Yellow Marketing listing and even link to your Website if you have one.  You can also list your business in up to 5 categories and select up to 10 keywords that will help your business to be found.

Yellow Marketing is a powerful tool for businesses. To get the most value from Yellow Marketing you will need to be an active participant.  Success in online marketing is dependent upon the “3-C’s” – Commitment, Content, Communications

Commitment – willingness to be actively involved in the online marketing process
Content – rare and unique information and media that tells the story about your business
Communication - use the tools of the Yellow Marketing platform to interact with consumers

We are ready, willing and able to help you grow your business.  Why not start right now?

As always we welcome your comments and suggestions about ways to keep Yellow Marketing the best it can be.

Again we are always open to user ideas to improve upon our content, user experience and effectiveness for our advertisers. Please sumbit your suggestions to this blog or email me at peterb@yellowmarketing.com

Come visit YellowMarketing.com and search on any business in the US to find rare content, including photo galleries, videos, profiles, reviews, coupons and more. Please get the word out that YellowMarketing is where all US businesses are found.

Businesses benefit from creating a paid listing on the YellowMarketing site because the local marketing partner advertises their private branded site in the local market and delivers traffic to the site plus rich content such as videos, coupons, reviews, etc. gets indexed in the major search engines enabling these businesses to be found by a larger audience.  The YellowMarkting listing is a min-Web presence for the business and is better than most small business Websites because the merchant has complete control over adding and editing all content, and because the content can be multimedia in nature.  This is not typically the case for existing Websites operated by small to medium sized businesses. 

According to a study by Webvisible and Nielsen earlier in 2009, only 44% of small businesses even have a Website.  YellowMarketing  is a great solution for these businesses, for a small monthly fee they get a multi-media Web presence that works for them 24 hours per day, 7 days per week and a Web presence where the rich content gets indexed in the major search engines.

YellowMarketing’s first market was Hilton Head Island,SC and Bluffton, SC.  Our first marketing partner Pacific States Communications of Reno – is just beginning to roll out its brand of YellowMarketing, called YellowNV.com in the Reno, Carson City and Lake Tahoe area.  Discussions with many other potential marketing partners are currently in progress for dozens of markets throughout the country.