dotCommunity aims to educate and enlighten on the benefits of building your business through online efforts. You'll find a collection of informing articles and tidbits to help you navigate the frontier of new media, links to helpful sites and tools to help you move ahead, and updates on how Louisville.com is using the tools we have available to increase your online visibility.

Shore Up Your Online Efforts
by Dan Vonderheide, General Manager

Business owners have enough to think about (personnel management, inventory control, finances and business operations, etc.) without having to learn about what to do with the web.  Don't look now!  The technology just changed...it does every five minutes.  So here's a reminder of the basics you need to cover to make sure you're taking advantage of what's out there without losing your mind.

Your website
If you haven't paid much attention to your website over the last few years, it's probably time for a spruce up. Open source (AKA "shareware") software like Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla, or Dot Net Nuke makes it easy to get a highly sophisticated and easily DIY updated website that looks and works great.  We use it for Louisville.com as a matter of fact.  If you don't have a website at all, why not?  It's relatively inexpensive, it levels the playing field in terms of keeping up with the competition, and IT'S 2008!

Your email database
Communicating with your customers and prospects has now become efficient, cheap, and a snap thanks to tools like Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, and others.  Sophisticated website software like I mentioned above has email capabilities built in (you're looking at it now!).  With a little effort to collect data, you have a direct line to communicate new products, new employees, and new developements with some typing and a click

Search marketing and directory advertising
Google didn't create web search, but they sure did revolutionize it.  The reality is that online search for local business and information is HOT (see article below) and Google isn't the endgame. Mozilla could possibly have seriously altered the way people search with their release of Firefox 3 and the way it recalls previously visited pages.  The availability of database information also makes it fairly easy to build an online searchable directory (such as our Video Pages) where more locals are turning to find geo-targeted information to further weed out irrelevant search results

Display advertising
The most visible and inexpensive online ad tool is the banner ad.  It's big, it can say a lot, and it can help your brand reach the top of anybody's product ladder if you use it right.  Granted, click-through rates are pretty low, but there is built in value to the branding aspect of the ad.  The mentality should be that display ads will get a small percentage of people to click, but will also work to make your product or service the one they choose WHEN the time comes.

Social Media
Blogs, IM, social networks, text message programs, viral video...where will it end?  The wonderful thing about most social media is that it's F-R-E-E and that, if done right, can really open up communications with a group of people who really love you.  Just putting up a MySpace or facebook page isn't enough, though.  You have to invest time in making your page a destination (not unlike your website itself).  And with the unbelievable amount of this stuff out there trying to attract an audience with ever-shifting tastes, you have to be prudent in how you spend your time.  It can be a totally absorbing and time consuming (and FUN) experience to get into these things. There is a possibilty that you might forget to feed the dog.

Internet Advertising Up 15.2% In First Half 2008
Facing a souring economy, U.S. Internet ad
revenue grew 15.2% during the first half of 2008 to $11.5 billion
compared to the year-earlier period, according to a new report by the
Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Local search and advertising options continue to explode. Ad options
include keywords, category or heading buys, and now online video. So
how should local business and national advertisers selling locally
think about incorporating video and video search into their ad arsenals?

Jay Leno Is New Metric For Determining Viral Success

Despite years of trying, the ad industry seems no closer to
finding a reliable metric for determining the reach or value of a viral
campaign. But there is one measurement few are likely to argue with: a mention
during Jay Leno's opening monologue on The Tonight Show.

Google Helps Small Advertisers Build Display Ads

Google has unveiled a new tool to help advertisers who don't
want to pay for the services of a designer create their own display ads. The
"Display Ad Builder" allows Ad Sense members to create simple graphical ads and
distribute them across Google's network.

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