Brandon Yanofsky of BlistMarketing.com, an online relationship marketing company specializing in small business website design and small business internet marketing, recently discussed why small businesses must have a website.

In his article, “Why Have a Website For Your Business,” Brandon laid out the three benefits of websites:

1. “People are looking for your product/service online.”

People are now using search engines to find products and services. The only way a small business can appear in the search engine results is if they have a website.

“If you have a website, your potential customers will find your business. If you don’t, they’ll find your competitors.”

2. “People are looking for YOU online.”

In addition to searching for products and services, consumers are also using websites to get in contact with small businesses. If they need a phone number, they won’t look in the Yellow Pages. Instead, they search for the company’s website.

“When [a plumber’s] customer had a leak in their house, they went online looking for his phone number. But because he didn’t have a website, his customer wasn’t able to find his phone number and called his competitor instead.”

3. “It’s the best way to spend your marketing budget.”

Out of all the advertising and marketing methods available to businesses, websites are the most effective and efficient. Compared to other forms of advertising, a website is much cheaper but yields more results.

“One of my clients was spending thousands a month on advertising. When they finally got a website, they stopped running the advertising and still had more clients. They lowered their costs and increased their revenue.”

Small businesses interested in creating a small business website should read Brandon’s other article, “How to Create a Small Business Website.”

Xtranormal™, the revolutionary approach to movie making, today announced Movie Roulette – a fun, new Facebook app that puts a spin on the average text-only status update. Designed specifically for Facebook status updates, Movie Roulette is a simplified version of Xtranormal’s renowned movie-making technology. With Movie Roulette, users can transform their thoughts into animated movie shorts in just seconds using characters and sets.

“Our mission is to make communication more enjoyable and memorable by encouraging everyone to use animated videos instead of flat text,” said Graham Sharp, President, Xtranormal. “Movie Roulette is the first of several apps we intend to release on Facebook and the very first text-to-movie app available to spice up your status update. It’s completely free, extremely easy to use, and takes just seconds to create an animated status.”

Movie Roulette is free and can be accessed by visiting http://apps.facebook.com/movieroulette/. The app works by simply typing a status update in the speech bubble. Users have the option to select which character they would like to use, and they can animate their character’s face by choosing an available emoticon. For a completely unique status, the option to “Click to Spin” is available, which generates an automatic message with funny anecdotes and references to Facebook friends. Results can be previewed prior to posting, and once ready, the video will be automatically displayed on the user’s wall as a status update.

Appcelerator®, the leading mobile cloud platform for rapidly developing native mobile, desktop, and tablet applications using web technologies, and industry-leading analyst firm International Data Corporation (IDC), today announced results from a joint survey of 2,012 Appcelerator developers around the world. New analysis shows that Apple and Google are accelerating their lead in mobile by redefining mobile app engagement, loyalty, and cloud connectivity through their new Google+ and iCloud offerings. Developers also indicate that they see Apple and Google gains in the consumer application space translating into significant traction in the enterprise space over time. The full report can be viewed at: http://appcel.us/q3_2011_report.

“Google and Apple are pushing mobile competition beyond OS platforms into the cloud and into social integration,” notes Scott Ellison, IDC VP Mobile & Consumer Connected Platforms. “This means even broader battles with major players like Amazon and Facebook, creating new competitive complexities and opportunities going forward for everyone in the mobile ecosystem.”

New Apple and Google Announcements Put Mobile Cloud Opportunity on the Map

As mobile app and platform leadership continues to coalesce around Apple and Google, both players are leveraging their strengths into the cloud in different, but compelling new ways that are likely to generate long-term value and competitive differentiation for each of their respective ecosystems. Topline findings from this quarter’s report focus on how developers eye new opportunities for applications to become more social and more connected:

• When asked what will impact the growth and adoption of mobile the most, Apple and Google come out on top. In order of priority:

o    Google+: 25%
o    Apple iCloud: 22%
o    Near-Field Communication: 18%
o    iOS 5 Twitter Integration: 14%
o    Android Patent Issues: 13%
o    Amazon Android Tablet Rumors: 6%
o    HP TouchPad Launch: 2%

• Two-thirds of respondents believe that Google can catch up to Facebook in social with Google+. When asked why, 68% of developers say that leveraging Google’s assets (eg: Search, YouTube, Maps, etc) trumps Facebook’s social graph lead. 49% say that Google shows more innovation than Facebook with new Google+ features like circles, sparks, hangouts, etc.
• While Google+ may be the future, today 83% of developers using social in their apps say they use or are planning to use Facebook this year. Twitter is second at 73%, followed closely by Google+ (when API is released) at 72%, LinkedIn at 30%, and Foursquare at 23%.
• When asked what social capabilities are most important in their apps, developers said that features that encourage repeat usage and offer fresh content are more important than location checkins and photo sharing. In order of priority, developers use social for: notifications (52%), status updates (49%), login/identity (44%), messaging (38%), news (35%), location sharing (32%), photo sharing (31%), and friend requests (26%).
• Continuing on the real-time update theme, when it comes to iOS 5 features, developers are most interested in: improved notifications (58%), iCloud (51%), integrated Twitter support (40%), reminders (36%), and iMessage (32%).
• iCloud may significantly disrupt the mobile cloud computing space, as developers envision a tight race between Amazon and Apple. Developers who are using or planning to use cloud services over the next year see Amazon (51%), iCloud (50%), Microsoft Windows Azure (20%), VMWare (20%), and RedHat OpenShift (17%) as the top five players.
• Apple and Google’s strengths in the mobile consumer space are clearly making inroads in developer perceptions of the enterprise arena. When asked which platform is best positioned to win in the enterprise, respondents were evenly divided between iOS and Android at 44% each. Only 7% believe Windows Phone has a shot, 4% for BlackBerry, and 2% for webOS. Appcelerator and IDC note that enterprises are taking a more cautious approach with Android at scale due to security concerns in which case they are looking to Apple when they go beyond BlackBerry and Windows mobile deployments. In the near to medium-term, despite being equivalent from a developer perception-standpoint, Apple is leading with CIOs today when it comes to mobile deployments beyond Microsoft and RIM.
• While neck and neck in the enterprise, perceptions on why Apple or Google might win in the enterprise are dramatically different. We posed two reasons why each platform might win and then asked developers to rank which statements were most accurate across all platforms. Topping the list, 30% of developers believe Android’s marketshare lead will be the key driver for success in the enterprise followed by 24% of respondents saying that Apple’s consumerization of the user experience will carry iOS into mainstream enterprise adoption.
• With relatively few new product announcements this past quarter, platform priorities haven’t changed significantly. iPhone remains tops as 91% say they are ‘very interested’ in developing for the device. iPad is number two at 88%, Android pulled up a couple points with Android phone interest climbing to 87% from 85% last quarter and Android Tablets rose back to Q1 levels to 74%. We added HTML5 mobile web as a new option to rank this quarter, which comes in fifth at 66%. The second tier remains the same: Windows Phone (30%), BlackBerry phones (28%), BlackBerry Playbook (20%), HP TouchPad (18%), HP Palm Pre (12%), Symbian (7%), and MeeGo (5%) rounding out the list. The new addition of mobile web in the middle of the pack suggests developers are seeing the increasing requirement for both a mobile app and mobile website, though the former continues to be the number one priority.

Key Trend: Mobile Leaders are Extending their Lead by Redefining the Application Experience
As OSes and consumer expectations mature, “the app” is undergoing a transformation. Applications are becoming more engaging with real-time notifications, social, local context, and always-on cloud connectivity becoming the norm. That “upstarts” iCloud and Google+ can challenge entrenched players Amazon and Facebook shows how quickly these new capabilities will shake up what’s possible in mobile.

As utility, loyalty, and engagement drive applications to become ‘stickier’ in our mobile virtual wallets, so too are transaction models adapting to move away from the app store and into the application. We revisited the business model question from January to see how priorities are evolving and continue to see acceleration in strategies that monetize ongoing usage. In January, 59% of developers said that app store sales are the number one preferred business model. Now, that figure has dropped to 50% and developers see this trend continuing into 2012. At the same time, in-app purchasing has increased from 42% saying in January they plan to use this model to 43% today and 50% by next year, rivaling app store sales. Similarly, mobile commerce applications are seen as surpassing free “brand” affinity apps late this year along with an increase in near-field communication (NFC) usage next year.

Ultimately, these changes are an evolution of the mobile engagement lifecycle. From customer acquisition/awareness to engagement, to monetization to loyalty, mobile leaders are focusing on leveraging their ubiquitous adoption levels into new areas that, in the end, significantly enlarge the overall value that’s possible on each of their platforms in the post-PC era.

A complete breakdown of these trends and a more detailed analysis is available online: http://appcel.us/q3_2011_report.

Google released “+1” in June as a method for web users to essentially give their seal of approval to individual websites. Sites that accumulate many will have favorable search engine result visibility. As +1 challenges the traditional dynamics of search engine optimization, Kenneth C. Wisnefski, founder and CEO of WebiMax, discusses the potential manipulation and negative influence this may cause the search industry.

“Plus 1 gives favorable search engine result visibility to those websites that amass, which I expect will cause unethical firms to manipulate the system, in the same way we’ve seen unscrupulous SEO firms practice in the past with ‘black-hat optimization’. Over the past several years, we [in the search engine optimization industry] have witnessed a significant increase in the amount of unethical SEO firms that inflate their clients online visibility by abusing the system in such ways as linkfarms, paid links, keyword stuffing, and others,” discusses Wisnefski.

SEO Ethics has been industry buzzwords particularly this year, as search engines are taking aggressive moves to alleviate the potential for companies to falsely inflate their client’s visibility. The release of Google’s “Panda Update” was a significant step toward fixing the problem.

“Furthermore, there are SEO firms that are known to hire offshore third-party contractors commonly known as “click farms” to endlessly click on paid-advertisements found on their client’s website that generate a lot of revenue for their client. Is this natural or ethical? Absolutely not!” exclaims Wisnefski. “My principal concern is that these same firms may look to hire others to plus 1 their client’s site to inflate their visibility and cause unnatural and unethical search visibility,” concludes Wisnefski.

Whether or not this case will surface will be determined in the coming months. To this point, ethics and countermeasures have not been officially discussed by Google.

A recent report on the Washington Post states that Google+ already has an astounding 20 million users. Ever since Google Plus’ beta entry into social media networking last June, the world’s largest search engine provider has been busy incorporating its new platform onto the web. Sydney-based internet marketer James Schramko, who has been experimenting with Google+ since day one, says that Google is integrating social media into search engine optimization. He explains:

“Google is trying to improve user experience through the +1 button. The number of pluses an article receives, for example, helps Google to determine the quality of the content and thus give the site a better rank. It is similar to the Facebook Like button in a sense that your friends can see what you’ve +1′d. But that’s not all. Those in your circles can now see a small image of you immediately within the search results, which is a fantastic way of associating oneself with content you deem of value. The image is a compelling enough reason for friends to check out whatever it is you’ve +1′d.”

The report further indicates that the Google’s new network is the fastest growing social media platform to date. However, users accessing Google+ only spend an average of just under six minutes on the site per visit which still isn’t anywhere close to Facebook’s 22 minutes. According to James Schramko, these statistics show that users aren’t ready to leave Facebook just yet, though Google is slowly handing out compelling reasons to give solid FB fans something to consider.

James says “Google has included a stunning feature which will associate an author with content he posted by displaying an author profile on the right of the search engine results. This makes it easier to establish authority on the web. This is definitely something worth integrating if you’re in the online business.”

Responses to Google+ is mixed, according to experts. Not everyone welcomes the idea of having to painstakingly transfer all contacts from one platform to another, says Schramko, especially since Facebook has blocked tools that would make migration to Google+ a lot easier.

“Facebook’s move is understandable. They are, for the first time, experiencing what it is like to have a heavy contender. For us users this can only mean one thing – better services. It is good to have competition – the best in us usually surfaces when our existence is threatened.” -James Schramko

More on James Schramko and tips on online marketing at http://www.InternetMarketingSpeed.com

Ever found a $20 bill in the pocket of an old coat? It feels like a happy surprise—even though the money was there all along.

That’s how marketers often feel when they discover opportunities they might have otherwise overlooked.

Raven Internet Marketing Tools added two tools to its platform this week that help Internet marketers uncover SEO keywords and website pages that are performing well even if they’re not getting much attention. This can simplify decision making about keywords and content to promote for bloggers, SEOs, social media marketers, community and brand managers, content marketers—anyone who works in Internet marketing.

“We’re trying to make it easier to make informed decisions,” said Jon Henshaw, Raven co-founder and director of product innovation. “Traditional metrics don’t help you with finding out where you’re leaving money on the table. Insights provides you with that information.”

To develop the Insights tools, Raven combined website analytics data from Google Analytics with a straightforward formula that gives preference to keywords and content that have little traffic but high engagement and/or conversion rates. The tools then sort the keywords and content accordingly, based on the formula’s perceived level of opportunity.

“Before, you would get data but not necessary know what to do with it. With tools that provide insight into the next opportunities, we’re focusing on actions you can take,” Henshaw said.

Learn more about the Keyword Opportunities tool at http://raventools.com/internet-marketing-tools/keyword-opportunities/.

Learn more about the Content Opportunities tool at http://raventools.com/internet-marketing-tools/content-opportunities/.

These tools are part of the recent rapid expansion of the Raven platform and team. Last week, Raven released the free Schema Creator and announced that it had doubled its staff in less than one year.

Loffles (http://www.loffles.com), today announced the launch of its new mobile sweepstakes site that offers consumers a fun, easy and free way to win high-end prizes on the go. Loffles Mobile will be available on both Android and iOS operating systems. It’s the same fun Loffles website, with the same great features – only optimized for a mobile phone.

Players can login using their existing username and password or by registering for a new account on the mobile site at http://www.Loffles.com.

“All of us have found ourselves waiting in line or sitting at the airport, just scrolling endless feeds and playing arcade games on our mobile devices,” said Brandon Yoshimura, president and founder, Loffles. “Consumers can now use their downtime to be rewarded for their attention with awesome prizes. Why fling birds at rocks when you could be spending that time winning vacations, designer bags or flat screen TVs?”

Players on Loffles can forego the conventional purchasing of entry into giveaways through the act of watching ads or promotional videos. Watching ads also allows users to accumulate consumer points called loffles that can be used as currency to purchase items in the Loffles store.

Consumers Win Anywhere, Anytime

According to Nielsen, US mobile gamers play an average of 7.8 hours a month. Loffles Mobile is designed to captivate the attention of US consumers who love to play online and mobile games and sweepstakes, and enjoy seeing the latest videos and promotions from brands that are relevant to them.

After registering and completing profiles, it’s easy for consumers to begin getting lucky on Loffles. Users:
1.    Pick the prize they want to win
2.    Watch an ad, and
3.    Answer 2-3 questions to confirm they viewed the ad.

By following these simple steps, users receive free entry into the contest they selected and additional loffles that can be used in other sweepstakes or at the Loffles store.

Advertisers Get More Reach With Mobile

Loffles now allows advertisers to reach consumers on their mobile devices, in addition to their computers.

The unique Loffles platform allows brand managers and advertising agencies to use consumers’ registration information to deliver highly relevant video ads and promotions to their target audiences (i.e. no diaper ads for college kids). Consumers only view ads appropriate to their demographics and stated interests – and advertisers get to engage with their key demographics in an effective and measurable manner.

Active Data Exchange, Inc., a leading provider of advanced web-based calendar solutions for event planning, management and promotion, today announced the release of Active Data Calendar 3.12 with new native support for mobile devices and powerful social media functionality to extend the reach of its platform to tap the extensive adoption of mobile devices and viral nature of web-based marketing.

The major release enables the company’s clients in higher education, public and private school districts, government, military, healthcare and private enterprises of all sizes to unify all of their event data to a master calendar that site visitors can now access with mobile devices and smart phones as well as provide feedback on events and share event information through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

“Active Data Calendar is known for having set the highest industry benchmark in terms of our ability to import event data regardless of the application and aggregate all event information to a single unified view,” said Susan Yee, CEO of Active Data Exchange, Inc. “The new Active Data Calendar release shows we’ve also taken the lead in our ability to narrowcast information to social media and support mobile devices out of the box, both of which have become vital not only in terms of popularity and convenience, but even more so to communication efforts and promoting events online.”

Pew Research recently revealed that 35 percent of U.S. adults use a smart phone. One quarter of all Internet use in the U.S. is done solely by mobile device. In addition, recent reports indicate more than half of Internet users access the web daily, with social media being among the most heavily-used application.

The new Active Data Calendar 3.12 provides native support for the vast majority of major mobile device operating systems, including Apple iOS, Google Android, Blackberry OS and Palm OS, and Opera Mini. Calendar automatically detects which mobile operating system is accessing the website and displays the event calendar listings and information in the appropriate format.

Calendar 3.12 also provides greater social media interactivity. There are options to configure Calendar to include Facebook “Like” buttons, Google +1 and Twitter tweets on the system’s Events Details pages, as well as view and add Facebook comments.

The new release has made additional improvements to the functionality and ease of use of Calendar, including new support for Rich Snippets to enable enhanced event listings for search engine indexing and listing that can greatly improve search engine optimization. The solution also provides built-in Google Analytics support, and enables site administrators to create Quick Links to display information of archived and historical events that may demonstrate a greater breadth and depth of event offerings and enhance an organization’s brand.

Active Data Calendar 3.12 is an automatic upgrade to all customers who have a maintenance and support agreement in place.

Active Data Calendar is an advanced master calendar platform that imports and aggregates event data to a single unified view for faster, easier management and centralized oversight and control. The solution can be configured with layers of privacy and permissions-based workflow for approvals prior to publishing event information on the public-facing website. The software automates syndication of event information to email accounts, mobile devices, other websites and social media, and can share information with portals, intranets, SharePoint sites, Student Information Systems (SIS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and other third-party applications and web-enabled enterprise technologies. Available extended capabilities include creating custom event registration forms, accepting registration fees online, booking facilities with specific features and resources for events, and internal-only calendars to communicate and align key internal dates, deadlines, milestones and events.

HostUCan, an industry leading web hosting review and search platform, today announced the release of Hosting Relevancy Analysis tool, with which people could find out how well their desired web hosting solution is compatible with their website.

Why Check Hosting Relevancy before a Buying

Each web hosting is designed for a different purpose, what works for one site might not be a good solution for another site. When people read the customer reviews or editor reviews of a web hosting solution, they will find many different opinions. Some might be positive, and some are negative. What cause this is that the different reviewer hosts different site with different level of complexity and traffic in a hosting environment, some of them fall into the capacity of the server and some might exceed it.

So, when looking for a web hosting, it’s critical to know how good it could fit into the needs of a web site. And this is what HostUCan Relevancy Analysis tool could help.

Main Features

As HostUCan collect the reviewers’ site information like application or framework used to develop it and daily taffic etc, which give it the capability to do a deep analysis on customer reviews, and figure out a hosting plan is good for what type of web sites.

To start analysis, people are required to input what application, such as WordPress, is used to develop a site and its traffic, then system will generate a report with information like:

• How good a web hosting plan could fit their site’s needs. The result could be “Excellent”, “Good”, and “Not Recommended”
• If there is no customer review of that hosting plan, the tool will look at the existing customer reviews, and give out an alternative which have been proven to be great for the given site
• Display the latest available coupons of the hosting plan and help saving some money during checkout

The tool is extremely useful before buying a new hosting product and it has been fully integrated into web host profile page and hosting plan page in HostUCan.com. People could look at Check Hosting Relevancy Before Buying to know how.

Customer reviews are critical input to this tool, and everyone could contribute to this system by submitting their hosting reviews. As a return, all the reviewers will get free website monitoring service from HostUCan.

Leading UK agency specialising in search engine optimisation, SEO Consult, have begun reviewing the role of a new Meta tag recently launched by Google.

The new attribute is known as ‘rel=”author”‘, and its function is to promote authorship markup; a method that links authors with the content they have written on the internet. It is believed that the tag is designed to promote the works of high quality authors on the web.

SEO Consult are reviewing the Meta tag with particular interest in the possible benefit it can bring to the potential search engine optimisation success of their clients. SEO Consult believe that the attribute could have specific relevance to some of the off-page web optimisation services that they currently offer – these include articles and online press release’s being written and submitted on behalf of their clients, to help build search engine authority and trust.

The SEO specialists are expected to publish the results of their analysis on their search engine optimisation blog over the next few weeks. The results are expected to show how the tag is integrated into Google’s search results visually, and how ‘Author Rank’ is accrued and used to improve a websites ranking in the organic search listings.

“At SEO Consult, the expertise and knowledge of our staff in regards to organic search optimisation strategy is a fundamental contributor to our success. When Google launches a new service or feature that can be used to improve the services we offer to our clients, then we do our utmost to ensure our staff are as knowledgeable about it as possible.” said Matt Bullas, Managing Director of SEO Consult. “Our dedicated Research & Development Team is working diligently with our team of specialist SEO copywriters to ensure that we fully utilise the potential of this new attribute. I have no doubt that this Tag will be a valuable tool that we can use to help us continue to offer a transparent and ethical organic search engine optimisation experience to our clients.”

For more details about SEO Consult, visit their website at http://www.seoconsult.com/ or call 0845 205 0292.