Marketing a small business in today's economy can be challenging. However, with a sound small business marketing strategy, even new businesses can get a jump on the competition. Whether you're just starting a small business, putting together you marketing plan or are an established business looking to grow, laying out an actionable small business marketing plan is a key to success.

Online shoppers will wait a maximum of four seconds for your page to load before clicking away, according to a 2006 JupiterResearch study. Shaving seconds off your page loading times can increase your sales and your bottom line. Here are some tips for cutting your Web page load times.

Looking for ways to increase your sales while the economy plods along the path to recovery? Why not expand your target market by opening your business to the world?

It's been a tough year for sales, and we're moving into the home stretch. Here are five tips to help you boost sales and reach your revenue goals as the 2009 shopping season gets underway.

WordPress is one of the most commonly used blogging tools on the Web today. It’s a powerful , open source publishing platform with an administrative interface that doesn’t require a lot of experience to use—making it one of the more attractive blogging opt

Choosing the right Web hosting plan can be a daunting task with an enormous number of products and features available. Deciphering specifications and making sense of the jargon is only the first step. Finding a company you trust is equally important.

Your Web site linking strategy has two goals: 1. To drive traffic to your Web site and 2. To increase your rank with the major search engines. If you secure links on Web sites that are popular with your target audience, you could gain a new stream of t

Visitors will type your domain name into a browser or lick on it a search engine results page before you have a chance to wow them with your Web site. It's your first impression, so make it good. Your domain name should fit the style and tone of your Web s

You’ve built a Web site, and you’re getting a decent amount of traffic. Now it’s time to make some money! We’ve compiled seven ideas on how you can turn a profit from your Web site, or at least make it pay for itself.

Since an email marketing campaign can only be effective when individuals read your messages, campaign success is often influenced by its open rate (the percentage of delivered emails that are opened). The open rate is measured by sending emails in HTML format with a snippet of code that triggers a counter when messages are rendered by a recipients email reader.

Despite your best email marketing efforts, not everything is always in your control.

When designing your email marketing campaigns, you need to be aware of some restrictions. The CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) established the country's first national standards for the sending of commercial email and requires the FTC to enforce its provisions. The affects of the CAN-SPAM Act are far-reaching. Virtually every e-mail sent by your business is affected.

While the effectiveness of e-newsletters is measured over time by their ability to retain customers, email promotions are intended to have immediate results for your email marketing plan. Email promotions should increase purchases, sign-ups, downloads or registrations.

Due to their low cost, flexible designs and quick production time, e-newsletters have become the most effective email marketing tool for businesses of every size. You don't need to be a big company or have a large subscriber list to create an effective e-newsletter, as part of your Internet marketing strategy.

The first rule of ethical email marketing is to never send unsolicited commercial email. This means you should only send emails to customers that have willingly provided their email address and have extended permission to send commercial messages.

Sending email is fast, free and far-reaching. This is why email marketing has become a popular way for businesses to communicate with existing and potential customers.

The prevalence of display banners and text ads has made all but the most annoying online ads nearly transparent to online users. To stand out from the crowd, some marketers are turning to a simple, relevant and transparent advertising format: the text link.

Wide-adoption of high-speed Internet has made it possible for marketers to integrate video, audio and interactive features within their online advertising. This makes it easier for marketers to reinforce their print and TV ads by repurposing photos, video and music from those campaigns for online ads.

Display ads were once the most popular form of advertising on the Internet. In recent years, however, text ads, driven by search engine marketing, have become more popular. The effectiveness of banner ads relies on volume because click-thru rates are very low, averaging 0.5 percent. This means for each thousand display ads purchased, you can expect five click-thrus.

Text ads are the most popular format for Internet advertising. They are easy-to-create, offer good click-thru rates and contribute to your company's unaided brand awareness. Although less immediate than click-thrus, unaided brand awareness is important to marketers because it contributes to future sales when web surfers remember their ads.

Since there are millions of websites available for online advertising, one of the most convenient and efficient ways to purchase ads is to use an ad network, which sells advertising on behalf of hundreds or thousands of participating websites.

Online advertising is the closest thing on the Internet to traditional advertising. It differs from search engine marketing (SEM) by the way it targets prospects. SEM targets prospects based on keywords. By contrast, online advertising targets prospects by behavior and demographics.

Companies that offer search engine optimization (SEO) services are full of promises. With a little bit of knowledge, you can identify SEO firms that can deliver.

Search engine experts have been hounding Google for years to accept XML feeds from webmasters who want to update their site information. When Google recently introduced the beta version of Google Sitemaps, they showed the experts that they have been listening--at least in part.