"A Startling Look at Internet Advertising"

Just what is "Internet Advertising" and why do all small businesses need it? Allow me to begin with a very short story.

Last Wednesday night while driving from Beaumont to Houston, I hitched a flat tire. Doesn't sound so bad? Well you would be correct with that assumption, except:

• It was 3 AM.
• Pitch black darkness enveloped the moonless night.
• The incident occurred on a lonely stretch of highway just short of the Interstate.

In a previous hub, I revealed a brief, yet accurate description of my shortcomings in the field of auto mechanics. In a word, I am "awful!"

Meanwhile, back at the highway, I am cursing repeatedly and VERY loudly, and I nearly broke my hand in 345 places by banging it over and over on my hapless steering wheel, repeating the same sentence, "you dumb %#@!. What are you doing on a highway at 3 o'clock in the morning, anyway?"

Long story short - make that VERY short, I was able to change the tire and be on my way.

This story describes most small business and their "mechanical knowledge and ability" with Internet Advertising.

As a small business owner, you are constantly on a treacherous business highway:

• Dodging speeding cars (your competition)
• Praying you don't run into a situation like the one just described (no knowledge of Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, and its intricacies.)
• Hoping nothing goes wrong because you really don't know the first thing about fixing a car (your do-it-yourself website needs changing, but you haven't the first idea of how to make that change.)

So many do-it-yourself websites are available on the Internet it's really difficult to choose just one. All of these WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) websites are leading their customers down a slippery slope, but their attraction is too great for many small businesses to pass on.

Look at it from a typical business owner's point of view: "I can save $6,000 by designing my website; hell, these website designers are ripping me off anyway... why not save a few thousand up front?"

I'll tell you why: YOU are just like me in the mechanic's department. You have NO clue when it comes to Internet Advertising. Be honest. You know nothing about how to:

1. Produce sales and marketing videos describing your company

2. Write SEO website copy that will get your website seen and selling

3. Design an original website (not a clone filled in with your information)

4. Set up local directories

5. Join the billions who are using social networking to boost their ratings

6. Design forms for clients to opt-in with your business

7. Write copy for your website that will get you ranked in Google, Bing and Yahoo

8. Use Internet Advertising skills you don't possess

9. Cram 20+ years of study and applying Internet Advertising as a major part of your business model

10. That keeping a website at the top of the search engine rankings is, in itself, A FULL-TIME JOB!

When my car breaks down, I take it to a mechanic, and when my tooth aches I call on a dentist. Does the previous sentence read like a 'duh' conclusion? Listen, you would be amazed at the number of people who try to save money by fixing their own cars and later, down the road, pay 4 times what the original cost should have been.

The list of 10 (above) is a short description of a what occupies an Internet Advertising professional's time. Speaking of advertising, remember the old Fram oil filter slogan, "pay me now, or pay me later." EVERY small business needs an Internet Advertising sharpshooter on their team.