Don’t you just hate it when somebody writes “studies show” or “studies tell us” and then proceeds to give us this information without referencing the source? We have to maintain our credibility online, so we will tell you right off the bat that Pew Internet and American Life research tells us that 73% of American consumers use the Internet. This is up from 71% last year. If we look back to 2004 this figure was only about 50%.

Some people say that you can use statistics to prove any side of the argument which may well be true, but by any definition we have seen explosive growth online and it would appear to be less affected by our fabulous recession than other activities.

Conventional marketing methods appear to be on the decline. If we take to the Internet to do some research to compare those looking for Yellow Page book information with those searching the web for local results, we see from Google Trends a persistent decline in the number of YP searches. We also get information from Google showing us that people are finding a lot of the information they are seeking through the use of relatively new Google Maps engine. Are we indeed seeing the demise of the conventional Yellow Page book, the one that you don’t want to drop on your foot?

It seems that the internet marketing future will develop to provide local, mom-and-pop–type operations a way to reach out to their customers. As more and more people use the Internet on a daily basis, they will gather information and solutions to their problems online, rather than through conventional methods such as a paper directory or newspaper.

Internet marketing for small business can help the “bricks and mortar” off-line business in so many ways; the vast majority of these businesses have not even scratched the surface.

Nigel Evans

Internet Marketing for Small Business