Small businesses play a major role in the economy. According to Small Business Administration (SBA), small businesses represent 99.7% of all the employer firms in U.S. Though small businesses constitute major portion of all the businesses, they always struggle to sustain.

The year 2009 ended with a positive note showing a clear growth trend in the online retail sales for the holiday season of the year. US online holiday season sales improved by a solid 5% when compared to the corresponding period last year, according to comScore report.

Recession hit consumers are buying less, looking for better deals, and switching to different brands or stores. There is a drastic change in their attitude towards consumption. As the degree of uncertainty in businesses has raised, it is very important for business owners to consider the current economic condition while planning their marketing strategies.

Search engine marketing (SEM) promotes a website on Google, Yahoo and other search engines through various methods such as organic search marketing, paid placement, and contextual advertising. When a product or service of the website is searched, organic search marketing enables the site to appear in the first search engine results page increasing its visibility.

US online advertising revenues reached almost $5.5billion for the third quarter of 2009, according to the IAB internet advertising revenue report. It representing an improvement of 1.7percentage from Q2’2009 and declined by 5.4percentage same period in last year.

The need to monitor automotive dealers’ brand image online is increasingly imperative, as 75% of new vehicle buyers in 2008 used the Internet during their buying process. According to J.D. Power and Associates Automotive Internet Roundtable report, investment in high-quality digital and social media content is essential to change customer perceptions of a brand, as well to raise brand awareness and consideration levels.

Search advertising revenue share increased 1.7% in the total Internet advertising in first six months of 2009, when compared to the first half of 2008.

Search engines have a couple of critical operations that they complete in order to provide search engine results that are relevant when a searcher uses the search engine to locate specific information. Understanding how these engines work is the right way to get the most out of search engines and search engine optimization.

Once you learn the secret steps behind getting found on the internet, it will make more sense to you what steps need to be taken in order to help your business get the traffic that you seek online.

Majority of customers are turning to the automobile websites rather than phone calls or showroom visits to get information when they are planning to buy a vehicle. According to the J.D. Power and Associates, 75 percent of new-vehicle buyers in 2008 used Internet during their shopping process, compared with 70 percent in 2007. Besides, the number of people browsing Internet from mobile devices is rising rapidly.