The way we do business is changing rapidly. From VOIP, video conferencing, email support, telephone answering services, and the almighty internet. As a business owner we are faced with hundreds of decisions our parents and grandparents never had to contend with.

Some of you keep hearing from other business associates that marketing is the greatest method of increasing business and building a foundation for customer support. The only problem is, you've just learned how to send emails to people! Never mind learning about SEO, web design strategies, content analysis, pay per click, ROI, etc!

Do you hire an SEO company or do you learn yourself?

Investing time into your company is what we business owners do best but, in many cases, when it comes to learning new methods we quickly open our wallets to anyone out there who seems like the right person to help with your situation. This is the worst possible decision you can make.

Diving into the marketing community with your wallet open will result in a disaster if you aren't properly trained on how to spend your money wisely. The key is not to hire an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) company to take your money and promote your business behind your back. Try finding someone who offers you their "training services" in order to train yourself or someone within your organization to learn more about what is required online, how much effort it entails, and what pitfalls to avoid.

As a business owner, if you blindly search online and pick a company, you have no idea what you could be getting yourself into. There are no secrets to promoting your business online, only a lot of hard work. That being said, anyone with a computer can easily learn how to get their company high search engine rankings. Search engines don't look to see whether or not you're running a scam. No, they are concentrated on delivering relevant results for your search terms.

Old Fashioned Marketing Tactics:

In the old days (and still practiced today), business owners would devise their own marketing plan through print media, business cards, postcards, flyers, brochures, newspapers, magazines, TV ads, and radio ads. By doing this, the company could track their results by trial and error and really find out what truly works for their industry.

Old fashioned marketing is a simple trial and error process. So is the internet. Unfortunately, all too many business owners don't have a clue how to start their own marketing process and they fail to even put their foot in the water. Instead, many business owners simply hire anyone they can find that seems reputable and then turn a blind eye and say; "Here's my budget, you are the professional, you tell me what to do". This is simply preposterous. You've worked so hard to get to where you are now by learning and adapting and as soon as it comes to marketing your business online, you simply shut down.

I hope that this article has awoken some of you. Don't be afraid to dive into the internet's vast realm of marketing potential. So what if you fail the first time around. When we started out, we had no idea what we were doing, 3 years later our website ranks higher than many other marketing companies worldwide.

The ULTIMATE secret to marketing is simple...

A concept I call "T.I.M.E."

T - Try and try again
I - changes all the time
M - Marketing

15 bits of crypto should be enough for anybody
On May 13, security advisories published by <a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2008/msg00152.html">Debian</a> and <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-612-1">Ubuntu</a> revealed that, for over a year, their OpenSSL libraries have had a major flaw in their <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographically_secure_pseudorandom_number_generator" title="Wikipedia: Cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator">CSPRNG</a>, which is used by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_generation" title="Wikipedia: Key generation">key generation</a> functions in many widely-used applications, which caused the "random" numbers produced to be extremely predictable. <small>[<a href="http://blog.rominet.net/2008/05/debianopenssl-debacle.html">lolcat summary</a>]</small> How bad is it? It's <a href="http://www.debian.org/security/key-rollover/">pretty</a> <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/SSLkeys">bad</a>. Understand that these keys are used not only for encryption, but also for authentication. The keyspace has been reduced to a mere 32,768 possibilities, and you can already <a href="http://metasploit.com/users/hdm/tools/debian-openssl/">download them all</a>, along with tools to use them. Worse still, in the days <em>before</em> the issue became publicly known, there was a <a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207603339">noticeable</a> <a href="http://stats.denyhosts.net/stats.html">spike</a> in the number of brute-force attacks on SSH servers, indicating that there has already been significant exploitation of this vulnerability. Partial timeline of events: In May 2006, <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=363516">a bug</a> led to <a href="http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.encryption.openssl.devel/10917">a question</a> which led to <a href="http://svn.debian.org/viewsvn/pkg-openssl/openssl/trunk/rand/md_rand.c?rev=141&r1=140&r2=141">the fateful patch</a> being applied to <a href="http://svn.debian.org/viewsvn/pkg-openssl/openssl/trunk/rand/md_rand.c?rev=141&view=markup">md_rand.c</a> (in Debian's "unstable" development branch). In April 2007, Debian 4.0 "etch" and Ubuntu 7.04 were both released, which was the beginning of the inclusion of the buggy version of OpenSSL in officially-released distributions. The bug remained unfixed through the releases of Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04. On May 7, 2008, the <a href="http://svn.debian.org/viewsvn/pkg-openssl/openssl/trunk/crypto/rand/md_rand.c?rev=300&view=diff&r1=300&r2=299">patch to fix the problem</a> was committed to Debian's source repository, and on May 13 the issue was officially disclosed and updated packages were made available to users. (The patch's availability days before public disclosure of the bug appears to be a violation of <a href="http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/ch-pkgs.en.html#s-bug-security-confidentiality">Debian's policy</a>.) <a href="http://blog.drinsama.de/erich/en/linux/2008051401-debian-openssl-desaster.html">Here</a> <a href="http://blog.drinsama.de/erich/en/linux/2008051401-consequences-of-sslssh-weakness.html">are</a> <a href="http://changelog.complete.org/posts/714-Thoughtfulness-on-the-OpenSSL-bug.html">some</a> <a href="http://www.aigarius.com/blog/2008/05/14/too-similar-to-be-different/">responses</a> <a href="http://algebraicthunk.net/~dburrows/blog/entry/worst-ever/">from</a> <a href="http://www.advogato.org/person/branden/diary/5.html">Debian</a> <a href="http://blog.steve.org.uk/i_still_don_t_know_why_i_m_here.html">blogs</a>, and <a href="http://www.links.org/?p=327">two</a> <a href="http://www.links.org/?p=328">from</a> an OpenSSL developer.
Walk of Flame
Blue, green and grey must have a calming effect. Elsewhere, discussions can be...ignited. <a href="http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/index.htm">Flame Warriors</a>. <a href="http://www.neatorama.com/2008/05/04/flame-warriors/">via</a>
Looking for the mouse
<a href="http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html">Gin, Television, and Social Surplus</a> — Clay Shirky on post-broadcast societal outlets.
BBC Sound Index
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/soundindex/">BBC Sound Index</a> -- an excellent way to confirm your worst fears about the music Internet users are listening to.
WARNING: This page may be altered in transit!
<a href="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080416-research-1-3-percent-of-web-pages-altered-in-transit.html">ArsTechnica is reporting on the practice of altering and editing web-traffic enroute from the server to your client/browser.</a> <a href="http://vancouver.cs.washington.edu/#test-results">Is your ISP, work or connection path altering your requested documents? Find out here.</a>
Subdomain Squatting
<a href="http://smackdown.blogsblogsblogs.com/2008/04/08/network-solutions-not-just-thieves-and-hijackers-now-using-tactics-that-can-get-your-site-banned-from-google/">Just one more reason not to trust Network Solutions.</a>
Indonesia bans YouTube and MySpace
As a result of the Dutch film <a href="http://www.metafilter.com/70287/Fitna">Fitna</a>, Indonesia has <a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/03/indonesia-blocks-youtube">blocked several websites including MySpace and YouTube.</a> This follows hot on the heels of a new bill which could see people <a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/25/pornography-please-indonesian">face six years of jail time or a 1 billion rupiah fine for being caught sending out porn, “false news” or racial or religious slurs on the Web.</a> The Indonesian government will start censoring the Internet next month with specialised software. Very disappointing for a country which had a <a href="http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25652">reasonably free press.</a>
Internet Event Horizons
Having trouble connecting to a site? It may be you and many others got too close to a network event horizon and the packets ...disappeared.... <a href="http://hubble.cs.washington.edu/">The internets has black holes</a>, too. <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news126884005.html">via </a>
about:mozilla
<a href="http://home.mcom.com/" title="Welcome to Mosaic Communications Corporation!">Welcome to Mosaic Communications Corporation!</a> It was 1994, and the World Wide Web as we know it today was about to be born. Mosaic Communications didn't invent the web and didn't even invent the graphical browser. The Netscape browser and Netscape server were instrumental in commercializing the internet. mcom.com was one of the <a href="http://home.mcom.com/home/internet-directory.html" title="Mosaic Communications Internet Directory">standard starting points</a> for anybody on the Web, and this little slice of history can help the young'uns understand what the Web used to be like. Reconstructed from archived files for your benefit by one <a href="http://home.mcom.com/people/jwz/index.html" title="Jamie Zawinski ">jwz</a>, a task <a href="http://jwz.livejournal.com/856745.html" title="Happy Run Some Old Web Browsers Day!">epic in the telling</a>.
Ten and two ... whoo-hoo!
Live from her minivan, it’s <a href="http://www.jeannietate.com">The Jeannie Tate Show</a>! Everyone’s favorite soccer mom runs errands around town with the help of special guests like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Iw1uEVaQpA&feature=related">Bill Hader</a> (SNL), <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHlCaDgfgDg">Rashida Jones</a> (The Office), <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E-amvRNKKc">Lonny Ross</a> (30 Rock), and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p4PKxEHxGM">Rob Riggle</a> (The Daily Show). Of course, she’s willing to leave the van behind to visit her heroines, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk_VpEEYCq8">Hillary</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfNH8Wv6izY">Oprah</a>. The <a href="http://nymag.com/movies/features/videos/40617">show</a> was independently produced by the <a href="http://newyork.ucbtheatre.com/performers/5683">lovely</a> <a href="http://www.haastyle.com/carey.php">Maggie</a> <a href="http://themaggiecarey.com">Carey</a> and Second City/SNL vet <a href="http://www.ugcdb.com/people/person.php?personID=953">Liz</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1560199/">Cackowski</a> before being picked up by <a href="http://marketingconversation.com/2007/09/11/warner-brothers-shows-faith-in-itself-and-its-future/">Warner Brothers</a>. Some say Jeannie’s <a href="http://newszine.jou.ufl.edu/index.php?id=1734">shoot first, market later</a> webisode approach is the <a href="http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6541243.html">future</a> of entertainment. But it <a href="http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2008/02/29/a_short_half_life_for_a_new_series/">hasn’t</a> worked out for everyone so far.

opportunities are around every corner
E - Eventually you too can succeed

Think of it this way (Illustration only)

Here is a timeline of your marketing campaign:

Start date - Research only: June 7th, 2005
Hired a website designer - August 31st, 2005
Website Complete - October 15th, 2005
Website launch - October 20th, 2005

Started an marketing campaign - November 1st, 2005
Started a Pay Per Click campaign - November 10th, 2005
Made a sale - November 15th, 2005

Increased our website’s link popularity - January 1st, 2006
Website gets hit by the Google Sandbox Effect - January 20th, 2006
Increased our Pay Per Click campaign - February 5th, 2006

Made some changes to the website - February 21st, 2006
Increase the website’s link popularity - February 28th, 2006
Got listed in the Yahoo directory - March 3rd, 2006

So here you are 10 months out of the gate and your website may still be "locked in the Google sandbox" ( Search for "Google Sandbox" in Google for an explanation). Your link popularity is just starting to grow a little bit. Hopefully you haven't tried to link to everyone you can find and are actually linking to companies that are directly related to your business. Your PPC campaign is doing good. People are finally starting to come through Yahoo & MSN search results. You can sometimes find your company in the 200th spot within search results in Google and you are now wondering why this is taking so long.

Welcome to the world of marketing your company on the internet!!!

This timeline representation from above is just something to show you how "T.I.M.E." is the key of success on the and all we are required to do is keep plugging away and keep learning more every chance we get.

For most people who simply open up their wallets, they would have learned nothing in those 10 months and for everyone else starting an marketing campaign, those who didn't simply just open their wallets, their websites are probably 10 times further than yours!

In Conclusion:

Learn more about how to increase your marketing campaign on the internet. If you have to, hire someone in-house who can learn for you and give you updates on everything. If you truly need to hire an SEO company make sure it's for the right reasons like "starting and finishing a marketing campaign with you learning in the process", or "enhancing a campaign that is already in place", or "to revise your website’s conversion rate" or "create a impactful key word optimization campaign", etc. Take your time and use "T.I.M.E." to increase your business slowly but effectively on the internet.

I hope you've enjoyed this article!