The government officially shut down last night at midnight after a week of hard-fought negotiations. Republicans and Democrats have been in disagreement for months about the budget – specifically how to close the $5 billion budget deficit.

According to the Washington Post, the state battle mirrored the budget battle on the national front – Republicans putting the emphasis on cutting spending on certain programs and Democrats attempting to raise the taxes on the wealthiest 2% of Minnesotans.

This isn’t the first government shutdown in recent memory. In 2005, the government shutdown under then Governor Tim Pawlenty. That one lasted 8 days and resulted in the temporary layoff of about 9,000 workers. Pawlenty is now a candidate for President.

During this government shutdown, only necessary government functions will remain up and running. This includes public safety like the police and fire departments, welfare programs, state facilities like prisons, and IT management of governmental systems.

Like I noted earlier, the state parks will be closed this weekend. This is estimated to cost the state $12 million in revenue for each week the government remains shutdown.

The state government was close to a deal, but Democratic Governor Mark Dayton could not approve the GOP’s cuts to the health and human services department. Earlier in the negotiations the Republicans proposed a budget that included some layoffs for state workers and teachers. It also included some non-budgetary items such as a vote ID bill and abortion restrictions. The Democrats refused that proposal.

So, with the two parties in a deadlock, the government is now shutdown. Twitter is reacting strongly to the news, with opinions coming from all sides of the political spectrum. Here are a series of tweets blaming the GOP for the shutdown –

Some on Twitter point to Democratic ideals as the cause of Minnesota’s budget problem –

Many have just decided to take a crack at the state of Minnesota –

The question really begs another question – what is your goal for your site?

If you are operating it as a real business where you hope to either supplement your current income or rely on it as your sole source of income – then you need to be prepared to invest in search (it’s often the foundation of your marketing and a consistent source of regular traffic).

You can invest time or money and in most cases, you usually need to invest both.

I think there is someone out there spreading some erroneous information about starting a business online.  There is a lot of the “build it and they will come” mentality – in other words throw up a site and voila insta-business!

While in many ways, it is easier to do business online because you don’t need to set up physical stores and have a lot of the issues you have with brick and mortars, it is by no means a “sure thing” – you still have to work for your success.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you shouldn’t start an online business -  I am just saying if you expect your business to grow and treat you well, then you need to treat it like a serious business.

So, yes, it will be necessary for you to invest both time and money into generating traffic.

So back to the question at hand – how much should you spend on SEO?

You need to crunch some numbers and see how many visitors it takes to get a sale and how much a sale is worth to you to really fine-tune your budget – especially if PPC is part of your plans (so many people waste money on PPC that isn’t converting – spend wisely or it can suck you dry!)

For organic SEO you will find everything from $19.99 mass submission (avoid like the plague, you may as well burn your $19.99) to tens of thousands of dollars per month.

Most small to medium sized businesses spend between $300 – $800 per month, although I’ve also heard people say numbers a little higher, like $500 – $1500 per month is the norm.  So somewhere in that range is what you should expect to pay for quality SEO work.

It always amazes me that people are annoyed they have to pay for SEO.  People will pay for a doctor or a mechanic, or even a web designer but they seem to resent having to pay for SEO.  If you have the time and knowledge, then by all means, don’t pay anyone, do it yourself.  However if you don’t have the time or knowledge, it’s a valid, and important expense and not something you should begrudge.  Driving traffic to your site is the foundation and not the area you want to go cheap.

I’m jussayin…think about your goals and think about what you are prepared to do to get there.

To be honest, this is a scary leap for marketers, who are being pushed from competitors and internal staff to enter this space , and who then feel the inevitable pressure to quantify their results.

And so the Marketer’s journey into social media begins as it usually begins: with the issuance of a request for proposal (RFP).

That is where it becomes interesting…For instance, instead of traditional detailed requests for proposals, most of the RFP’s we get are as informal as an email or a made from scratch “social media proposal”, totaling less than 5 pages in length. All of these have the same in common: they are requests to “propose specific social media strategies” and a “detailed list of pricing”.

From there, as a social media agency, we have to defend our tactics and strategies as they are met with skepticism and questions on every front – as marketers themselves are trying to make sure that they can answer the questions imposed from internal staff regarding timing, resources, and of course effectiveness and metrics.

And so, I figured that it was about time to reveal the marketer’s foray into social media by answering the most common questions/barriers that arise in the process . Some of the following questions I will be answering in subsequent posts are as follows:

1. How will a Social Media Agency Work with my current agency?

2. How long does a typical social media campaign last?

3. How will this social media campaign be measured?

4. How will content be developed?

5. What is the budget?

Hopefully this will grow into a conversation that we can all benefit from. Those on the marketing side will have a better understanding of what to expect, and those on the social media agency side will have a better understanding of how to answer these questions while sustaining ethics, generating results, and maintaining a sound business model.

Stay tuned…. And let me know any feedback or direction you’d like to see this take.

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Budget Crunches Nudge Shoppers Online

More than a quarter of holiday shoppers surveyed by Zogby for AOL Shopping plan to part with at least half of their shopping dollars online this year.

26 percent of survey respondents planned to spend this way. Out of the overall survey, 74 percent will spend some of their budgets with online retailers.

Books, movies, and music will be the gift of choice for 57 percent of shoppers. Apparel items and gift cards followed those entertainment options as the top three holiday purchases online.

Internet retailers should take note of browsing habits by shoppers. Though many will make their purchases offline, 69 percent of those surveyed plan to do some research online first. That’s an opportunity for online entrepreneurs to offer a conversion opportunity, like a mailing list of upcoming deals, to those visitors.

Despite all the sunny news out of the White House about the economy, real-world respondents name lower income as the top reason for chopping their holiday budgets. General economic concerns and skyrocketing energy costs had an impact too.

Such concerns should be suggestive to online advertisers. People may demonstrate substantial price sensitivity when shopping this year. Ad copy conveying a suggestion of better pricing could help retailers draw some extra landing page visits.

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Last year, Google spent $849 million on sales and marketing, with a tiny $188 million of that going into advertising and promotions*. Compared with Microsoft, which puts $11.5 billion into sales and marketing, or Yahoo’s $1.3 billion, and Google looks like a cheapskate.

Google’s got a powerful brand, and one it doesn’t have to prop up with very expensive advertising campaigns, so props to them. Google’s lucky more companies aren’t like them, otherwise Google would be out of business. Of course, Google’s got a lot of unpopular products, or products that have failed because no one noticed them, so they might want to buy an ad or two once in a while. GOOG-411 billboards are a good start, and they’d better advertise Google Health well (if it ever shows up) if they want it to work out.

(via Search Engine Land)

* – Consider that a bunch of that might have been wasted on Google Checkout coupons, so we’re talking even less advertising.

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Small Biz Has An Attitude About Search

Those who follow the search industry and actively market their Internet presence in a variety of ways may be surprised to learn that a lot of their fellow entrepreneurs don’t do so.

That’s the determination Greg Sterling at Opus Research found in his study of current marketing trends among the SMB market. Of those respondents to the study’s survey, 59 percent do not do online marketing.

Roughly the same percentage of respondents claim over half their business comes from word of mouth or from referrals by other customers. Though businesses rate websites as importantly as they do local newspaper advertising, many aren’t making the same connection about online ads.

SMB spending has made the niche a highly desirable one for advertising companies. Sterling said the SMB market conservatively puts $30 billion in play for marketing and advertising services annually. They may want to consider more on the paid search and Internet advertising side.

“As a practical matter, Web sites without some other marketing element (e.g., SEM/SEO) aren

How To Waste Your Search Budget

It’s always seemed strange to look for information on a brand, and to see it appear both in the organic search results and at or near the top of the paid listings. Why spend money on a brand term that’s going to deliver a top five organic result for the same query anyway?

An Adweek report cited Microsoft-backed research by its Atlas Solutions group into brand spending. Atlas suggested marketers waste about half of their budgets buying keywords that they don’t need.

"What you’re really paying for is a glorified Yellow Pages listing," Young-Bean Song, VP of analytics for Atlas, said in the report. Atlas studied 30 campaigns reaching some 120,000 people on Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

They found almost half of the clicks on ads were from previous advertiser website visitors. Also, about 60 percent of visitors arrived from branded keyword ads for company names or products, while 29 percent came from generic searches where paid search is expected to perform.

Atlas had been working on their survey before Microsoft declared it would acquire aQuantive, Atlas’ parent firm. Song also said they weren’t being critical of Google, but highlighting an issue for advertisers.

Google has enjoyed a dominant position in search advertising, but it permits bidding on competitor keywords as long as they don’t show up in the text of an ad. That combination likely contributes to the spending issues cited by Atlas.

Think of how silly this is: advertising generates revenue: would you put off your income?!  Handle this one this way:

• I understand, and that raises a question, doesn’t it! (Let them ask what the question is)
• Well, if advertising worked, how mcuh would you do?  (Let them strugle with this one for a moment, then let them off the hook:)
• If advertising works it brings in money in excess of what it costs: if advertising worked you would do alot, right!?  (They will answer yes)
• So the question is: will this cash-flow or not, isn’t it!?  Is that the question?  (Reluctantly, well, yes)
• I am so glad you asked that, because, in fact, this will….

Now go back over all the reasons to buy, especially how much it is costing not to buy in lost revenues, PPC, etc, forcing them to acknowledge all the things they already have acknowledged: then say:

• You really cannot afford not to do this, can you?  (Now shut up!  )

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