SMB Tech Roll-up: SMBs Online Search Spend Up 159%, Sage Identifies Cloud Concerns

This week with many companies looking back over the past six months to see what they might do in the coming six months there has been a lot of research into the cloud and SMB adoption. Dell has also been busy and continues its moves into the SMB space with new security offerings.

Advertising Search Spend Jumps 159% on 2009

We’ve all heard that the recession is over, but most have been wondering where the evidence is. Well the recently published quarterly report from WebVisible might just have that evidence. It shows that despite difficulties small businesses continued to increase their online search spending over last year.

The report also shows that Yahoo! drew some of that spend away from competitors Google and Ask. The average small business advertiser spent US$ 2,231 on search advertising in Q2 2010 — up by 1.4 % from Q1 2010 and by 159% Q2 2009. Year on year spending was up 91% in Q1 2010 and 111% over corresponding quarters in 2009.

These are among some of the findings of the fourth WebVisible Report: State of Small Business Online Advertising Q2 2010. The report examined trends among WebVisible’s U.S. advertisers from Q2 2009 through Q2 2010 representing nearly US$ 23 million in U.S. small business advertiser spending. The report also includes an analysis of data from more than 10,000 advertisers in the U.K. in Q1 and Q2 2010.

Even better than all that for many SMBs, is the fact that conversion activity also increased dramatically.

Over the past year, conversion activity increased on almost all website actions – filling out an online form, watching a video, bookmarking a page or printing driving directions… .The more options a company provides, the more actions a website visitor will take – giving advertisers multiple opportunities to establish a connection with each potential buyer," said Kirsten Mangers, CEO of WebVisible

Nearly half of all clicks — 43 percent — resulted in a web conversion in Q2 2010, up by 22 percent over Q1 2010 and 39 percent over Q2 2009. Conversion activity more than doubled for form fills, video views, printed driving directions and bookmarking in Q2 2010 versus Q2 2009, suggesting that users are taking advantage of additional website options provided by advertisers.

The percentage of clicks resulting in a phone call to the advertiser increased by 29 percent over the previous quarter and by 58 percent over the same period last year.

If you want get a full free copy of the report visit the WebVisible website. Anyone can request a full copy of The WebVisible Report there.

Dell Offers Better SMB Security

Dell continues its move into the SMB market with a new security solution for midsized businesses and organizations that integrates software, security management tools and services to help customers protect their IT infrastructure and data.

As part of its new security solution, Dell and Juniper Networks announced today plans for an expansion of their agreement to develop additional SMB focused Unified Threat Management features and network security appliances.

At the same time Dell also announced that it has established a partnership with information security services vendor SecureWork to provide a full range of information security services that help customers identify, monitor and manage security, risks and compliance needs. The services will be available by the end of the year. The new portfolio consists of:

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Tags: cloud computing, compliance, dell, document management, enterprise cms, google, google docs, sage, saugatuck, search, securework, smb, smb tech roll-up, webvisible, yahoo

This week with many companies looking back over the past six months to see what they might do in the coming six months there has been a lot of research into the cloud and SMB adoption. Dell has also been busy and continues its moves into the SMB space with new security offerings.