I met a guy at the bar at Treetops Restaurant on Peachtree Road in Atlanta a few months ago. He had a hint of an Australian accent and in no time at all was talking to me about how we both derived from Australia and were embarking on business expansion.

Quite a smart man, he was fascinating in so many ways; his knowledge of the world, people, psychology, business and his story on how he had grown up and started doing what he does today. I would imagine him to be a highly successful businessman who commands the attention of everyone in the room.

Successfully revitalising a brand is every marketer’s dream but is no easy task, requiring persistence and hard work. Changing customer perceptions and providing clarity of the brand’s values is difficult, especially when it comes to transforming the target public’s entrenched mindset.

Marketing Eye wanted to change the way consumers perceived American Property Partners (APP). Was the APP brand clearly projecting the message it wanted to put forward to the general public? It is essential for portfolio managers to present themselves as reliable. After all, customers must trust them with their investments.

Professional services firms are known as the "safest" b2b marketers, only second behind that of the medical industry.

Still stuck in the dark ages, many professional services firms still believe that 'good work speaks for itself' and "you need to find the clients pain" ensuring that they keep it "safe" when embarking on marketing of any kind, rather than looking deep into customer insights to drive leads and create more sustainable client relationships.

What professional services firms are forgetting is that while they may still be on track to achieving their sales goals, being complacent and not moving with the times, will make it almost impossible to stay competitve.

Have you ever thought about what your website is really used for? Why people are visiting it in the hundreds, thousands, ten's of thousands?

One of my clients yesterday said to me that they Google searched an obscure term, and Marketing Eye came up. He was surprised, but I guess, not as surprised as I was.

A website, if it is search engine optimized, comes up on search engines. That is the purpose. Right? You invest all of this money, time and effort into ensuring that your website comes up trumps when prospects, clients and stakeholders are looking for your company or a company that provides your products or services.

But who else visits your website and why?

It is that time of year again, whether you like it or not, that small business owners need to review how their business is going.

Is your business ontrack to achieving the goals that you set out for your business to achieve in 2012? Is your brand where it should be? Are your leads inbound or outbound? Is your sales team performing?

If the answer is "no" to any of these questions, then it's time to start figuring out what you can change today to alter your outcomes of tomorrow.

"Our brand and website were looking a bit tired and old – we had tried to update ourselves but we just didn’t have the know-how. We came across Julie and the rest of the team from Marketing Eye and things started happening right away! Within days we had a new brand direction, a new modern looking and useable web design and a solid marketing plan – exactly what we needed. Thanks for the direction!"

	But your website is a dog’s breakfast? Does your website directly attribute to your overall business objectives, drive sales, and directly assist in improving your bottom line? Marketing Eye works with hundreds of companies seeking to give their customers a better online experience and drive quality leads to their sales teams. We understand the latest in SEO techniques, social media integration and enhancing website functionality. Now is the time to start thinking about how your website can do more for your business.

3 days and already a 1000% increase in website traffic!!!!

A few simple changes to your website can mean a lot to your business. In the past few days, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. has made small changes to website content and layout. The reason for these changes was that we haven't had a good look at our website for a few months and the bounce rate on some pages were getting over the 50% mark.

After spending a good hour looking at the facts and figures outlined on Google Analytics, we identified pages on our website that had higher bounce rates than others. In fairness, most of our website pages rank very highly with Google and people stay on our website for more than 5 minutes on average. This is a great achievement for a website in professional services marketing.

75% of search engine traffic never scroll past the first page. Do you know what your bounce rate is?

31% of consumers browse online daily for products and services. That means, that potentially, they could be buying from your website.

If you have a website and are looking for quality leads, but it's a dog's breakfast... then now is time to take action. We are getting into the pointy end of the year and there is no time to spare to get your website right, to generate new fresh leads.

Being a statistic for failure isn’t much fun-let’s face it. I don’t like the idea, and I bet you aren’t too keen on it either. And when it come to small business, or any business or cause for that matter it is best to avoid it like the plague. This leads me to wonder why so many businesses out there do not invest in a solid online marketing strategy of an effective website.

Put simply- no business will survive without a good website. However, what is most surprising to me is not how bad some websites actually are but in fact how easily these website short comings or problems can be fixed.

Having had a browse around various small business websites recently it occurred to me the magic a good website can do for a small business.