Does it really matter if your company’s website can be found or not? I wrote a response today to a question that I frequently get asked when it comes to increasing the reach of micro cap companies. Video included too.

It still amazes me at how many people this this is unimportant. If are only marketing for liquidity, it is not really important. But, companies are built on investors and by having a findable, engaging website, you can find that much bigger audience.

General Environmental Management Inc. (GEM) (OTCBB: GEVI), a company specializing in the treatment and disposal of non-hazardous wastewater, today announced its financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2010. The company reported first-quarter GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) earnings per share (EPS) at $0.30. For the first time in Company history, GEM has recorded a quarterly net income. Total net income for the quarter was calculated at $4,477,955.

Revenues for the first quarter are strictly from the Southern California Waste Water (SCWW) subsidiary, due to the discontinuation of all other segments of the GEM hazardous waste business during the first quarter of 2010. Revenues topped $1.46 million, up 28% from $1.14 million for the same time period in 2009. The new company direction to a primarily non-hazardous wastewater treatment driven business model provides the foundation to build a strong enterprise.

First quarter gross profits for 2010 were $172,769, down from $272,437 reported for the same time period in 2009. This reduction in 2010 gross profits is primarily attributed to a $150,000 one-time remediation expense to improve the facility in Santa Paula. Future quarterly results will not have recurring expenses from the facility’s improvements. Monetary gain on the sale of the GEM Delaware facility and its subsidiaries equaled $8.687 million.

GEM operating expenses includes a non-cash charge in the first quarter totaling $380,000 related to the issuance of S-8 shares for business development. The current weighted average shares of common stock outstanding, basic, and diluted is 15,057,653.

Chief Executive Officer of GEM Timothy Koziol stated, “We are pleased with the results shown in our first quarter. For the first time in the Company’s inception we have positive net income. I firmly believe that the decision to pursue the non-hazardous wastewater strategy has been a wise one and look forward to building and developing our business model. While our financial statements only include the revenue through SCWW as footnotes, we expect that our 2^nd quarter results will be more clearly defined as the non-hazardous wastewater treatment becomes our sole revenue source.”

See our disclaimer page; no position in the stock of GEVI.

Just a quick post here on NT Mining (Pink Sheets: NTMG). I am seeing a few emails and a lot of chatter on social media platforms. What is noteworthy in this particular situation is that I am seeing big players stating that they are taking a position in this stock. That doesn’t happen very often this early on.

In the table below, you can see that starting off on the 13^th of May, the stock woke up from its dormancy…

Date                Open          High         Low          Close     Change         Volume

05/21/10   0.3050   0.3100   0.2980    0.3090  +0.0140     2,648,767

05/20/10   0.2970   0.3000   0.2910   0.2950  +0.0030     2,257,080

05/19/10   0.2950   0.2960   0.2880   0.2920  +0.0040     1,210,843

05/18/10   0.2850   0.2940   0.2800   0.2880  +0.0100     1,342,076

05/17/10   0.2650   0.2890   0.2610   0.2780  +0.0170     2,748,654

05/14/10   0.2600   0.2650   0.2450   0.2610  +0.0160     1,180,875

05/13/10   0.2500   0.2550   0.2200   0.2450  +0.0450       882,030

05/12/10   0.2000   0.2000   0.2000   0.2000  -0.1000         1,000

05/11/10   0.3000   0.3000   0.3000   0.3000  +0.0000         6,000

05/10/10   0.3000   0.3000   0.3000   0.3000  +0.0000        20,000

Where will NTMG go from here?

For the record, we are not compensated for this piece of info on NTMG nor do I have a position in the stock.

Stock promotion often affords traders an opportunity to make a quick buck on a short-term play. Stock promotion in the micro caps is inherently very short term yet many traders because of EMOTION treat the quick trade like a lifetime investment.

The language in promotional pieces put out by stock promoters and other entities often promise an incredible opportunity to get wealthy on a particular stock. The stock may be trading at .10 but the promo pieces are making a case for a $2 stock. Then they give you all the reasons why.

The problem comes in when novice traders believe the outlandish price targets and other things written into promo pieces. This is especially a problem when a stock performs for a few days or a few weeks instead of one day. Many novice traders begin to drink the “kool aid” and get sucked into buying more and more shares as the stock advances.

How do I know this? It happened to me a fair amount of times. I too have been a bag holder on many occasions. When it comes right down to it, the best lessons are the ones learned firsthand.

Here are a few of the guidelines I use and which have served me well:

1. Never marry a stock. What goes up will come down and usually will come down so fast you will not be able to get out. You will join many other bagholders…
2. Trade OTCBB and Pink Sheet stocks. I would suggest getting out of at least a good portion of your position in the first day IF IN PROFIT. If you are not in profit, something is wrong and get out of all of it and find another play.
3. With the exception of very, very few stocks, it takes trading many stocks over a period of time and being right at least 30% of the time to make a significant amount of money in the micro caps. Trying to get wealthy on one stock will usually have the opposite effect.
4. Develop a system for trading and follow the rules. Every time I lost a significant amount of money is because I let emotion take over.

There is nothing wrong with penny stock promos… just remember that the promo is usually only for a day and with only a few exceptions, the stock will play out in one day.

Like a few people, I use several tools to find out what is being said across the Internet about our client companies as well as our own businesses. I also have my own name set up in alerts that let me know if anything I did showed up on someone else’s site. I also am able to track how people find me.

I am consistently amazed at how many people are still looking for me with the search terms “Tom Allinder and “Spongetech”. Spongetech (Pink Sheets: SPNG) made me famous for a couple of months last summer. I did a number of technical analysis videos on the stock; several had thousands of views. One video has over 6,000 views. I even had one guy do a parody of me. When you get parodies done about you, you are reaching a few people.

Like them or not, Spongetech did do a lot of right things with respect to promoting their company and their stock. Was it all true? Who knows? In time, some of the details will come out. Meantime, I see that on 23 April, Spongetech filed a suit against a whole bus-full of people…

The point is though: The Company put out lots of news releases, did a lot of deals to make themselves visible, hired lots of help with regard to promotion of their stock and company. It still amazes me how many people sit on their hands and complain about the companies whose stocks are doing well. They are usually absolutely green with envy; they have their faces all screwed up from the sour apples that they themselves sowed the seeds of.

It always seems that so many people are happy when these high flying companies come back to earth… It’s the world we live in.

There are a lot of things that go into being a dominant investor relations, stock promotion, stock community and stock related site. A lot of people think a big email list is the primary reason… There are some correct assumptions about these heavyweights and a lot of assumptions that are not correct when looking at who is doing well and making money and who is not and are struggling. Once you realize what the magic potion is, you can achieve a great deal with your own site, make it more valuable and make more money…

Let’s look at our first heavyweight: QualityStocks.net

QualityStocks.net has a staff of talented people that know what they are doing; and they have been working at it for years. Their desire has been fulfilled to be a dominant player by working not only hard, but smart too. The folks at QualityStocks.net know that it is important to have a commanding web presence.

Website Score: 99.3, they have a blog (which means they have new content all the time which is attractive and scores points with search engines). Over the years they have amassed nearly 7600 pages on their site. But here is the most important stat: QualityStocks.net has 5,655 inbound links.

Most IR and promotional entities don’t realize the importance and value of inbound links for their website.

Finally, their Alexa Rank is 207,750 which puts them ahead of most other stock related sites on the web. So where does this high rank come from? Again, I will go back to inbound links. The more inbound links you have, the higher your site ranks – which means it gets more traffic and as a result, even more inbound links. QualityStocks.net also uses news releases and social media to drive traffic to their site as well. But, they do not blast out news releases all day, every day like some sites; they don’t have to. QualityStocks.net traffic is also driven by being a content rich site.

Everything I have discussed above is what is known as organic marketing. Things like advertising and Pay-per-Click (PPC) are very short term and expensive solutions that do not provide lasting benefits. This is not to say that those with deep pockets cannot get results through advertising and PPC though…

BeaconEquity.com

Though BeaconEquity.com is not considered a stock promotional entity in the traditional sense, they do have the highest website grade of any of the sites I have found: 99.6. They even have a couple of onsite SEO issues that if fixed, they could conceivably score 100. BE is a community based platform with a lot of participation and has a very savvy management team. BeaconEquity has an Alexa Rank of 136,412 which puts them right near, if not at the top of the heap when it comes to micro and small cap sites. BE has 4,095 inbound links and is active on social media platforms as well.

Here is where I think BE excels: They allow users to be contributors and publish articles on their site; what a concept! This is how BE adds value to the users of their site. At the same time, the contributors are building content for BE; it’s a win-win situation for everyone.

Users of websites feel valued if they can contribute. This is why SeekingAlpha is so successful on a huge scale and why BE is so successful at the small and micro cap level. Aside from being a popular platform BE issues press releases, is active in social media and clearly understands the value of a platform on today’s web.

PennyStockPickAlert.com

As the name implies, PennyStockPickAlert is an email alert service. They do have financial news feeds on the site but this site is all about signing up for their alert service. While there is no real original content on the site, the owners are getting what they want though. PennyStockPickAlert is ranked #262.967 on Alexa making it one of the highest ranked sites on the web… Bear in mind, there are over 21 BILLION websites on the net.

How do they rank so high? News Releases… PennyStockPickAlert uses multiple news services to disseminate news on stocks. They have been so successful with this that they have accumulated over 12,000 inbound links. So you see, inbound links are important no matter how you get them. While PPC and Advertising provide temporary links to your site, if the money runs out, you are done. News releases build organic and long-lasting links that last for months and in most cases, years.

hototc.com:

hototc has a staggering 20,000+ inbound links to their site. They enjoy a huge reputation within the micro and small cap community. They also do PPC and lots of advertising on high traffic sites. hototc is primarily an alert service for micro cap traders and they certainly accomplish their objectives with an Alexa Rank of 249,612 and a website score of 96.

What is the common thread with these three sites? Their Alexa Rankings are high but what else? INBOUND LINKS. If you do not accumulate inbound links to your site, you will never enjoy the success that these sites do if that is what you aspire to.

Another consideration is that of the four entities covered here, there are 3 different business models at work. There are several ways to become a dominant player in small and micro cap stocks but the path to that success is through traffic to your website. Without website traffic (which in itself generates more traffic), it doesn’t matter how good your ideas are.

I find it interesting that people “trash” promotional sites and entities. If you read closely, people have much more of a problem with the amount of money that the sites above make and not the business they are in… There is no doubt that the owners of these sites worked their butts off to build their online and business presence. Rather than envy them, why not go to work on your own plan to compete with them? You can, you just have to decide to do it.

There are many ways to build your site’s presence on the Internet, generate more traffic and increase the value of your site.