By Sally Neihard

Bill Balderaz is president of Webbed Marketing, an Internet marketing firm that helps businesses use the Internet to grow in their respective field.  

Balderaz grew up in the small town of St. Mary’s in east Central Ohio.  Throughout high school Balderaz bussed tables at a local seafood restaurant, where he says he learned how to communicate with people.

“I think it would be fair to say that I learned how to deal with both happy and unhappy people,” Balderaz said.  

Balderaz earned a bachelor’s degree in public relations from Bowling Green and a Mast in Business Administration from Franklin University.  When choosing a school for his MBA, Balderaz was working and needed to find a flexible school.  He found that Franklin was flexible and he was able to continue working while earning his MBA.

Balderaz chose public relations because he has always been a confident writer.  He was particularly interested in the selling and marketing side of writing. 

“It all felt very natural,” Balderaz said.  “Then the dot-com boom happened and everything worked out.”

Balderaz’s Webbed Marketing is specifically involved in online marketing and helping businesses grow using the Internet.  Balderaz said that public relations firms need to embrace technology because traditional news sources such as newspapers and nightly news programs are declining while online news is expanding.

Regardless of this growth in online news sources, Balderaz still has clients who are reluctant to use online public relations.  Balderaz said that the most challenging part in convincing clients to boost their online buzz is educating the clients.  Many clients do not understand the difference between a blog Web site and a traditional Web site. 

Balderaz needs to impress upon clients the importance of these Web sites and the influence of sites such as YouTube and Yahoo News.  Balderaz stresses to clients that people are already blogging about their company, and that it is important to be involved in that and to try to make it positive blogging.   

Balderaz believes that the most important skill for graduates entering the public relations field is an understanding of technology. 

“Current students are in good shape because they already know a lot,” Balderaz said.  “There are people in the business now who are working to learn certain technologies that students already know.”

Balderaz is also the creator of the Webb-O-Meter which measures how much online buzz a Web site receives.  The Webb-O-Meter consults 10 sources to evaluate a website’s buzz, and then gives a rating from zero to 100.  Some of the sources include Yahoo!, Google, Wikipedia, Technorati and NewsPad.

Balderaz developed the idea for the Webb-O-Meter when he found himself asking questions such as: How do we measure buzz?  How can we give our customers legitimate numbers?  These questions were expanded into the Webbed-O-Meter, which can be found on Webbed Marketing’s Web site. 

Other ways that Webbed Marketing measures their success for a client include Web site traffic, web view, and above all, increase in sales. 

Balderaz has seen success in his work for all types of clients. Webbed Marketing recently released an online press release for a client that caters to a small population.  Despite the small population, the client saw a big jump in sales after the campaign and press release.  The client called Balderaz and said, “I feel like a rock star!”