Increasingly small businesses are focusing more resources on digital advertising–and the providers are finally taking notice.

Next year Twitter will be rolling out a self-serve ad product, aimed at small businesses.   Earlier this year,  Facebook offered free $50 advertising credits for up to 200,000 small businesses. When an ad was clicked, the advertiser paid a set rate predetermined for that click through. This summer, Google offered a credit card to select small businesses that use AdWords. It came with a competitive interest rate, an ample credit line and no annual fee, for the sole purpose of buying search advertising. (via Reuters).

Facebook is Winning

A survey by MerchantCircle now suggests Facebook is winning this SMB tug-of-war. It found that Facebook advertising (23%) trails only print newspaper (25%) and direct mail (24%) in terms of small business marketing adoption.

SMBs, however, would do well not to invest so heavily in Facebook that their website suffers—a frequent either/or choice that smaller businesses must make.

The Equivalent of a $90K Ad Budget

A study by Eden Platform finds that a standard web page can deliver more advertising value than many companies realize.

Eden  measured pages and visitors for a sample of more than 100 small business websites. The findings showed that each page on a small business website produced an average of 55 unique visitors during the measurement period.

Small businesses often pay between $2.00 and $3.00 per website visitor using other online advertising methods like paid search engine ads and banners. This means that an average website page generates $137.50 of advertising value each month, or $1,650 of advertising value each year.

Adding one new page of content to a business website each week can be as effective as having a $90,000 advertising budget, the study concluded.