Posted by: Janessa Seewald, Account Manager

In 2010, social media marketing will push to the forefront of many organizations’ marketing efforts, and it will be important to make ongoing improvements as the landscape changes and becomes more competitive.

Here are some tips to consider when making adjustments to your social media marketing strategy:

• Go where the conversation is happening. You may already have a Facebook page, Twitter account, YouTube channel and more, but it is never too late to cut bait. If your prospects aren’t interested in or accessible within a certain platform, there is no reason to spend time posting content and managing it just for the sake of saying your company “is on Twitter.” It is best to focus your effort on the places where you know you can reach your audience and ultimately generate conversions.
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Posted by: Shannon Anderson, Project Manager

As a fundamental building block to a search engine optimization (or SEO) program, it is important to build strong, qualified incoming links to your website. Here are a few ways to build these links and optimize visibility:

• Submit Press Releases: Submit keyword-rich press releases through newswires and online PR sites, such as PR Newswire and PR Leap, to gain increased online visibility.
• Submit to Directories: Directories, such as DMOZ, are a great way to submit links to your website building quality incoming traffic.
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Posted by: Gloria Dutton, Senior Marketing Coordinator

2009 brought a lot of changes and innovations in the wide world of the Web and its search engines. We witnessed the explosion of Twitter and Facebook and the introduction and advancement of Bing and smartphones. These innovations are forcing search engines to alter what is included in their search results, as well as how these results are displayed. The greatest changes to search that will alter search engine marketing (SEM) programs in 2010 include a new emphasis on personalized search, the inclusion of real-time results, and new methods of local and mobile advertising.

Personalized Search: Google’s personalized search is actually not a new development, but the changes to it at the end of 2009 are. Google uses personalized search to present different search results to users based on their search history and demographics. This alteration of search results used to only occur when users were signed into their Google accounts, but now it has been introduced to signed-out users worldwide. The reason this is important to take into account when optimizing is that your company’s listing may be a first page listing for one user while not even rank for another.

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Posted by: Kerry Houchin, Project Manager

With the release of Google’s Nexus One smart phone, Google has spent some serious time creating innovative mobile search applications. Now on-the-go Android users can search for businesses using the “What’s Nearby” feature and can search for information on landmarks, artwork and other objects using the Google Goggles app.

Here’s how they work:
• What’s Nearby uses the smart phone’s location feature to build a list of the 10 closest places including restaurants, businesses and locations of interest. Since listings are pulled from the Google Local Business Center listings, this reinforces the fact that having a presence in the Local Business Center is becoming more and more important.
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Posted by: Caitlin Diehl, Senior Marketing Coordinator

2009 was another incredible year for Google. Despite new competition, a refreshed search engine from Microsoft and a search partnership that might have made others worry, Google maintained its stronghold on the search market. Here are some examples of what kept searchers on their toes and the competition at bay:

Google Wave
In May engineers released their first demo of Google Wave – Google’s real time communication and collaboration tool. Even though it will not become open to the public until mid-2010, the development and first releases of this new program represent some of Google’s finest work of the year.

According to Google, Wave should be considered a “conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.” Google suggests using waves for event organization, group projects, photo sharing, meeting notes, brainstorming and even for interactive games. Check out Google’s Wave help pages for information about how the tool works. read more »

Posted by: Janessa Seewald, Account Manager

The latest statistics show that more than 40% of searches within search engines have local intent. For local business owners this means that not only is important to have a website, but to also focus on optimization of your local business listings. Some best practices to consider when developing and optimizing local business listings include:

• Claim your business listing and ensure it is updated. This may sound obvious, but you would be surprised how many listings some businesses already have that they don’t even know exist or are outdated. Claiming the listing you want or that is the most accurate, will allow you to make updates on a regular basis which is very important within the eyes of the local and larger search engines.
• Select the most appropriate categories for your business listing. In most cases you are given several options and can choose more than one category. Make sure you don’t select too many categories as this can dilute the significance of your listing for the most appropriate and relevant categories; however, you also don’t want to select too few categories as this may make it difficult for potential customers to locate your business when searching.
• Include important product and/or service keywords related to your business within the title of your listing. This will not only help increase your rankings within the search engines, but also make your listing stand-out amongst the competition.

Similarly to optimizing a website, optimization of local business listings can take time and involves several more factors than the ones listed above, but starting with these few tips will help start your listing in the right direction.