When talking about the online marketing trends for 2010, most marketers have predicted location trends will be the future! Location-based Internet marketing is of great importance both for your search engine optimisation and social media marketing strategy.

Using location-based Internet marketing in search engine marketing strategy has become very important for businesses these days. Location-based navigation is greatly used among search engines and mobile device makers. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing are already using location features as to help you narrow down the results to the searcher’s country. They are looking to localize Web searching as to make it more relevant for the searcher and draw more regional advertising. It is also predicted that GIS Latitude and Longitude coordinates within web sites will soon become an absolute necessity for everyone performing e-commerce via the Internet.

Location-based Internet marketing is becoming increasingly important also for your social media marketing strategy! Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. Yelp. WordPress. YouTube. Foursquare. Gowalla. Myspace. Constant Contact. They are all content-generating platforms that focus to some extent on location features. Facebook allows you to be part of a location-based networked (e.g. London, New York) and to search people based on their location. LinkedIn also allows you to specify your location as to make it possible for professionals from the same region to search you. The location feature is available for most social networks and they are all working as to improve it!

Two of the social networks which have taken their location-based feature to a new level, are Twitter and Foursquare. At the very beginning of 2010 Twitter introduced a location trend feature that allows users to follow local trending topics on Twitter. It is a great way to find out what people are talking about around the world and has got a great feedback from users.

Another social network that specialises on the use of location is Foursquare. Identified by Mashable as ‘the future Twitter’, Foursquare is a location-based service based on your Twitter network with an added layer of social game play.

Importance of Foursquare for Businesses:

* Use it to explore your neighbourhood and then reward people for doing so. It combines their friend-finder and social city guide elements.
* Use it as a game mechanics – users can earn points, win mayorships and unlock badges for trying new places and revisiting old favourites.

Location-based Internet marketing is one of the hottest trends at the moment and can be used very effectively by both small and larger businesses. When designing your social media marketing strategy and search engine marketing strategy, this new feature should be included. Please share with us your experience with location-based Internet marketing! We look forward to reading your opinions!

When using social media marketing for your business, the first and most important element is your website.

Your website or landing page is the first contact your potential customer has with you after finding you through your social marketing campaign. To reduce your visitors clicking off the page, use these three guidelines:

First- Think simple and free of clutter

Just like your desk, if your website is packed pull of unorganized and random elements… clean it up quickly.

Most of the time visitors to your site will judge your page within 3 seconds and either decide to stay or leave. Having a cluttered site makes it hard for your visitor to find out if you have what they are looking for. Always make it easier for your web visitor to find exactly the information you are providing without having to click all over the place.

Also, make sure to guide your web visitor in the direction they need to be going. For instance if there is information about different types of information, give them a choice like “If you are looking for dental insurance, click here… for motorcycle insurance, click here.” Making it simple helps them find what they need quickly and reduces the chance of them leaving early.

Second – Avoid big filed graphics and animations

Your web visitors will be coming to your site from various different platforms, computers, and internet speeds. If you load up your site with large graphic files or processor heavy animations, you limit the amount of people that can view your site.

These days, many people use their phone and other mobile devices to quickly find information or a merchant and you don’t want to restrict their access. Flashy sites are for winning agency awards, not for doing business. Keep it simple and light.

If you need help building a site, don’t worry about having to learn HTML, CSS or Java. Use simple but powerful web building software like Weebly or WordPress and you’ll have a very a nice looking site that will do more than you need for running a business.

Third – Tell your visitor what to do

The call to action is the most important step you need to have in your website or any other marketing piece you have. It tells your reader, “Look, to get your cavity fixed, pick up your phone, call 555-1234 right now and end the pain immediately!” While that might sound simple or obvious, you would be surprised the difference having a line like that makes.

Be sure to have clear, simple directions on what to do to contact you or how to request more information at the end of every page you have online or in print. You will quickly see a jump in your response.

Having a website for your social media marketing is vital. But don’t let it overwhelm you, it can be as simple as clicking a few buttons and writing some basic descriptions if you use the resources mentioned above. If you already have a website for your small business, go through it and make sure you’re keeping it simple and clean as discussed in the first steps.

Many people out there are looking for a quick start to internet marketing. I understand. You know being online and marketing yourself with blogging, internet marketing and social networking is essential, but you don’t know the best way to go about it, and you have a million questions.

This massive access to information causes what’s called “paralysis by analysis”. In other words, we’re so fixated on learning what we need to do, we fail to act. This is death for business. You need to act, but you don’t want to screw things up.

So here is a quick start to internet marketing checklist that will give you what you need to get started. It contains a little philosophy and a few specific actions that will get you off and running. There is a lot of value in knowing you’re starting off on the right foot, so I hope this helps.

Quick Start to Internet Marketing

1. Make the decision that your focus is going to be building a real business…or extending your existing business. Do not allow your sole focus to be making money. If your focus is on building a real business, creating a good reputation and brand and creating value for others, it’s hard to screw things up. It’s when we decide to focus solely on making money that we start doing crappy, spammy things that we will regret later…and that will not do us any good. This is the first step, and it’s easy. Just decide that your focus is going to be on creating value for your customers, not just selling stuff. With that, you have already cleared half the hurdles. Believe it or not, it really is that simple!
2. Start a blog. Don’t over think it. Don’t dwell on it for more than five minutes. Pick a platform, and fire it up. If you want my specific advise, I recommend using WordPress, and I recommend having a professional set it up for you. Any number of professionals can do it for you. WordPress can easily be search engine optimized, and it is highly extensible. Some of the most successful blogs on the internet use WordPress, and for good reason. That said, it’s more important to have a blog than it is to make absolutely certain that every detail is perfect. Your blog will serve as the hub of everything you do to market yourself online. It is your home. You need a place to hang your hat. You need a blog.
3. Post to your blog regularly. The more you blog, the more you will learn. The most important thing is to get started. This can be made very complicated if you want it to be, but it can also be simple. It is not rocket science, and if you put in the effort you will learn everything you need to know simply by doing it. You get out what you put in. Again, if you’re focusing on creating value for your customers, your blog will be on target.
4. Get on Facebook and Twitter. Are there other social networks? Heck yes there are. Is there value in checking them out and learning about them? Heck yes. But this is a quick start to internet marketing guide, right? So let’s keep it simple. The fact is that Facebook is huge, and Twitter is massively important and an indispensable tool. You can do a lot of damage with just these two. Just as with blogging, use them regularly. An inactive profile is worthless to you. Just like if you leave your house unattended…it will deteriorate over time, this is true for your internet property as well. You have to maintain it for it to grow and remain valuable. Use your social networking profiles for being social and meeting people. Sure, link out to your blog posts and such, but keep the content you produce 99% social. Believe it or not, people know you sell widgets even if you don’t tell em. It’s linked up on your page, see? So they know already. You don’t have to tell them every five minutes. Meet people and concentrate on getting to know and learning from others with similar interests. After doing this for a while, you will start to get these mysterious messages in your inbox. They will be coming from people who have visited your site and are interested in what you’re selling, and you’ll wonder where all this magical activity is coming from. Some of it’s coming from Twitter, believe it or not. And it will have all happened without you having to hard sell anyone. This stuff works really well, if you work it. Let it take time. It’s fun anyway, so why turn it into hard work?
5. Let it take some time. Like I mentioned in the previous step, this stuff doesn’t happen instantly. One thing about internet marketing is that people often expect immediate results. I’m not sure why that is. It must come from a misconception about what’s happening. When you give someone a business card at a social event, do you expect them to buy something from you right there on the spot? No. You meet 28 people that night, and 9 of them call you back over the next few weeks. You build it from there. This is how it works. Social networking has become confused with being this new phenomenon, and we think it’s complicated. It’s not. Social networking is people with common interests hanging out, talking. This has been going on for ages. It’s how business is done. And building a business takes time.
6. Read and learn. Study what you’re doing. Read other blogs. Look at other websites, especially within the same field as you’re working. Never stop this. Learning and stealing ideas from your competitors is another age old business principle that is not ever going to go away. Use it to your advantage.
7. Don’t quit. Be consistent. Things take time. As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day.