With consumers going online more frequently to look for information about local businesses, online channels such as local search have emerged as affordable and effective places in which to advertise.

The first step in building your business’s online presence is to claim it on the local business listing sections of the major search engines. These sections allow you to list your local business for free. Local business listings (LBLs) are available through Google Local Business Center, Yahoo Local and Local Listing Center on Bing. Be sure to follow the business listing quality guidelines on each site. For example, search engines typically display local search results if the search query includes a regional term.

To optimize your LBLs, make sure to do the following:

• spend time on your business description;
• keep your business branding consistent;
• collect customer testimonials, ratings and reviews; and
• include photos, logos and videos where applicable.

Also, don’t just focus your business listings on ranking. Instead, think of them as a form of social media advertising. LBLs encourage customer reviews, so be sure to respond to customer feedback about your business when you get it. Use this information to improve your business image and customer relationships.

Another way to advertise your business online is to create listings on internet yellow pages and other local search sites. These listings help improve your rankings for LBLs on the major search engines, as well as help you capture a significant portion of the local search market.

Paid search
While LBLs are a good place to start, there’s no guarantee that your business listing will be displayed. Similarly, your range of control over your business’s local rankings is limited to standard LBL best practices. Therefore, paid search marketing is another tool for local businesses to use to establish online presences.

Paid search marketing is available on all major search engines through Google AdWords, Yahoo Sponsored Search and MSN adCenter.

In paid search, local businesses can target potential customers by bidding on specific search keywords and choosing how much they’re willing to pay for each ad click leading to a website visitor.

Paid search guarantees that your business is listed at or near the top of the search results at the very moment potential customers are looking for your product or service. Because costs are tied directly to your ad’s performance, paid search is an affordable and effective way to manage your local business’s online presence with greater control and accountability.

To establish an effective online presence, local businesses should take advantage of both LBLs and paid search.

While local search marketing requires time and investment, it’s an important medium to focus on as consumers continue to use online channels to search for local businesses.

Written by Daniel Owen, Vice President of LocalConnex, the local search division of Direct Agents.  This article was published in the eMarketing + Commerce’s newsletter: http://www.emarketingandcommerce.com/article/local-search-marketing-best-practices/1

Adoption rates of smartphones have opened the door for marketers, blurring the line between mobile and online marketing. According to an article from Advertising Age, consumers are moving away from using their mobile devices as just a means of communication. Instead this new wave of consumers are looking for phones with more features and increasing utility.

Approximately 68 Million people are mobile internet users. To put this number into perspective, 25% of mobile device users are mobile internet users, representing a fair percentage of the mobile market.

So how can online marketers benefit?
1) This group of smartphone users represents a large targetable market, with potential growth. Advertisers should utilize this market early so that they will not be struggling to catch up later on.
2) Think outside the box and develop creative advertising and placement. Phones are being used for everything from being a means to purchase an item to a substitute for a credit card. Create advertising and placements that really pop or have a wow factor.
3) Advertisers have the opportunity to reach customers wherever they are including at point-of-purchase. Keep your product or advertising salient so you stay top of mind.

Congratulations to Josh Boaz, our Managing Director and cofounder, for being named one of DMNews’ 30 Under 30. Josh co-founded the company with his brother Dinesh in 2003, while still in college. Through his leadership and innovation, Josh has helped the company build LocalConnex.com, a local search engine marketing division and ChoiceDegree, a consumer educational portal.  He has also expanded the technology team, improved client management systems and is spearheading the initiative to launch the company’s London office.

“I am honored to be recognized by DMNews as an innovator in the interactive marketing industry. I believe that the success of Direct Agents has come from our ability to build strong relationships with our clients and partners.” -Josh Boaz

To read more visit: http://www.dmnews.com/30-under-30/article/164177/

Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies which have traditionally spent their money on print media have slowly started to turn towards online advertising.  They have found that it is a great medium for branding and they are accelerating their testing and measurement of the ROI from online advertising.

In addition to branding, CPG manufactures are using the internet to distribute their coupons.  With the downturn of the economy, consumers are looking for ways to save money and overall coupon redemption has seen an increase for the first time in 14 years, according to an article in Advertising Age.

According to Comscore data, almost 40 million people visited a coupon site in November, up more than 40% in the past two years.  Top sites include Coupons.com (15 million monthly visitors in 2009), Eversave.com (7 million) and CoolSavings.com (5 million).

Since supermarkets have not seen the traffic to their website like other channel retailers have, they have begun offering their coupons on third-party sites that draw larger consumer traffic.

So what does this mean for affiliates and other online advertisers?
1) It means that consumers are still looking for discounts.  Therefore, campaigns that offer some form of discount or bonus offer are still attractive to customers who are still cash-strapped.
2) CPG’s and supermarkets are industries looking to get into the online market.  Take advantage of this growing area of potential clients!
3) Keep your eyes on emerging coupon based websites that can offer you great placement for your deals.

Google released this week Google Buzz, “a new way to start conversation about the things you find interesting.”  The system was built from scratch so it would integrate seamlessly with Gmail and allow Gmail users to share updates, photos, videos and links either privately to their existing email contact database or publicly.

Google Buzz attacked Twitter’s weaknesses and this could be the start of infiltration into Microsoft’s stronghold in the enterprise market.  Since Buzz delivers messages straight to a users Gmail inbox, there will be no need for dedicated platforms such as TweetDeck and Seesmic.  In addition, businesses will be highly attracted to Google if they are able to successfully execute Gmail, Google Apps and Buzz into Android and Chrome mobile platforms.  If this happens then it may give people a reason to abandon Microsoft Office and move to Google Apps, thereby really hurting Microsoft’s core business.

With this announcement, Google has changed the digital landscape.  They have provided publishers, affiliates, and networks new revenue streams to those that are willing to be pioneers in this new landscape.

What do you think of Google Buzz?  Is this the end of Twitter and the downfall of Microsoft?  We would love to hear your thoughts.

View from the Direct Agents’ office!

Guest Writer: Sean Cheyney, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, AccuQuote

Insurance offers have been around almost as long as affiliate marketing has existed. Auto and health insurance offers were first to the game, and have endured success with relatively low payouts due to their universal consumer appeal. Life insurance offers, on the other hand, came into the fray a little later. These offers, such as the ones from AccuQuote, drive consumers through a life insurance quoting funnel similar to what we’ve seen from other types of insurance. The difference is that life insurance, unlike auto insurance, targets a smaller population. Therefore, it yields much higher payouts in order to keep pace with the eCPM’s generated by other types of offers. These higher payouts represent a huge opportunity for savvy affiliates that understand how to drive the “right” audience to the offer. The key to success is to understand the “secret sauce” that works for the life insurance broker, as well as for you, the affiliate.

As a life insurance brokerage, we spend a lot of time understanding our audience composition, analyzing ad campaign performance, and identifying what a good customer looks like. When we find an affiliate that drive a higher percentage of customers rather than leads that don’t buy, we latch on and find ways to make it even more profitable for these affiliates. So, what do life insurance brokers like AccuQuote look for?

One of the biggest areas that we look at is audience demographics. Every life insurance broker / company is going to vary a little in terms of their sweet spot, but in general we look for the following demographics:

-    Ages 30-65
-    Married with children
-    Homeowners
-    Annual Household incomes over $75,000

In order to create the win/win scenario, it’s not just about what the life insurance company wants. It’s about what you need from a life insurance partner in order to have success with the offer. I recommend asking these questions to potential life insurance advertiser partners:

-    What resources do you have to develop creatives outside of what’s already in the cookie cutter program?
-    Do you have rich media content (flash, video, widgets, articles, calculators, etc…) and/or ads that are currently available or can be developed?
-    How long does it take your legal department to approve new creatives that are either created by you or by an affiliate partner?
-    Are you willing to increase the affiliate payout if the leads are converting well for you and driving a strong ROI?

Boiling it down, if you’re able to deliver the right customer for the your life insurance partner, and they can give you what you need to make the relationship a win/win situation, everyone involved will be smiling all the way to the bank.

To sign up for the AccuQuote Affiliate Contest on the Direct Agents Performance Network please click here!

Sean Cheyney is responsible for spearheading the overall growth and direction of AccuQuote’s marketing initiatives, channel development, strategic partnerships, emerging media platforms, brand image, and customer acquisition through both online and offline advertising.
A California native, Cheyney resides in Northbrook, Ill., and holds a bachelor’s degree in criminology, law, and society from the University of California-Irvine.

Microsoft caved to European pressure to tighten their consumer privacy policies. Previously, Microsoft Bing kept consumers’ search data, including Internet Protocol address associated with search queries, in its system for 18 months. Now, Microsoft will shorten that time to just six months. Google on the other hand, stores Internet protocol addresses which can be used to identify the computer used for searches for nine months and then deletes all cookies after 18 months. They have not announced any changes to their policy.

Microsoft will be introducing the changes over the next 18 months as they aim to please a European advisory group that was critical of how search engines collect and retain data on individuals for advertising purposes. Originally, Microsoft was waiting to make these changes with the rest of the search engine industry, but now they are acting unilaterally and are calling on their rivals, like Google and Yahoo, to follow suit.

Google claims that in order to improve search quality and online fraud, such as companies artificially increasing the cost of online advertising, they need to keep queries for nine months. In the meantime, Microsoft is convinced that they can maintain their standard of search quality and fight fraud within the six month proposed time frame.

“Search engines and digital media providers, will continue to be affected by governments since it is such a new industry and rules have not been set. As time goes on and lessons are learned, changes will be implemented” said Daniel Owen, VP of LocalConnex, a local search engine marketing division of Direct Agents.