As you may already know, a major announcement was recently made in the Internet marketing world—that of an alliance between Yahoo and Microsoft in an attempt to create more competition for Google.

Kutenda Has Your Back
Part of the value that Kutenda brings to our partners is to act as a source of ongoing education about Internet marketing trends that you and your clients should be aware of. In that spirit, I’d like to let you know how we believe the Yahoo and Microsoft partnership will impact you, our Kutenda partners, and your customers.

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The current rage—the whiz-bang, change-the-world way to market your business—is social media.

Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, you could spend your entire day being lured into it all. And there are many bloggers and business consultants out there touting the big benefits to social media. They’ll tell you that if you’re not using social media, you’re missing the boat.

There certainly are benefits to social media, but let’s be clear—its not the big solution to the problem that is paramount in your mind—How the heck do I drive more traffic, close more deals and make my business thrive?

That’s not to say that some small businesses aren’t successful using social media tools to help market their businesses. The New York Times recently published a story about a few small businesses using Twitter to alert people about deals, specials, etc. And, I know of a few small businesses here in Colorado that are using Facebook and Twitter to stay in touch with customers. Here’s the thing though: All of them have a web site where they are hoping to drive traffic to. They use social media as one way to drive that traffic.

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Yesterday I was showing a copywriter friend about Google Local so she could write about it for us here at Kutenda (Did you know that our Online Marketing Suite will be a big help for companies marketing locally? Yup). I did a typical search that an average consumer might do. I searched for “pizza” here in Broomfield, Colorado, where our offices are.

Here’s what came up in the map results:

#1 result in Google Local - a local pizza joint

Look, the top result is a single-shop, local owned pizza place (they really do have good pizza, too). In the local results, its beating out Dominos, Papa Johns and BlackJack and other big wig pizza-pumping machines.

Local search continues to grow in importance, which just means to you – local or regional business owner – that you have better ways to harness your Internet marketing efforts more effectively. That you do have the opportunity to beat out that 900-lb gorilla in your business area, if you have the right tools to make it happen.

Here’s one easy thing you can do today to raise your profile on Google: Claim and fill out your Google Profile. Google is now giving individuals the ability to control how you look when someone searches for you in Google. This is for your personal profile, but you can also include links to things you’re involved in (like your company blog, for example).

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• HOWTO: Make yourself more visible online by building a Google Profile (dougbelshaw.com)