That means you have to constantly do networking.

Here’s an example of a networking tool that has great potential for local business. We’ve just developed a site called AgentMapIt.com aimed at providing real estate agents with a place to network with other real estate agents across Canada and the US – real estate agent networking.

AgentMapIt uses Google Maps to locate agents. Search for your town, state or province and you’ll see where the agents you’re looking for are located right there on the interactive map.

Click on an agent marker and you’ll be taken to the real estate agent’s profile featuring all the important information about this agent – testimonials, contact information and in some cases even a profile video.

To help subscribing agents network with other agents, AgentMapIt.com has networking tools built right in. Click on the “Contact” link and you can send an email message. No hunting around for contact information. It’s all right there. In fact you can do this without even logging in – a big hassle with most social networking sites.

And in the next revision of the program you will be able to click on the “Network” link and start building your own private network with agents of your choice. You’ll even be able to send a special email message to every agent in the sytem. Now that’s networking!

Now just imagine the application of this set of tools to local business networking. Say there was a similar website for your town where local business people could join and create profiles for themselves. You need to find an accountant, so you just go to the map, do a search for accountants and up comes the locations of several accounts in town. Same goes for lawyers, real estate agents, financial advisors, mortgage brokers, marketing people, web designers, restaurants, home renovators, etc., etc., etc.

Now say you want to form your own local business network – a circle of acquaintances with the same business objective: to share business opportunities and referrals with each other. So you do a search for members in each category, and as you find someone you think you’d like to network with, you invite them to join your little private network.

Say you want your private network to include just one member in each relevant category: one accountant, one lawyer, one web designer, one printer, one financial advisor, one insurance agent, one real estate agent, one restaurant owner (for dinner meetings of course)…

Can you think of an easier or more effective way of doing it that with a program like Agentmapit.com – I’m not talking about AgentMapIt.com itself. I’m talking about an adaptation of this program just to local networking.

Now wouldn’t that be a great tool for local business? Well, with any luck we’ll have just such a tool available over the next couple of months. Contact me if you’re interested.

Since so many local businesses have traditionally relied on advertising media like the Yellow Pages to create a presence for their company, there now exists a very big opportunity to offer them web-based promotional services. Why? Because local search is gradually pulling ahead of local media as the “go to” source of information about local business.

The easiest way to offer web marketing services is to team up with us as an Affiliate. Sorry for the shameless plug, but I can’t think of any better advice to give. We’ve been targeting this market for a number of years, already have several marketing products and services in place, and offer healthy commissions. So in lieu of re-inventing the wheel, you might as well promote our services. It is a great way to get your new business going.

The most obvious place to begin offering web promotion services to local businesses is to create a local presence yourself. The first thing you will need is a web page promoting your local business web marketing services. If you already have a website, then you can simply add a page or two describing the web marketing services you provide.

What web marketing services are we talking about: website and blog building, link building, advertising, email services, graphics, writing – whatever you can dream up that local businesses might be interested in buying.

If you don’t have a website of your own, you should create some web pages using some of the free resources available to you. Some of the best ones to use are WordPress.com, Squidoo.com, and Hubpages.com

Step by Step Instructions for Creating Web Pages

Creating the actual pages is relatively easy, it is the “content” that is a bit harder. By “content” we mean the descriptive text, images, videos, and other materials used to describe the service. We have provided some basic content here. The Local Web Marketing Kit will be available sometime around December 15/08 and will include all the materials you will need to create web pages, blog posts, Squidoo pages, Hub pages, and more.

Creating a Page Within Your Own Website

If you already have a website you are probably using a specific design template when you add pages. If that is the case, all you need is some good descriptive copy, an image or two, and your affiliate link to the Linknet site where the web promotion and web design products can be ordered.

If you need a basic template for a web page, you can get one here.