‘Local Search’ a new twist on a not so new concept.

Reports on the ever increasing usage of the Internet and specifically search engines by consumers for ‘local information’ make it sound like looking for a source of supply for goods or services in one’s backyard is something new. Clearly we’d rather find an auto repair shop across town rather than across the country. The revelation is not necessarily in the consumer behavior but rather the options which we as marketers have now to attract new buyers who are conducting a ‘Local Search’.

Traditional yellow pages publishers have recognized this by taking their century old product and putting it online in the form of Internet Yellow Pages. In most cases, you still need to select from a predetermined category (Physicians, Auto Dealers, Restaurants, etc.) as compared to determining your own category in the form of a keyword search as in the case of one such IYP.

Paid search strategies can be much more cost effective and productive when geo targeted (Akron auto repair shop) whether or not an advertiser is local or national. Why? Because matching marketing strategies to consumers’ evolving behavior on the Internet continues to garner the most successful results.

Accordingly the Local Search evolution (not quite a revolution) is also giving rise to newly created solutions for advertisers (large or small) to make certain their businesses accurately appear in the Local Search Results sections of the search engines and directories. Local results appearing as the first natural results make it an extremely desirable location to appear from a marketing perspective.

A small electronics dealer with a local business who might otherwise be unable to compete with the dollars and online presence of a national chain may still be included at the top of the search engines’ results by appearing within the Local Results page. Figuring out how to get there however may not be as easy as it seems, or is it?

As with any media come the proliferation of value added products and services, (can you say XM Radio, TiVo, and Search Engine Optimization firms?). As such as an industry we have created new programs which can automatically distribute a local business’ information across to the data providers of the search engines, therefore including the business within the Local Search Results and helping them compete locally within their own market. One such local search service, even provides a business with a single page web page so even if you don’t have a website, you can still appear on the Internet and compete with the big dogs.

Platforms such as Local Search and services such as www.MyLocalProfile.com, which help companies big and small to compete will continue to help to even the playing field that is the Internet as a marketing platform. More importantly they will continue to increase the quality of the information which consumers will find when searching for a “Bathroom remodeling contractor in Greenwich, CT’.

To learn more about how you can get your business in the search engines’ “Local Search” results visit MyLocalProfile.