The beauty about running a local business website is you can do all the things that other businesses can do, except that you do them on a local level.

What I mean is this: You are trying to rank your business higher for your keywords just like any other business. The only difference is you are doing it on a local level. That means that local search engine optimization is just like any other search engine optimization. The key is to choose words that your local community would use.

If you sell tractors and farm equipment, for instance, would people local to you call them tractors and farm equipment or would they refer to every piece of machinery as “John Deer?” The idea is to use the terminology that people in your community would use. That’s the best way to perform local search engine optimization.

When it comes to local advertising online you have a lot of resources available to you. As a local small business owner with a small budget, you have to watch where your dollars and time go. There’s no way around it. So which resources should you focus on? That’s a question that many small business owner want an answer to.

It’s a legitimate question, but there’s no easy answer. How you advertise your local business online depends on a number of factors: Your geography, the type of business you run, the cost of the advertising, your budget. These are just a few of the factors you should consider. But I would suggest that you start with all the free promotional tools at your disposal before you pay for anything. Exhaust those advertising opportunities then you can better judge what is working and what is not working and go from there.

• Google Local Submissions
• Yahoo! Local Sumissions
• Don’t leave out MSN and Ask
• Search Engine Optimization (of course)
• Local directories
• Reciprocal links from like sites, especially local businesses

This is where you should start, but not by any means is it the end of your local online advertising campaign. If you want a full evaluation of your local online advertising possibilities, with a report on how you can make local advertising online pay for your company, then give Brick Marketing a call. We can steer you in the right direction.