A recent improvement was noticed on the Superpages site recently. Apparently, when you log in or search for a specific area, you will be shown local events for that region. This is a whole new facet of information for Superpages and could be extremely useful to those who are using it to find a business and are also interested in local events.

How can you use this for your local business? You need to set up an event. That´s it. Whether you have a concert or a special party or any other big event, you want it to be something that draws attention to your business, but offers something to the community.

Once you have your event in place, make sure it gets listed on American Towns, which is where Superpages is receiving the information on local events. This feed could be invaluable to small business owners who are hosting a local event. It is definitely another area to explore if you want to get some extra publicity. Not to mention, a local event is often very popular among the residents who just notice fliers, as well!

Many people not only want to rank well in local online advertising for their local keyword phrases, they want to do well and get lots of visitors for their general keywords as well. For example, you may be number one in Google for “Chicago sweat socks”, which doesn´t have a lot of competition, but ranking well for just “sweat socks” isn´t going to be very easy.

It can actually be a lousy idea to try and do well in local online advertising with a general phrase when you are a local business. Sure, you will end up with a lot of extra traffic, but keep in mind that you will also not be able to convert the majority of it. People who are doing general searches on sweat socks are going to be looking for information, rather than where to buy them.

When it comes to local online advertising, you don´t want to pay more than you have to and aiming for nation wide searches is going to cost you. Stick to local phrases instead to get the most value for your money and to gain more real customers.

The Yellow Pages aren´t going anywhere, according to a recent press release by the company. Both online and offline versions of the Yellow Pages have been doing well and there is certainly no sign of either one dying out anytime soon, according the press release.

“The Yellow Pages medium is still a go-to resource for ready-to-buy consumers. Overall Yellow Pages usage increased in 2007 as Internet use continues to grow and print usage stabilizes,” said Neg Norton, president of YPA, which represents a $31 billion Yellow Page industry worldwide. “Combined with a 27:1 average sales ROI for national display advertisers (1), the Yellow Pages in all formats is a ‘must-buy’ medium for advertisers of all sizes.”

The Yellow Pages print version was still being used by 87% of the population in 2007, meaning that it is still a very popular advertising medium. While more and more people are using the internet to do searches, it is obvious that print is still pretty commonly used, as well. This past year, though, online Yellow Pages visitors went up by 16%, so that is also a good place to advertise for businesses of all sizes.

With so much upheaval lately in all areas of local advertising, it´s good to know that there is a consistent area, the Yellow Pages, to both use for local advertising, both online and off, as well as research.

Citysearch recently did a deal with Marchex that could really end up benefiting local advertisers with Citysearch. Here´s the lowdown from their press release.

Under the agreement, Citysearch will provide its content, including editorial and user reviews, promotions, images and video for distribution on Marchex’s local network of more than 150,000 local Web sites, including Openlist.com, Yellow.com and geo-targeted sites such as chicagodoctors.com. Marchex will distribute advertisements from Citysearch’s broad base of local advertisers across its local network, which attracts more than 26 million unique users monthly.

“We are partnering with Marchex because we like their unique local strategy where they have built a broad and deep network of highly targeted local sites such as Openlist.com and NewYorkDoctors.com,” said Jay Herratti, CEO, Citysearch. “Marchex’s local network will drive highly qualified consumers to our advertisers, and in turn Citysearch user and editorial content will help Marchex consumers make smarter decisions that save time and money.”

If you are advertising with Citysearch in their local network, you could shortly be seen by an additional 26 million people per month. That could make a huge difference, even for businesses with a lot of competition for their local searchers. It´s definitely something to consider.

Citysearch has been making a lot of effort lately to provide more value, to users and advertisers alike. They seem to be doing a very good job of it and Citysearch is rapidly becoming a major player in the local advertising game.

Local pay per click is often criticized by those who don´t know how to use it correctly. They fret that the leads are worthless and you still have to pay for them. However, there are more ways to measure leads than actual sales or bookings on your website. It´s very possible that someone would click on your local pay per click ad and then call you or arrive at your brick and mortar location. However, there are a few techniques to help you gain real conversions that are worth paying for.

• Pick a target market. Effective local pay per click ads will be aimed at a specific person. Making your ad all appealing will only result in useless clicks from people who didn´t realize what it was about.

• Use more than one keyword or phrase. Not all your potential clients will be searching for the exact same word, so go with all keywords that fit your category to make sure you can catch those who are using more obscure search terms.

• Create landing pages. This is not necessarily your home page and you may have more than one landing page, depending on whether you are advertising different products or services.

• Track. Tracking is so important. Without it, you simply won´t know how effective your local pay per click campaign is. So, keep track of which ad gets how many clicks and how many people were returning customers. It will help you plan out your next local pay per click ad campaign.

Local online advertising has many facets, one of which is to exclude IPs that are not in your area. However, depending on your business, this could be a major mistake! You need to think about where your visitors are coming from and whether they are actually in your local area or not.

A very good example of when local online advertising at a national level is a good idea is when you have a hospitality based business, particularly in a busy location like Kissamee, Florida. If you limit your online ad campaign to only those in the state of Florida, you will be missing out on a lot of valuable visitors who may be coming from other parts of the country. It´s a good idea not to lock these potential customers out of your ad campaigns.

Local online advertising can be a great way to reach those interested in your services who are coming from out of town. This is actually one of the best ways to reach them. Obviously, this technique will not be suitable for every industry. If you are running a dry clean shop, you probably want to advertise only to locals with your local online advertising campaign. However, for those with a hospitality service, hotels, restaurants, tours, etc. this could be the ideal method of bringing in new customers.

It looks like Google local maps is now allowing users to sort their results by ratings. This was reported by Mike over at Understanding Google Maps and Yahoo Local Search. You can see screen shot examples of this new feature on his blog.

There has been much discussion in the local community about the impact of reviews and review star rating on local rankings. In research done last year, it seemed that the quantity of reviews had significantly more impact on ranking than the quality of reviews.Recently however Google Maps has added a new option in Maps Text View mode that allows searchers to limit listings by the quality ratings, at least in certain highly reviewed categories like restaurants and hotels.

What does this mean for your local business? Start getting satisfied customers to go online and give you a smoking review! Most people are going to be looking for the best of the best, so they´ll be clicking most often on the four star reviews, which means you need to get your rankings up there in order to show up on the refined search!

Making sure that your happy customers are willing to give you a good review is just the beginning. You have to make them happy, too! Offer great service, great prices and they´ll start writing you up and giving you higher ratings that will in turn boost your ranking on Google Local Maps.

Citysearch has been a good place to get your business listing for some time now, but these days, they are experimenting with video, which could be a very good thing for local businesses. Right now, there is a contest going on, in conjunction with the website Vimeo. The contest, titled “Love at First Bite” is Citysearch´s first attempt at getting user-generated content up on their site.

The Citysearch video contest is a great way to check out how much interest there is in the video side of things. For the Love at First Bite contest, entrants need to take a short, less than 30 second video of themselves taking a bite of their favorite food. Because the video clips are super short, this makes them an excellent method of testing.

And the best part of all this? The winner of the Citysearch video contest in association with Vimeo will win a $1,000 American Express card! While the idea is to use it on your favorite food, this could go a long ways with a local advertising campaign online!

Yahoo has been popping up in the media a lot lately, but that hasn´t hurt the Yahoo Local brand . . . in fact, now is just a good a time as any to get your business listed. In fact, it might even be best to do it now, since we have no idea how the rules of submission will change once the company is sold, which experts agree is definitely going to happen at some point.

It´s very easy to get listed in the Yahoo Local directory. Simply head over to http://listings.local.yahoo.com and you can fill out the form to give all your business information, which will then be put into the Yahoo Local directory and show up on any maps that are shown. This can be a huge benefit because Yahoo still gets a good chunk of traffic, even with Google overshadowing the search engine market.

Having your business listing pop up when someone is searching on Yahoo Local is great. If you are on the map, your chances of being visited are far higher, since most people gravitate to those maps when they do a search. It´s easier for surfers because they can see at a glance where you are located and pick the business closest to them.

Yahoo Local listings can really help boost your traffic, particularly if you are featured on the maps. If you haven´t listed your business there yet, then go do it now. It literally takes a couple of minutes and you can have everything up and running and start boosting your traffic levels and hopefully your local customer levels, too!  This is another solution to your local advertising efforts!

You hear about local pay per click a lot these days and more and more people are turning to it . . . but you also hear a lot of horror stories! People relate how they ended up spending thousands of dollars for a keyword that didn´t give them a single sale or how they ended up in a bidding war over a single keyword. It´s enough to scare anyone out of trying local pay per click.

There is a lot to be said for local pay per click, but you really do need to be careful about jumping in. Make sure you research first and get a good idea of how things work before you start throwing more and more money at your local pay per click campaign.

Setting a budget can really help. If you know how much money you can afford to spend on local advertising in a given month, divide it up by 30 days for the month and you have your daily local pay per click budget. Make sure that you read all the information on how to set this so you don´t have to stress out about going over your limit.

Local pay per click can work for you, if you take the time to actually study it. Don´t assume that you know how to run a successful campaign just because you have read a few articles on the topic. This can be a very powerful method, but only if you do it right.

When you are looking into local advertising, it is pretty easy to get sucked into all these free offers for publicity . . . but they aren´t always worth it. In fact, you may even find that the so-called free advertising that you have signed up for is really a trick to get you to hand over your email. Sure, your ad will go up, but no one will ever see it! Here are a few common, local online advertising schemes to avoid.

Traffic Exchanges. We´ve all seen these “you click, you get clicks” deals. They aren´t as great as they sound. First of all, you usually have to click on something like ten ads to get yours up to the top of the list. However, it will quickly be moved down, so you won´t really gain a lot of traffic from this method. Meanwhile, you´ll be getting dozens of emails to the address you signed up with . . . from the PAYING clients.

Link Farms. These aren´t as common anymore, but they do still exist. Basically, you put your link on a page along with dozens of other links . . . not only does this make your business pretty much invisible, it also causes problems with search engines who tend to punish those who use this tactic.

Too Good to be True. You know the ones I´m talking about. The ads that say something like “10,000 visitors for FREE!” Depending on the scam, there will be various requirements. You may need to “sign up” with a credit card, or buy a certain amount of advertising for a higher price in order to receive the free visitors . . . or it may just be a ploy to get your email.

Free is not always a good thing. While it´s nice not to have to pay for local online advertising, you will find that it is not a good idea to just go with free stuff. As the old saying goes, “there´s no such thing as a free lunch!”

The number one reason to use Google Local search is simply because everyone else is. This isn´t a peer pressure thing, it´s just going where the business is. If you have a business, you need to be using Google Local or you´re missing out on a lot of traffic which could be converted into potential clients.

Google local maps are particularly useful these days with all their new features, namely the listing of up to 10 local businesses. For example, if you look up “Las Vegas restaurants”, you´ll end up with Google local map in the first position, along with a list of restaurants that are doing business in Las Vegas. For any local company, this is a great new feature. If you weren´t at the top of the list before, you probably didn´t get a lot of traffic, despite the “more businesses” link. Not many people noticed this link, which is probably why Google switched to multiple listings.

The businesses that are featured on Google local maps are getting number one placement automatically . . . something that we all know is very good. If your website is listed further down on the page of search results, you are really doing well! You can get twice as many hits as before with this new Google local setup. So, what´s stopping you? Get listed today. It’ll go well with your local advertising efforts.

Like every type of technology, the internet took some time to become the common method of finding information. These days local search engine optimization is far more valuable than ever before, thanks to more of the general public using local searches to find what they want. In the past couple of years, the number of consumers who search online rather than in offline sources like the Yellow Pages has shot up.

In 2005, just 44% of consumers used the internet to find the products they were looking for . . . that has now grown to a whopping 63% now. On top of more consumers using the internet to search for their products, they are getting smarter and have learned how to use local search to improve the quality of results. Many are currently using a higher number of search terms than ever before. Whereas 18 months ago, only an average of 2 phrases were being used, this has now moved up to 4.5 phrases, resulting in far more specific results for the searches.

What does this mean for you, the advertiser, in terms of local search engine optimization? Well, it´s getting more important, so if you haven´t focused on local search engine optimization yet, then you definitely need to start working on it now. Even pages that are semi-optimized can be updated and made more search engine friendly. It´s worth doing this now, because with the amazing growth we´ve been seeing in the local advertising search results, you could be missing out on a lot of valuable traffic.

Local pay per click has great potential to drive targeted traffic to your business site, but it´s pretty easy to make mistakes. Here are a few of the most common ones and tips on how to fix them.

Local Pay Per Click Mistake: All ads point to your homepage.
This is a big no-no. You spend all this time looking for the right keywords, picking phrases that have lower competition so you will have a better chance of ranking well and then throw it all away by linking to an unrelated webpage? There are two reasons this is bad. One, potential clients are quick to click away if they don´t find the information promised in the ad immediately and two, search engines check to see how relevant your landing page is.

Fix It: Set a specific landing page for each keyword set.

Local Pay Per Click Mistake: You´re using too many keywords.
Can´t decide on which keyword to stick with so you put them all in? Bad idea. This will cause your ad to display further down the page than other more relevant ads that focus on just one or two major keywords.

Fix It: If you want more than one or two keywords, write a separate ad.

Local Pay Per Click Mistake: Your ads are showing up on contextual pages.
This isn´t always a bad thing. If you know what you are doing, you can really rake in some great clients from content sites, but for beginners it´s best to focus on search results instead, which will yield a far higher quality of traffic, resulting in more conversions.

Fix It: Turn the contextual ad option off for your ads.

Don´t fall prey to these common local pay per click errors. If you find yourself already making them, you can still change things around now, before you pay a lot for traffic that does you no good for your local advertising efforts!

Did you know that local search engine optimization is important when writing your press release? Press releases are generally thought of as something that is sent out to newspapers and radio stations, but these days you should be expanding your thinking and aiming for a bigger audience. Online news sites are often on the lookout for content and may even be willing to put up more content than a print medium.

Press releases that have local search engine optimization built in are more likely to appear in search engines and if you write them correctly, this could mean some major traffic for your site. However, there are a few things to keep in mind when focusing on local search engine optimization in your press releases.

• Find good keywords. You want keywords that will be easy to rank for, preferably ones that relate to your topic and have plenty of searches, but not a lot of competition. You can use an online keyword checker like Google´s AdWord Keyword Search or Wordtracker to help find the right keywords.

• Use your keywords wisely. Local search engine optimization doesn´t mean using your keywords every other word, that´s just going to get your press release banned. Instead, aim for about 1-3% keyword density, or 1-3 keywords per 100 words. Be sure to use them in context though, the readability of your press release is far more important than the SEO factor.

• Use keywords in the headline. To make your keywords stand out, you need to put them in the right places. Search engines place more importance on titles and headlines, so be sure to include the keyword or phrase in your press release title for best local search engine optimization results.

• Publish your own press release. Don´t just send it out to news sites, your local search engine optimized press release should be on your website as well. If you don´t already have one, set up a press/media page on your business site where you can put publicity photos and press releases.

Making sure that your press releases are SEO friendly will help you gain even more publicity for your business. Local search engine optimization techniques should be used wherever possible, especially if you are going to be distributing the content, such as with a press release.