Yahoo local listings now have the chance to be seen even more since the internet giant recently signed a deal with LiveDeal which will give those local advertisers who have hung in there more exposure. With all the recent upheaval that Yahoo has been going through, some advertisers may be a bit wary of jumping in with local online advertising via Yahoo local ads. But with deals like this one, Yahoo is proving that it is still very valuable to those investing in publicity with them.

It´s hard to say exactly what will happen with Yahoo Local, but many are speculating that they are running out of options. Some of the top people in the industry believe that Microsoft still has some tricks up their sleeve, so it should be interesting to see where this goes in the next few months.

In the meantime, if you are advertising with Yahoo local ads, you can now enjoy having them appear on LiveDeal as well as other websites that Yahoo has deals with. The value of this is great for anyone using Yahoo local to place their search driven ads. This most recent contract would seem to indicate that Yahoo is continuing to look ahead and is hopeful that they will be able to make things right again.

Superpages has become well known as the online resource for local advertising and finding local business information. Despite this, there are some who say that Superpages is on its way out . . . could this be true? The online Yellow Pages is something that many people have found to be a natural extension of the print Yellow Pages and advertising on both is something that can really help you expand your market.

Superpages may not be a necessity, but at the same time, it is definitely where people go to find local information on businesses in their area. If someone is looking for a pizzeria in their area, Superpages is the perfect place to look. Despite naysayers, this website has also seen steady growth over the years as more and more people turn to the internet to find vital information.

You may not desperately need Superpages, but it´s a good idea to get as much publicity as possible and when you have the option of being included in one of the largest local online business directories, it´s a good idea to take it. Your business certainly can´s suffer from being listed where thousands of people search every single day!

Local pay per click can be a great way to advertise your business or website, but it is also easy to end up with messy keyword lists and confusing amounts of ads. The best way to combat this is to simply make sure that you have everything neat and organized. There are a few ways to go about this.

• Eliminate inactive keywords. Often, you´ll find that certain keywords just aren´t working for your local pay per click campaign. Get rid of these, since they are just cluttering up your keyword list.

• Test and delete. You should be testing new ads, that´s a given, but when you find that one is just not working, get rid of it. It can be very confusing to look at a list of local pay per click ads and not remember which ones were keepers!

• Check new trends. There are constantly new trends on the search engines, so stay abreast of these and get rid of anything that is considered old-fashioned and useless. Your local pay per click advertising account should be nice and clean.

Keeping your local pay per click advertising account nice and neat and organized means less costly mistakes. You need to make sure you get rid of keyword lists that don´t work for you and eliminate lesser functioning ads. This will keep everything working smoothly and you´ll never get confused as to which ads you need to be using.

Local search engine optimization is an excellent way to boost your rankings in the search engines, a very valuable way to get more free publicity for your business and website. In fact, if your website is ranked in the first two or three search results for your chosen keyword phrases, you could end up with hundreds more clients!

Placement of the keywords is very important. The search engines will only be looking at the first few words for important key phrases. In general, you want your keywords to be in the first 15 words of the website. Keep in mind that if you have a title on your site or a tag line, those will pop up first, so include the keywords in those, if at all possible.

Using your keywords in your titles will really help as well, and not just your visible titles. Using the titles on your images and links will help boost your ranking for these keywords as well. It´s a good idea to switch things up a bit, having the same keyword everywhere might make the search engines a bit suspicious.

Local search engine optimization is something that can really help your business make it to the top, so it´s worth putting some time and effort into it and making sure that you have done everything possible to move your website into the top search results.

Local online advertising can get expensive pretty quickly if you aren´t careful. Perhaps one of the best options is to simply look for advertising opportunities on local websites. You will find that any town or city has at least a few smaller websites and these can be excellent places for local online advertising.

Do a few searches on Google and see which websites come up. You can then contact the owners of each website or check their advertising pages and find out how to advertise with them. Most small websites won´t have many offers for local online advertising, so they should be happy to give you some space, or a text link.

Local online advertising via websites in your town is a great way to get fairly economical publicity. These websites will already be locally geared and you know where they appear on the major search engines, so all you have to do is write them. Your ads will be appearing on very targeted websites that people are checking out locally. Don´t forget to include blogs in your search, since there will be even more of these than there are websites.

Local search engine optimization is something that every local business with a website should take very seriously. Local online advertising can only get you so far . . . you need your website to come up in search results, too. This can bring in a lot of traffic that you would otherwise miss, but it is important to aim for more than one search term.

Using just one keyword phrase in local search engine optimization could mean that you lose out on a lot of traffic and potential customers. While it may be the most searched for phrase on your topic, keep in mind that many people will be looking for other variations. For example, “Chicago pizza” might be the most prevalent of the search terms, but some people will be looking for things like “Chicago pizzeria” or other even more specific terms. It pays to use these as well.

Local search engine optimization can be focused around one main search term, but sprinkle other ones throughout the website. This can really help boost your ranking on the search engines and you´ll find that you draw in more potential clients. After that, it´s up to you to convert them!

Google has been testing their newest idea, television ads. The concept is simple, really. AdWords advertisers

Here are a few of the features of this technology, according to Pinny:

• show you how many impressions were shown (1 impression here means 1 view per screen).
• let you choose a CPM rate to bid against other ads in that slot.
• let you run national, local, or demographic based TV campaigns.
• schedule ads based on day, time, and network.
• estimate how many people tuned in to the ad.
• tell you how long viewers watched the ad for on average
• show you what point in your ad you lost most viewers.

Once Google goes mainstream with this television feature, things could get pretty interesting. The post goes on to talk about the pros and cons of having user generated content on television, basically turning it into a glorified YouTube. The fact of the matter is that it could be a very interesting advance in marketing for businesses large and small.

Local mobile marketing is still a fairly untapped method of marketing, but it will soon be big. More and more companies are learning about new techniques for advertising and local mobile marketing is one of these methods that is very popular. Here´s why:

• In the US, there are 2x as many mobile phones as PCs, making local mobile marketing wider reaching.

• Regular internet ads have around 1% response rate, while mobile ads have a whopping 5%.

• People carry their cell phone with them wherever they go, making them accessible day and night, whether they are home or off somewhere else.

• Phones don´t yet have spam filters, meaning that it is easier to get worthwhile messages through to the end user.

• Once a customer responds to an ad, you have an in and can continue sending them relevant messages.

• You can actually give shoppers information that they can use while deciding which brand to buy right there in the store.

• It´s estimated that people will eventually access the internet more often on their mobiles than their PCs, making local mobile marketing even more effective.

Local mobile marketing is definitely something to consider. You can have a mobile opt-in list, the same as you would do with email lists, ensuring that only those who are actually interested will be receiving your messages. It´s going to be big, but as always, getting in early makes all the difference.

For anyone using Yahoo local maps, things just got a lot better. For local advertising businesses and end users alike, you´ll find that Yahoo local maps are improving, signs that this site isn´t giving up on anything just because they have the opportunity to sell!

According to the Yahoo Local blog, there are a number of new features this time around, including the following:

• 300 cities with new neighborhood data added throughout North America, from Palo Alto, to Chicago, to Toronto, etc.

• Expanded Worldwide Coverage with much improved coverage, especially throughout Eastern Europe.

• City label density increased for better usability

• Lighter map tiles – with an average of 30-60% reduction in size

All of these make Yahoo local maps that much easier to use and finding businesses will be simpler, as well. Google may still have the lead on map traffic, but Yahoo is obviously working hard to keep up and they are doing a great job of it.

It´s out there. You´ve probably heard about people who put local pay per click ads on their website and then click on their own ads in order to earn money. They may also ask visitors and friends to do the same, boosting their earnings and draining your advertising budget. If you are a small local business, chances are you can´t afford too many of these, so you will want to avoid them if possible.

One of the best ways to avoid this problem is to stick with a well-known local pay per click company like Yahoo or Google who have strict rules against this sort of behavior and are active in banning anyone who is involved with local pay per click fraud. But you may want to go with a lesser known local pay per click company in order to save a little on money and avoid going up against so much competition.

Research any local pay per click service before leaping into it. You can check on forums to see what others think of it. While every service will be criticized sometimes, you don´t want to go with one when absolutely no one has anything good to say about it!

Yet another way to avoid local pay per click fraud is to look for a service that offers live help and real contact information. Email only helps you so much, sometimes it is simply necessary to speak to someone and any local pay per click company that offers that is probably very serious about their business and will do everything in their power to prevent click fraud. Check their rules to be sure.  You do not want to jeopardize your local advertising efforts.

When it comes to local search engine optimization, things can get confusing. You think you´ve done a great job and your business website is moving up and up in the Google ranks . . . when suddenly, your website is gone. Not only wiped off the first page, but pretty much impossible to find! This is a fairly common scenario, but it still worries many beginners in local search engine optimization. There are a few reasons why Google might sink your site.

Identical anchor text. If you are trying to rank for “local SEO” and you insist that everyone link to you using those two words, Google gets suspicious and may penalize you for gaming the system. Instead, try to use similar phrases. For example, “Local search engine optimization” “SEO” “Local SEO” “Local SEO techniques”, etc.

Poor reciprocal links. When you exchange links with other websites, make sure they are related to your content. Google looks unfavorably on those who link to a chocolate basket site from an automotive repair blog.

Sandbox. Google has a notorious sandbox where they put websites that are fairly new, especially if they rose through the ranks quickly. There are other reasons to end up in the sandbox, but chances are you will be out at some point in the near future. Just remember that this is fairly normal, just about everyone goes through it.

It´s completely normal to see your site moving up and and down in the ranks of Google, this doesn´t necessarily have much to do with your local search engine optimization. Rest assured that it happens to the best of sites and just keep plugging away. Eventually, you will find yourself where you want to be, if your techniques are clean and good.

The latest trend in local mobile marketing is pay per call advertising. With this method, mobile users are presented with an ad that gives them a phone number to call for more information. It´s a great way to get new leads with local mobile marketing, but it can be pretty pricey in comparison to pay per click leads online . . . is it really worth it?

Studies have shown that personal interaction is the best way to make a sale and with a phone call, you have the opportunity to interact with the caller. This makes pay per call a very valuable method of local mobile marketing. You are aiming at people in your area, so you can offer local service which tends to be a huge plus for consumers.

It is pretty evident that local mobile marketing is the wave of the future, but with options like pay per call, it could be even more effective for businesses. After all, no one is going to call if they aren´t at least a little interested in your business and talking to a good salesperson can convince many hesitant buyers to make the leap, something you simply don´t get the opportunity to do when someone comes to your website.

For all these reasons, and the fact that a person who calls your business after seeing a local mobile marketing ad is more likely to be looking to purchase, pay per call is being embraced by many local businesses. It may cost more, but most agree that the benefits are far greater, too.

Local online advertising is a very useful medium, if you know where to use it. However, the majority of people are at a loss as to where they should be putting their local ads, apart from on their own website and doing local pay per click.

Why not news sources? Local newspapers are becoming more tech-savvy these days and are often online, meaning that your local online advertising will be viewed by those who are interested specifically in the news for your area. Also, since the majority of newspapers don´t allow for only online advertising, you´ll be getting offline ads at the same time, which can really never hurt.

A recent survey from Zogby International has some interesting information pertaining to this:

Nearly half of respondents (48%) said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, an increase from 40% who said the same a year ago. Younger adults were most likely to name the Internet as their top source - 55% of those age 18 to 29 say they get most of their news and information online, compared to 35% of those age 65 and older. These oldest adults are the only age group to favor a primary news source other than the Internet, with 38% of these seniors who said they get most of their news from television. Overall, 29% said television is their main source of news, while fewer said they turn to radio (11%) and newspapers (10%) for most of their news and information. Just 7% of those age 18 to 29 said they get most of their news from newspapers, while more than twice as many (17%) of those age 65 and older list newspapers as their top source of news and information.

This gives some food for thought, with the majority of people looking for their news online, local news sites are the ideal place to be looking for local online advertising. You will boost your chances of being seen on a daily basis, since many readers read up on the news frequently. It´s certainly an area worth exploring if you aren´t sure where to go with your advertising.