A new Yahoo Local plug in for Wordpress blogs is available to boost your advertising power. Basically, the plug in adds links to relevant words in your post and readers can then mouse over the links to bring up a map. There are also product link options, but if you are using your local business blog for advertising, that´s a feature you won´t want to use.

The Yahoo! Search Blog announced their newest feature on December 13th:

Writing a good blog post is more than just putting words on paper. It’s also about rounding out ideas, opinions and thoughts with content that supports your statements — be it maps, pictures or links. And sometimes, the hassle of digging up that supporting content is the most painful part. So, to help bloggers address these pain points, we built Yahoo! Shortcuts for Wordpress — a technology that sits in the background and finds and offers content to help build out your post in real-time. Shortcuts lift the burden of finding additional content and integrating it into your posts so that you can focus on the meat — the writing.

Having a map appear whenever you mention a location can be a big help in letting your readers know exactly where you are located and may be one of the best Yahoo local advertising aides yet. For local online advertising, it could prove to be quite useful, since the reader can then click on the image that pops up to see a larger map, allowing them to figure out how to get to you.

As time goes on, we are seeing more and more features available to those investing in local online advertising and Yahoo local advertising options are getting better, despite rumors that the company is struggling. If you run a business blog, you might want to consider using this new plug in.

Yahoo! Local has added a new feature. Neighbors allows Yahoo! Local users to connect with other people in their neighborhoods to discuss issues of local importance.

The great thing about this addition is that none of the other Yahoo! Local services are degraded by its addition. You can use Neighbors to connect with people in your area who care about the same local issue and through those connections, develop relationships deeper and attract more business. It’s called indirect marketing.

Whether you list your business in a specific category through Yahoo! Local or list in the CityGuide, Yahoo! Local makes it easier for local businesses to find clients and the addition of Neighbors is just one more way to connect with potential customers and build local relationships.

One way to impress your neighbors about your business is to put a listing for your business on Yahoo! Local. People will have the opportunity to review your business and everyone will see the review. What a great opportunity to get your customers talking about you!

Whenever someone types their zip code or city and state into the Yahoo! search box, they will see all the reviews of any business in your area. Why shouldn’t your business be one of them?

Not only does Yahoo! Local publish reviews from Yahoo! Local users, but it also publishes reviews of your business found elsewhere on the Web. That’s a great feature that you don’t get with other local online advertising options. If you truly want to make your local online advertising efforts shine like gold, list your business with Yahoo! Local.

Yahoo! Local has three ways you can benefit. All three are useful depending on your budget and what you want to achieve with your listing.

1. Basic Yahoo! Local - Yahoo! Local’s basic listing is, well, quite basic. But it’s also free. If you have a limited - or no - budget then this might be your option, but you’ll get a very basic business listing with no bells and whistles. The Yahoo! Local basic listing includes a listing in up to 5 Yahoo! Local categories, information about your brands, products, and services, hours of operation, 800#, e-mail address, and other basic information about your business, a link to your website, and other contact information such as business name, address, and phone number.
2. Yahoo! Local Enhanced - The enhanced listing at Yahoo! Local includes all the features of the basic listing plus you get a company tagline and a 3,000 word description of your business, you can upload a logo and add two links to coupon pages or special promotions on your website, up to 10 photos, a little more exposure in the search results, and you can see how many people have viewed your listing and clicked on your links.
3. Yahoo! Local Featured Listing - Yahoo! Local’s featured listing includes everything you get with the enhanced listing and you get greater exposure to a larger geographic area plus guaranteed premium placement on the first or second page of the search results.

Which level is right for you? Only you can decide.

One very important part of Yahoo!, the search portal, is its news vertical search feature. Don’t confuse Yahoo! News with Yahoo! Local. They’re two different things. But when you think about promoting your local business through Yahoo!, you should also think about how you can keep your name in the local news. The reason is very simple.

Yahoo! News has a local news search feature that is in beta right now. If you go to the Yahoo! home page, you should see, right in the center of the page above the fold, a box with some headlines in it and four tabs above them. The tabs read “In The News,” “World,” “Local,” and “Finance.” Click on the Local tab.

You should see some local news headlines now. If not, you’ll have to enter a local zip code or city and state so that you can read your local news. But that’s another post. Right now I’d like you to imagine your business mentioned in one of those headlines. Can you see it?

That is possible. Click on the city and state name on that local tab. It should take you to a page where you can see the specific news sources those headlines are taken from. If you can get your news published in those publications - and some of them are likely radio and television stations - then you could end up on Yahoo! News. When people your city search for the local headlines on Yahoo! and see your business in the news then they’ll be able to read all about the latest thing you have going in your business. It’s a powerful tool and you can make it happen just by building a relationship with the local media in your home town.

Is your business listed on Yahoo! Local? If not, you should consider listing it there. One of the great features of Yahoo! Local is that your customers can go online and write a review of your local business. The more reviews you have then the more positive your online reputation will be. Get all of your customers to go up and write a review. They don’t need a website to write a review. Here’s how to make your reputation shine at Yahoo! Local:

• Write a free business listing
• Let your customers know you are listed at Yahoo! Local
• Ask them to write a review for you
• Print out a small flyer that instructs your customers, step by step, on how to write their review (not everyone spends much time online)
• Put a link from your website or blog to your local business listing on Yahoo! Local and ask your website visitors to review your business

When marketing your business online, don’t leave out Yahoo! Local.