Local Internet Marketing is a great way to accelerate your business growth. One of the key tactics available to you, Local Search Engine Optimization (Local SEO), is also one of the easiest, quickest and least expensive tactics available to your business.

And, from my experience, it is among the most underrated and least understood online marketing tactics.

Why Local SEO Rocks for Your Business:

• Local Search is not just for “brick and mortar” retail storefronts. In fact, you don’t even have to have a physical location or product at all.

• Almost every business or organization markets their services locally — even if their primary target is global. For example, our business — based in San Francisco & Silicon Valley — also has clients in Seattle, Los Angeles, Japan, etc.

• Many people prefer to do business with local providers even though they could use a company anywhere in the world these days.

• Often the competition for top ranking in the “classic” Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) is prohibitively expensive and difficult. Local SEO is faster, requires far less specialized expertise, resources and intense oversight.

• Technology advances among the top Search Engines (most notably their ability to derive searchers geo location roughly 50% of the time) and the growth of mobile devices means more of the top results will contain local results.

• You now have the ability to go to the top of the search results and hold a competitive advantage over larger, deep-pockets businesses by virtue of your local status — and your application of the far easier “rules of the road” that Local SEO success requires.

I can just hear some of you thinking “I’m already in the local search results.” And your business may, in fact, be there by default. You don’t even need a website!

The top tier Search Engines — Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft (Bing) — know there is enormous financial opportunity for them to become the “go to” resource for people needing all sorts of local information. So, even if you haven’t registered your site with them, they have made it their business to find information about your business and add it to their index.

Courtesy: http://www.Wordle.net

However, you are not truly at a competitive advantage to simply let it go at that. Why not? You have not controlled how your business is being presented, you have not optimized your registration and website for maximum exposure in local results and you also may need to step up to some pretty aggressive online business competition and “trick out” your business listing. More about that in future posts.

So, how can you take control of this great opportunity? The first thing to do is register your website(s) with the top 3 Local Search Engines — its free:

1. Google Local Business Center
2. Yahoo! Local Listings
3. MSN Local Business Center

All three Search Engines require you to have accounts with them, which are free. In Google’s case, you access the Local Business Center through your Google Accounts Hub so you will not likely see a direct reference to Local on that link’s landing page.

Take the time to make sure the business description you use for your Local Search Engine submission is keyword-rich and compelling. Think of it like an advertisement, which it is.

Validation of Your Local Search Engine Submission Authority

You will need to validate that you are the owner of the website being registered or an authorized agent of the business you are listing. Google and MSN/Bing will provide you with a PIN code for that purpose; you then paste the code into your registration to complete your registration. Yahoo! does not require a PIN.

Generally you have the choice of getting this code in one of two ways: the Search Engines will call and provide you with the PIN code or they will send you snail mail with the code. The larger your company, the more difficult it is to make the phone call option work — unless you can guarantee that anyone who answers the phone when they call will diligently write down the code and get it to you or your webmaster. Snail mail is usually a better option for larger companies (and have them send it to your attention or to your webmaster), however, it does take longer.

Submitting and completing your site’s registration with the Local Search Engines is an important first step to growing your business success using Local Internet Marketing tactics.