The general consensus at convention held that local search (a term that actually covers more than just search engines) is big prize for companies seeking a portion of dollars that are increasingly expected to be spent by both national and local advertisers aiming at local markets.

The reason that companies large and small are salivating at prospect of these local online ad dollars is that consumers are increasingly using Internet to search for local goods and services. In that sense, consumers are leading charge in this new direction – search engine and directory companies are trying to catch up with what is already an established trend. One often quoted statistic, courtesty of Yahoo (who, with their amazing database resources ought to know) is that at least 30% of all searches in a given month are for local goods and services. What’s more, trend is increasing. It’s easy to understand why consumers are searching this way – Internet as a medium is inherently more capable of serving up extensive, and often interactive data in response to a query than any other media.

Paying for advertising is one way to accomplish that, but there are many other much more subtle ways to expose yourself, that can often generate much more targeted traffic.

Probably best way to expose yourself is by writing articles and submitting them to ezines related to topic. Oh, "I'm not a writer you say." Well, that really doesn't matter. I'm not a writer either, and here I am.

The only thing you need to expose yourself with this method is knowledge in a specific area. It really matters little whether that area is rocket science, or de-clawing a cat.

Start by writing a few paragraphs related to your area of expertise. Assume your potential reader has limited knowledge in that area.

Then, develop those paragraphs to convey your knowledge to your reader.

As I said, topic is really irrelevant. If you can convey something to reader that expands their knowledge by reading your article, you gain worthwhile exposure

Now comes hard part: deciding on an eye-catching title for your article. And, I do mean hard part. I can spend 30 minutes writing an article and another 6 hours coming up with just right title.