Local Search Engine Marketing is the hottest thing in Search Engine Marketing right now. More local and regional businesses realize they need to market themselves on the internet and marketing on local search engines is becoming more and more popular.

Don't let your local business get left behind as the major search engines position themselves to become the next local phonebook or directory. Every day millions of internet users (and your potential customers) are searching the internet for products and services in their hometown. Keniston & Company calls it “Hometown Search” and it's exploding and expanding as search engines like Google, Yahoo! And MSN make it easier for you to perform localized Search Engine Marketing queries.

The great thing about localization is how easy it is to grab top 10 rankings on the major search engines. The number of competing Web pages for localized searches is often a fraction of what you will find for non-localized searches.

Optimizing your website for local search involves modifying your keyword list by attaching local or regional qualifiers onto a search keyword or phrase such as a zip or postal code, city, state, province or street.

Local Search Engine Marketing mirrors global Search Engine Marketing and breaks down in very much the same way although the end result is much different.

You'll follow the same principals of global Search Engine Marketing. The major difference is you'll modify your keywords to incorporate your geographical area or hometown into your keyword list. After that it's all down hill.