Free Local Internet Advertising

As a local business you can benefit from free local Internet advertising. Yes, you heard me correctly, you can get free advertising for your local business on the Internet. This is primarily through local results from search engines, Internet YellowPages and Local Directories.

Why would search engines like Google and Yahoo give you free local advertising. Well in reality they are giving you a free listings, but in a way that is better then advertising. And the reason they are giving local businesses free listings is so they can profit from accompanying advertisements. The more thorough their listings of local business, the more people will go to their site to find those businesses.

If you are a local business you need to take advantage of this incredible opportunity. Below are several opportunities that should not be overlooked. If you are not listed in these locations and your competition is, when a potential customer does a search who do you think they are going to do business with?

Free Local Listing - Yahoo Local

Not only can get free advertising in Yahoo Local, but you can also get a free 5 page web site. Yahoo offers a free basic local listing at http://listings.local.yahoo.com, and enhanced local advertising for $9.95 per month. Yahoo is the second largest search engine providing approximately 25% of all search result.

Free Local Listing - Google Maps

Being the #1 search engine with about 50% of online search inquiries online, a listing in Google Local can be very financially rewarding. You can create a free account at https://www.google.com/local/add/login. First, you need to determine whether you are already listed. You may be surprised to find that your local business is already in Google's database through some third party listing like your regional Yellow Pages.

If you are listed they will display the information they have on record. Most likely you'll want to edit the information they have on file, since it is probably very limited. To be able to edit your local listing Google will send you a letter by snail mail containing a PIN and activation instructions to the business address associated with your listing.

In addition to the Google and Yahoo there are a number of other resources that provide fee local Internet advertising, these include Internet Yellow Pages and local directories. A listing is important since these online Yellow Pages and directories provide local search results for a number of important web sites.

When it comes to advertising free is a word you seldom hear. That is why getting these local listing for free is an opportunity you should not pass up.