Each of these platforms allows you to post your business profile, which you could think of like a mini website for your business. Create a dozen of these profiles for your business and you’ve got 12 mini websites positioned for prospects looking for local businesses.

It’s even possible that some of these sites may have published information about your business they’ve taken from other sources. Editing such profiles will give you more control over the information (is it even correct?).

On the best platforms, you can also upload photos and videos, provide promotions in the form of coupons, and encourage happy customers to leave reviews about your goods and services.

Click the following link for some insight into Google’s Local Business Center.

Since local listings have been becoming more and more valuable to searchers, Google is working to make that experience more relevant. With that in mind, this new dashboard provides details that are verified by the humans using the service, which then provides local businesses with more opportunities to be seen in local search results.  Hence, there is a mutual vested interest between Google and local businesses to make these listings accurate. (In reality, it will more likely be SEO Professionals providing this service for local businesses in the near term).

This is valuable lead generation and customer acquisition service even for businesses that have no other web presence, since anyone searching for products or services that are offered in a business’s local vicinity will have an opportunity to find that business. (As a comparison, think of Google local search as a continually improving replacement for that old Yellow Pages book which you may be using to hold doors open, support your potted plants, serve as a small step stool, or as a paper weight for your children’s art projects).

The metrics available in the dashboard offer themselves as an additional tool in a search marketer’s arsenal. The dashboard displays stats such as:

♦ Impressions: The number of times the business listing appeared as a result on a Google.com search or Google Maps search in a given period.

♦ Actions: The number of times people interacted with the listing; for example, the number of times they clicked through to the business’ website or requested driving directions to the business.

♦ Top search queries: Which queries led customers to the business listing; for example, are they finding the listing for a cafe by searching for “tea” or “coffee”?

♦ Zip codes where driving directions come from: Which zip codes customers are coming from when they request directions to your location.

Even if you are already using Google Analytics, this information is very useful – not to mention, you won’t have access to it any other way.

All you have to do is claim your listing in the Google Local Business Center and go through a quick verification process to get access to this information.

In addition to adding and/or editing the basic details about your business, each business can include photos and a video to further make their listing stand out and to promote their products/services.

Creating your own “Coupons” are another addition to the dashboard. Businesses can enhance their local listing by adding sales coupons to inspire more searchers to select their business from their search results.

For more details click the following link to Google’s Blog to read The Local Business Center Dashboard Opens Its Doors.

A typical example is observed when visiting certain international websites that require the visitor to self-select their country, so that the information may be delivered in the language of the visitor.

However, more sophisticated Geo Targeting utilizes various technologies to determine the location of the visitor and automatically deliver content relevant to their geographical location.

A typical example of this is the display of pay-per-click and other online advertisements that are targeted to certain countries, regions, states, cities, or zip codes and only visible to searchers in those areas.

Geo Targeting has special relevance for local businesses.  For example, a pizza restaurant, plumber, or any kind of local service, that wants to target the audience of their local area. As such, Geo Targeting is a component of local search engine optimization, to facilitate the connection of local businesses and local searchers.

For example, if you are searching for pizza or a plumber, you typically want to find these sources nearby and local search facilitates that.

From a marketing perspective, ensuring that your business is prominent in local search listings is a key component of local search engine optimization.

Mary Bowling at ClickZ has offered up a post on Tools For Local Search that lends a helping hand for local search engine optimization.