Unlike the far broader techniques of general search engine optimisation, local search allows you to filter out much of the wider competition and appear for pre-defined areas. I say pre-defined, because it is entirely up to you how you choose to optimise your website and how wide your want the sphere of influence should be.

Geo tagging is one of the newest and most innovative ways for modern websites to optimise for localised search. Rather than leaving a visible imprint on the site itself, geo tagging allows you to implement global positioning coordinates within your HTML code. So when a search engine spider crawls your pages, it will know exactly where it is that you're based and will help you rank higher in searches specific to your area.

Better still you can actually adjust these coordinates across the various pages of your website. Therefore if you've got offices at different locations throughout the country, you can adapt the pages that are specific to them to reflect this. Simple, but extremely clever.

To get started though, you might just want to tweak the content on your website. This is easy enough to do, simply add phrases like ‘London-based' or ‘located in Central London', will give your pages a clear locality and will influence search engines to feature your business for searches in that area. Don't interrupt the flow of your copy though, only integrate terms where it will either blend in or compliment existing text.

A simple way of getting your location found by the search engine spiders is simply by including your address on each page. Contact details help customers find you quickly and easily, so will be a major benefit to the usability of your site, as well as optimising for local search.

Going down a slightly more traditional route, one that has been used for offline businesses for years, you could sign yourself up to Internet directories. This will help you gain additional keyword strength, provide a vital link back to the site and, yes, show search engines where you're located.

So if you've invested time in optimising your site for local search, just what are the benefits? Well, first and foremost it could well provide you with a new stream of traffic to the site. But more importantly than this, the visitors will be looking for the services you provide in your area, therefore if you are ranking well for the associated key term, you could well find yourself improving your customer conversion rate.

With the Internet being such a competitive marketplace it is essential that any online business performs exhaustive SEO; local search is one element of this. Whilst SEO will help you rank for certain key words or phrases, local search will narrow this down further, integrating the SEO keyword work but for a specific location.

By narrowing your focus, you also eliminate much of the competition. Whilst you may have dozens, even hundreds of direct competitors, you can bi-pass most of these for those searching in your location. With consumers looking for local services more and more, you could be well placed to capitalise on this trend by optimising for local search.