Twenty-seven percent of all online search engine queries by US consumers are aimed at finding products & services in their local area, yet less than one in seven businesses make any active attempt to connect with this local market through the purchase of online media space. These are the findings of a recent survey conducted by the Kelsey Group - a respected Princeton, New Jersey research firm - and reveal a huge gulf between what online consumers want and what businesses (and search engines) are currently delivering.

Accepting that consumers want a higher quality of local search results, the major search engines, including the likes of Google and Yahoo, have been busy developing local search applications over this past year or two. Google are currently running local search on a separate web site - http://local.google.com/ - and have increased visibility of local search in their main page rankings. Yahoo has implemented a similar system at http://local.yahoo.com/

However, if web site owners and businesses do not configure their web sites to take advantage of local search facilities they'll find themselves left behind. Configuring a web site for local search is quick and easy. Here we reveal how…

The first step to improving your online presence in the local market is to include your business name, address, telephone number, state and even country within your web pages. Do not just confine this information to your 'contact page' either. Instead, make sure that it is included on every primary page on your site. This makes it easier for the search engines to pick up on "local" information when your site is spidered. It also optimizes each page to create multiple entry points to your site on local search information.

Select and use local search terms in the content of your web pages. Focus tightly on local search terms relevant for each page. For instance, if you are selling red widgets in Gainesville, Alachua County, Florida be sure to mention "red widgets", "Gainesville", "Alachua County" and "Florida" in your text, just as you would with any other keyword for which your site in optimized. Providing that your site is fully optimized for regular search engine success, optimizing it for local search as well may help you secure the #1 spot on some very competitive keywords!

Just as with regular SEO, local SEO keywords must be entered into the page title tag and heading tag. This is for the benefit of the search engine spiders, which will look for keyworded content to match the keywords in the tags.

Local search keywords that link to relevant internal web pages are much liked by the search engines. For instance, with the keywords "red widgets" and "Gainesville" you can construct several internal pages focusing on content relevant to these terms. By doing so you'll tip the balance hugely in your favor for securing high search engine ranking results on those particular keywords.

Optimizing your web site for local search success is so easy to do. However, despite its simplicity, not all of us have the time or funds available to make the changes needed. If you find yourself in this predicament it's time to look to a joint venture partner for a solution!

A joint venture partner in this instance is someone who has the necessary time and/or skills you lack. They can optimize your website for the local market and enable you to implement change to your site without you having to pay out any money up front. In exchange for their services you can arrange for them to receive a percentage of the revenue from your site…a performance-based pay if you will.

Setting up such a collaboration with a joint venture partner is very easy to do. Joint venture web portals have databases that contain numerous SEO experts and professional copywriters who are available to work with you this way. What's more, most joint venture web portals are free to use. Just register your details and away you go! Good luck.