Using local SEO and targeting local organic traffic is a large section of any internet marketers campaign and this is mainly because there are so many small businesses operating today. It has been estimated that there are close to thirty million in the United States alone and of these the majority of their first time customers have come through looking for a solution to their problems on search engines like Google.

Because of this, local visibility has become more important than ever before. It is not important whether you are a work from home business or a large corporation, by employing a local search engine optimization strategy it is possible to directly increase the amount of first time buyers. You do not need to create a complicated local SEO strategy in order to encourage local business, there are a few easy steps that you can implement to generate more sales.

A simple thing to do, especially if you are an online home based business, it to claim your own business profiles that are already in existence. It would in all likelihood amaze you just how many search engines and major websites have your business profile already online. Included amongst the most common examples are Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing Local. If you go through all the verification steps, you will then be able to claim your business profile and modify it so that it is easier for people to find, and also to be sure that the information is actually correct and useful.

It is essential that you take control of the information that is already in existence about your business online.

The majority of local listings come through aggregation sites that search through the internet collecting the information that can then be displayed in a single place.

If for some reason these aggregation sites find information that is not right about your business it is possible that they will be unaware that they are displaying something that is incorrect. A common error is that phone numbers or addresses are not displayed correctly. This results in the possibility of a prospective customer who could be trying to get in touch with you will be unable to do so because of incorrect data. In most cases they will not really try too hard to contact you, they will simply move on to the next local business in the same line of work as you.

Another great idea would be for you to set up a central data location of your own. It is incredible just how many information aggregation websites are online that have information about your business and the best way to take advantage of this exposure and generate more local organic traffic is to have a place where your prospective customers can go directly which could be either your own website or a social network such as Twitter or a Facebook Fan Page. This will ensure that any customer, no matter where they learn about your business, will be sent to the same place. You must allow these sites to send you traffic, but at the same time you need to still be able to take control of this traffic as quickly as you can.

So you can see from this that there are numerous methods that you can use to benefit from local organic traffic for your business. The key is to understand why local SEO strategies are necessary to your online income business and the way you can get the best leverage from the aggregation websites. The three main steps you can take is to be sure to claim all of your business profiles that are already in existence, to take control over that information that is being displayed with regards to your business, specifically the phone numbers and the address, and finally you must make sure that you have a central location to which all of this organic traffic is sent such as your own website or a social network profile.