Do you have a business, large or small, that has a specific geographic service area? If you do, then you are probably using traditional methods to market your company, right? Have you ever considered using local internet marketing to generate new business?

For many companies, the answer is no, and the reason is that they believe the Internet is too broad in scope to be relevant to their service area. And until relatively recently they were right. However, today, more and more resources are being used to “locate” the Internet, particularly in search, to make it a more useful source of information and that is important news for Internet marketing for local businesses.

Why is that?

Let’s take a look at some very surprising statistics.

– According to the Kelsey Group, 70% of all American households use the Internet to search for information when looking for local services and products. That’s a big number.

– If you are in a B to B business, 31% of all businesses looking for local products look for them on the Internet.

– And perhaps the most surprising statistic, product information and price comparisons are done online, yet 61% of products researched are actually purchased offline. That, coupled with the fact that 90% of all purchases are made within 50 miles of the consumer’s home, speaks volumes for the importance of Internet marketing for local businesses.

This data is not lost on search engines, social networking sites and cell phone providers. There is an ongoing effort to bring local data to local users. The more this trend develops, the more users will trust it. Shouldn’t your company be a part of this?

Think about it at once. With GPS technology, a user can consult an application on their mobile device requesting specific directions for “whatever”. “Where is the nearest pharmacy?” or “Where is the nearest Wells Fargo ATM?” The app will deliver specific directions based on the GPS location of the user and the GPS location of the search results. Do you think this kind of instant information technology is going to disappear?

If you’re still not impressed with these statistics and examples, consider this. 43% of all searches performed on the Google Network include a geographic identifier. That means hundreds of millions of searches each month use a ZIP code, city, state, or other identifier to make the results relevant to a specific geographic area. That’s pretty impressive.

Try this little experiment. Go to Google and enter [keyword tool] and click the “I feel lucky” button. This will take you to Google’s external keywords tool. Enter the type of business you are and then add your geographic location and hit enter. What you will get is the number of searches performed each month for your type of business in your service area.

For example, if you enter “Redondo Beach plumber”, you’ll get just over 300 searches performed. Redondo Beach is now a city of about 63,000, so not bad results. Imagine if you could turn 10% of those searches into service calls. With an average of $150 per call, you would increase your monthly income by $4,500.

Armed with this information, is there any reason you can think of that would make you believe you shouldn’t get involved in local internet marketing for your business? Now it’s all about devising a plan and getting your name in front of those local searches.