How Home Based Travel Agents Can Win the Search Engine War.

Win the search engine war. Home based travel agents can compete and win the search engine war against the Big boys by using the "Local Search" feature of search engines. This is a method of marketing that is rarely used by big online companies, meaning almost all of your competitors are not doing this kind of marketing and it could be an amazing way to get even more qualified buyers!

What is Local Search? When you are looking locally for auto parts, scrap booking supplies, shoes, or even a real estate agent, you probably use the yellow pages. Search engines are now trying to take online users to offline businesses and have taken great steps to make "local search" effective, useful, and fun.

Through several "local search tools", consumers can find what they want in their local community. Search engines have also made it very easy for you, an online merchant, to target these "local" audiences without a costly or time-consuming investment.

Why will Local Search Marketing benefit home based travel agents?
Through various "local search" features, a customer within a 50-mile radius of your business could search for your product's keywords and your business listing could display as #1 in the search results. Because the customer found you through "local search", they could place an order over the Internet or phone.

In general, "local search" is a great way to get more qualified traffic. Sales, is a numbers game: the more people to your site the more sales will occur. Local buyers purchase from local companies and if you are not marketing locally, then you are missing out on this market.
In summary, "local search" is a great way to target local audiences. Even if you don't have a physical business for them to purchase your products, there are many other reasons why customers will still choose to work with you, a local company.

If you're looking to take the next step, this is a great place to start:

Just local search companies:
http://www.metrobot.com/
http://www.truelocal.com/
http://www.citysearch.com/

Search Engines:
http://local.yahoo.com/
http://local.ask.com/
http://local.aol.com/
http://www.newsday.com/community/directory/

Mobile phone local search engines:
http://www.google.com/mobile/loc_search.html

Paid local bid tools:
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/local/ls.php
https://adwords.google.com/support/
(Search for "regional targeting" and read the instructions therein.)