Webwork - 1:00 pm on Mar 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

Sasha, here's what I find exciting about local to local search: At the level of local to local search and local to local business advertising/marketing I think there's a huge opportunity for lots of little guys and gals to add a significant income stream to their lives.

Generating traffic - and bookmarks - at the local level is much more under your control than organic SE traffic.

At the local-to-local, true word of mouth level, you can become a mini Google: generating traffic and selling advertising. The true home business.

Of course it becomes a mtter of what type of traffic: Are you the local political hot spot? Are you providing other valuable content? Is your content fresh? Are your a pure "get in, get out" local business directory? The list goes on.

It's a ROI game where the "I" can be examined and controlled at a very granular level.

It's also where familiarity with local customs, landmarks, politics, sports, schools, developments, etc. can give you a decided edge.

It's a numbers game: Produce a new client lead that converts for a local lawyer, for which the lawyer only paid $50 for a 1 year listing, and you have a happy client.

Put your URL on the side of your husband's pick-up truck. Put your URL on the back of your mom's van. Put signs in 30 stores and given them a free listing for a year. Do this and you start to win the local game.

You see, this is the type of discussion about "local search" that ought to - but has not yet - materialized in the WW Local Search forum. Thus far, it's all about mega trend and big business. That's nice if you are targeting them but let's not forget the rest of us. The little guys and gals with slingshots. The ones who, if they put together some affiliate sites, some website design services, maybe some hosting reselling AND a bit of local search promotion find ourselves with a full time and valuable home business. It's this vision that I think scares MegaBigLocalYellowPages the most.

And that day is coming. Help speed it up.

I invite you and everyone at WW to join in to the discussion of "local to local search services by locals to locals" in the WebmasterWorld Local Search threads.

I'm feeling a little subversive in pitching this exactly as I am. It feels good doing it. That's because I really like seeing the little guy/gal succeed. You see, I'm one of them myself.

Come, let us conspire.