Not as big a secret, but still being completely disregarded by most local businesses other than in a few competitive industries. You need reviews. Lots of them. And they need to be on various local search engines. Most critical is Google Places, but reviews are critical on SuperPages, Yahoo, YellowPages, and others.

This is a good way to promote a new product your company might be offering. It is a great way to educate the public about your company. You will seem more professional than your competitors.

Forget stockings and stuffers. If you reside in a warm area during the holiday season, visit your local farmer's market and make baskets of fresh fruits/veggies/cookies/other goodies. You may have to wait close to the holiday to shop and make the baskets, but you are definitely helping your local business.

Keep it small. Unless you are actually selling online, your website should only be a few pages long. A Home page, an About Us page, a Services page and a Contact page is usually enough for most local businesses.

Once I read an article by a writer whose house was filled with 'stuff' that were made in China. When she tried to buy some consumer products that were made in USA, she found herself visiting handful of stores without success (like coffeemaker) or found the items (some tools) too expensive to afford. We worry about our present economy and jobs and our children's future, but it is not enough to worry. We should do something about it.

If you have time and talent, buy raw materials and make stuff on your own. Most people don't need any more stuff, but nice handmade and unique items are always appreciated.

So, you may ask... Just how valuable are the local map results for my company? Well there is no simple answer to that question. Each company should have a custom built strategy. For instance, if you own a local Thai restaurant and want to increase your daily foot traffic, local listings will greatly help your efforts. On the other hand, you own a specialty shoe store that does 100% of your business online, local listings are just not for you. Google and site (https://www.deviantart.com/marycross22) other search engines developed their local results pages to assist users in finding small business owners with brick and mortar shops, retail stores or restaurants, [empty] and get quick information about them - such as hours, short reviews and even menu items and sale dates.

It's understandable that we all need to look for ways to save money, and the big stores give us that opportunity frequently. But what I've found when I shop at the smaller local stores is that I usually get better service- which not only saves me time but can also save money - and that they often have some pretty good sales.

Local search engine optimization - Every local business owner needs to be online and have their own website. So many people these days use search engines to search for local business, instead of the phone book like they used to.

Pay Per Click advertising - This is a method that will bring in the most local customers, but it can also get very expensive if you don't know how to do it right. You need to take time to educate yourself on how to use this method.