Internet marketing has really taken off in the last few years and has overtaken the Yellow pages.

Traditional methods of advertising such as newspaper and Yellow pages are now dead.

People now use Google to find the goods or service they require.

This is now moving to a more local level with searches made with a geographical element added to it.

For example if some one wants flowers in Birmingham they would search "Birmingham Florists" or "Florists in Birmingham".

The customers are more targeted meaning a lot of the traffic that is generated will turn into buying customers. People are no longer just browsing the web for fun, this is serious business and there is a lot of money to be made.

Small business can use Google Places to begin their local internet campaign.

Google places will display local search details just above Google's own organic search results. The Google places results will show the company details and with any recent reviews.

Google Adwords can also be used to target local search terms.

Local search terms i.e. "Birmingham Plumber" is still relatively cheap because there's lower competition for keywords containing a geographic location or place name. However it won't be cheap for long because a lot of small businesses are waking up to local internet marketing and slowly driving up prices.

If you're a small business and not using Google Adwords to target your customers then now is the time to start. The keywords used are highly targeted and thus customers are better qualified, cash in hand ready to spend money on your goods or services.

Small business can also implement SEO technique to get their company website ranked higher in Search Engine results. This strategy is a medium to longer term strategy so result would not be fast. However central to any company's internet marketing strategy, SEO is essential to the long term success of a company.

Getting a website on the first page of Google is quicker and easier than before. Maintaining the first page position is also easier because competition for local search is low and still quite new at the moment.

Email marketing is very important because it allows the company to reach their customers cheaply and effectively.

It is important that a company collects customer's email addresses so they can contact them in the future with further products, ideas or promotions.

The best way to use email marketing is to provide value to the customer and thus improving the relationship with your company. As you know a trusted company is one where they would usually turn to if they require the products or services.

Social media is growing and growing fast. It cannot be ignored as part of any company's internet marketing strategy. However some companies are better suited to social media advertising than others and only you can be the judge to that.

As you can see local internet marketing is essential to boost your business. Now is the time to introduce local internet marketing to your business because competition is low and costs are still relatively low.