Local Search | Jennifer Lind

When placing advertising on a new site, it is easy to just analyze that particular site: the site features, the navigation, the placement of your advertising, ect.

However, if you take a closer look at their network affiliates, you will see a whole other world. You are probably familiar with this because the major search engines also distribute their ads to other sites. It works the same way for most local search sites. For example, by placing performance-based ad on Superpages, your ad is being distributed to Local.com, neighborhood.com, infoUSA, and others.

To find these lists, just take a look at the main website and search for alliances or affiliates. Superpages’ affiliate list can be found here.

It’s important to look more at relevance and quality than quantity when analyzing these lists. Also, look at the types of channels they are distributing to. If you are interested in reaching your customers via mobile search, you will want to choose your advertising placement accordingly. Some sites are also starting to look at internet video, radio, and traditional advertising affiliates as well.

If you are planning to place ads on several sites – say you want to place directly on Local.com and you want a Superpages ad as well – you will want to research how your ads will be affected. They may be competing with each other. To get around this, you may try to place under differing categories, or place a national ad on Local.com and local ads on Superpages.