I have been in the Internet marketing industry now for the past 5 years. I guess many would consider me a newbie in some ways. I love reading all of these people who say they have been optimizing websites since 1994. In other words, back in the day they could keyword stuff with the best of them. While that’s interesting it literally means nothing today. In fact, I am trying to decide what is exactly important in today’s world of Internet marketing. Anyone can study what used to work and see how it was abused and eventually devalued by Google and other engines. What means something now is what works now and what might work in the future.

I have been putting some thought into this and I keep bumping up against the local business listing every time. I am finally starting to understand just how valuable and underutilized the local listing is especially in the B2B market.

For years this local listing has been something that is relegated to the restaurants, plumbers, electricians and other genuine local businesses. I say genuine in that there has been little consideration given by larger companies to this search factor. I think those days are over because if you are a large business with local offices around a region, country or whatever and you have not completely optimized your local listings in the major engines you may be leaving money on the table.

So should IBM, Cisco or any other large company really care about these listings? ABSOLUTELY! Here’s why.

• Social means local – While everyone is excited about how social media allows for contact between the little ol’ customer and the big ol’ company it is still not what seals a deal. After the contact is made and everyone gets their happy social media face on those ‘feel good’ moments could easily be fumbled once the lead is put into the machine of the big company. Now, if that big company has a local presence that could be the contact point for that lead (especially when they do a search for the company locally) the social aspect gets even stronger. Why? Because there are people that could possibly shake hands with the prospect. Today that is more powerful than ever.

• Local implies trust – This is a classic ‘perception is reality’ situation but it is powerful. People like to deal with someone on a local basis even if it is a representative of a Fortune 500 company. It’s how humans work and that will not change much in the foreseeable future.

• Local is a surprise – Have you ever done a search and in the Google Maps 10 pak you see a big company listed? There is a measure of surprise there and it is usually followed by “I didn’t know that” or “Wow, that’s neat.” If you are familiar with that big company and you do that search and they are not there it doesn’t really matter, right? Wrong? The companies that ARE there now move up in the pecking order and the big guy? Well, he’s still big but he’s not local.

What other aspects of local do you feel all businesses can benefit from? Should big guys even care about their local listing?

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About the Author: Frank Reed's blog Frank Thinking About Internet Marketing provides practical advice and insight for Internet marketers from local SMB's to Fortune 500's. Frank provides Internet marketing services through FT Internet Marketing, Inc. In addition, Frank is a regular contributor to Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and Mike Moran's Biznology blogs.