Blogs are a type of website that are maintained by individuals or companies which are regularly updated with news/thoughts/comments. Blogs are like journals and they provide new content on a regular basis for their readers.

New blogs are created every day and they’re a goldmine waiting for you to tap into. Local blogs are very targeted, and the subject of the blogs could be general or focused on a particular area. For example, Japanese food, cell phones or digital photography.

The difference between local blogs and normal blogs is that local blogs are targeted to an area such as a city or a state. In fact, sometimes these local blogs are called Hyper Local Blogs. This means that the blog is strictly related to the blogger’s home town or particular area. Hyper Local Blogs are on a rising trend as their readers are targeted and fanatical about them.

Examples of Hyper Local Blogs include:

• Gothamist (http://gothamist.com ) Contains a network of hyper local blogs targeted to New York
• Capitol Hill (http://www.capitolhillseattle.com ) A neighborhood in Seattle
• Shanghaiist (http://shanghaiist.com ) Targeted to Shanghai
• Place Blogger (http://placeblogger.com ) Network of local blogs
• Directory of Los Angeles (http://directoryoflosangeles.com ) Part of the Blog Network Association and SearchDirectoryOf.com

So with a local blog, readers will be much more interested in the information since it is ‘tangible’. Readers can actually visit the businesses and places mentioned in the blog since they are within travelling distance.

So if you’re selling 2nd hand cars and your website is mentioned in a general blog, then the majority of the readers won’t be interested in your business since the readers may be in different countries or a day’s drive from your business.

With a local blog, the readers will be in the same location or near your business. They are much more likely to pay attention to your products and services.

You can use local blogs to market your online business in several ways:

1.    Contact the blog owner

You can contact the owner of the blog and ask if he or she can blog a review about your business.

You can offer your products for free so that the owner can test it out and review it. The blog owner now has content to write about and has a free product to use and keep. A win-win scenario.

If the owner is not too keen on reviewing your product, then you can offer a commission for every product that is ordered via their blog.
e.g. 15% or other commission per sale.

By offering a favorable review for your product, this local blog owner will be able to send targeted visitors to your website. These visitors have a good chance of becoming your customers because they are within travelling distance to your business.

2.    Buying advertising

A lot of the local blogs offer advertisement space on their front page. Take a look and see if you can buy an advertisement space for a monthly fee.

For your advertisement, normally you would place a banner or some text, with a link to your business website.

There is no set price for a blog advertisement but it normally depends on the amount of traffic the blog receives. Just because a blog charges more than average, doesn’t mean that they necessary get more traffic.

You need to do your research here by asking the owners how much traffic they get per month. You can also search in forums to see if anyone has experience in advertising with the particular local blog you are enquiring.

3.    Commenting on the blog

Within the local blog, you can make comments under the blog posts with a link to your website. A subtle advertisement for your business. Try to make an interesting comment with a link to your website when you submit your comments.

People reading your comments on the local blog will notice your website and may visit it. This depends on whether your comment on the blog post was valuable and if you sounded like a professional.

4.    Guest Blogging

You may also contact the owner of the blog and ask if you can be a guest blogger for a day. This normally involves you creating a post that is packed with good information that the owner will agree to placing on their blog.

The blog readers will notice your insightful post and see you as an expert in your field. It’s very likely that they’ll visit your website after reading the post, too.

To find out what blogs there are in your local area, you can search for them using local blog directories where they link local blogs sorted by area.

Here are some examples of local blog directories:

• Search Directory Of – http://www.searchdirectoryto.com
• PlaceBlogger – http://www.placeblogger.com
• FeedMap – http://www.feedmap.net
• Outside In – http://www.outside.in
• Topix – http://www.topix.net
• Technorati – http://www.technorati.com

With each of the local blog directories, search for blogs within your local area. However, depending on where you live, not all local directories will have blogs within your area.

Once you have your list of local blogs, contact each blog owner and ask them to review your products and if you can be a guest blogger. In addition, you can also start commenting on the blog posts to drive traffic to your website.