As the new year approaches, Google local search is still a crucial asset for small businesses to help market themselves on the world’s largest search engine.  In fact, this target market has become so coveted that Google has hired hundreds of sales representatives to call up local businesses to push a new $25 a month special that allows you to “tag” your Google map listing with a coupon, photo, video, or links to important pages like menus, service pages, and pricing.  (It’s important to note that while these Google Tags can help your listing stand out, they don’t have an impact on your local business’ search ranking.)

Quick on the heels of Google, media company Yext is debuting it’s own Local Search tag competitor, “Yext Tags”, which allow local businesses have their listing stand out on a variety of local-focused websites, including Citysearch, Yellowbook, Local.com, SuperPages, White Pages, MerchantCircle, Topix, MapQuest, Yellowbook, and more.  The price tag for this service will run at 4x times the Google price tag at $100, however Yext is hoping to convince local businesses that it’s worth the extra $75, as it can help the users show up on multiple sites, as opposed to Google’s SERPs which can easily become over-saturated.

To add more competition to the mix, geo-location services like Gowalla, Foursquare, and Facebook Places are all trying to convince more brick and mortar small businesses to advertise specials on their sites for free.

Which is the best route to take?  It really comes down to breaking down your site analytics and reviewing where the majority of your site traffic is coming from, and which sites are converting customers.  If it turns out that YellowBook, Yelp, MerchantCircle, and MapQuest are all driving more conversions for your site, it might be best to try Yext.  However, if the majority of your conversions come from Google and there is little to no one currently tagging their local businesses for your niche, it could be worth trying Google Tags.  Plus, if you are a bar/restaurant that is in a hip area of town, geo-location service specials are a free and easy way to attract more visitors who are “checking in” nearby.  Depending on your business, a combination of these options may work best as well.  January will be a great time to test out all three, since Yext Tags launches on January 3rd and Google Tags has just launched!