I'm finding that across Michigan SEO and SEM are slowly but surely becoming increasingly accepted and understood by marketers and general business people alike. As geo-targeting then works its way into the average marketer's lexicon, I'm finding increasing value in moving towards paid search geo-targeting's adopted sibling, SEO geo-targeting. Of course I know there's no such thing as true geo-targeting in SEO, but the general principle can lend itself well to those of us who work in an exceedingly competitive Internet marketing landscapes.

As you may imagine, trying to out-SEO every other SEO professional is tantamount to trying to race half of humanity up a mountain that keeps growing. Can you win? Sort of. But is it the best use of your time? In many cases, probably not. So if you want to stay out of this never ending dog fight, what are your options?

Of course, the answer is to ride the "long tail". Those familiar with search engine marketing will know this term well. This is the art of finding and targeting more low volume, and more highly targeted keywords. Sounds great, but I work in an industry where everyone's already doing that, too. As companies become increasingly savvy in the ways of Internet marketing, this will continue happening, too.

So if you come into the game a little late , you need to get even more creative. Where I have seen opportunities is within targeted local terms. These are often forgotten about, even by people taking a long-tail approach, as too limiting. However, I see this as a tremendous opportunity for companies, despite the fact that often times their services know no geographic boundaries.

First off, this can be a great complimentary marketing approach if your services is extremely high touch. If you regularly meet prospects face to face, this plays nicely with targeting a lot of geographically relevant terms. For us, terms like Michigan search engine optimization, Michigan search engine marketing, and Michigan SEO solutions have shown to have solid search volume, and provide us a great hook for prospects just venturing into the world of Internet marketing. Particularly if that prospect wants the peace of mind of working with someone local and having the opportunity to meet a living, breathing, human being that will be working with them. In some ways, it's almost too easy to forget about serving your local market for a lot of services, but I still find it's a great, and in less competitive markets, easy way to reach good prospects.

So in some respects, if you're a national or global firm struggling to gain some traction in the world of SEO, a subtle change in philosophy could open up some new market opportunities, and provide you with a handful of new leads right in your own backyard.