SmallBusinessNewz

There is a new tab in Yahoo Local that went live earlier this month, but Yahoo hasn't really made any significant announcements about it, so there is a good chance you have not even realized it's there. Matt McGee, writing for Search Engine Land, points out that this could become a very useful tool for small businesses.

Neighbors has categories for businesses and a topic search engine. Topics can be filtered by location, and you can browse through listings by most recent or most active. Users can sign up for email updates on activity in their neighborhood. RSS updates are also available.

From purely the search engine optimization standpoint, Yahoo Neighbors likely holds some great advantages. "The topic pages are obviously built with SEO considerations in mind," explains McGee. "The content in active threads on Yahoo Neighbors could quickly rank highly in search results for local businesses, local events, and a lot of other local keywords. Yahoo Answers is an SEO powerhouse and ranks very well; I won’t be surprised if Neighbors follows suit."

The service doesn't appear to be incredible helpful in all areas yet. I don't get any "neighborhood updates" for Lexington, KY for exmaple, but this can probably be largely attributed to the fact that it hasn't even been announced yet, so there are likely few people who even know about it. The feature is still in beta.

I would imagine that there will be plenty more features added to Yaho Neighbors, if not before a big announcement is made, then at least before it leaves beta status. This could turn out to be a great tool for small businesses looking to connect with their local markets.