Amy Gahran I finally got to meet Barry Parr face-to-face.

I'm at the Search Engine Strategies: Local Search conference in Denver today. This is basically about finding effective ways for businesses to connect effectively with local customers via search-based or contextual advertising.

I just attended the session: The Local Search Landscape. There, Jupiter analyst Barry Parr observed that right now most news organizations are trying to put out so many fires related to their business models that they mostly aren't giving local search advertising opportunities much attention -- but they should, because it could represent a strong revenue source for the future.

Since local search advertising is a complex, fragmented field with no clear leader service (not even Yahoo Local, according to the panelists), I asked the speakers to make exploring this field a bit easier for news organizations. What are the most important things news organizations can do to get started effectively with local search and position themselves well for the future?

Parr said, "Build partnerships with local portals, such as Yelp and Judy's Book. Don't try to build this all yourself. Get involved in the grassroots, where this kind of advertising is happening in your city. Also, look to spread these partnerships out a lot. Typically, newspapers try to own everything, but you just can't do that here."

Also, LeeAnn Prescott of Hitwise suggested, "News organizations should get smarter about search engine optimization for their local content -- restaurant reviews, etc. That will help this content support local search ads better in the long run."