If you haven't been following the Lum and Abner comic strip over at First Arkansas News, you're missing out on all the fun.

Who are Lum and Abner? They were a couple of Arkansas boys who made it big nationally in the 1930s through 1950s when old time radio (OTR) was king. Out of all the rural comedy acts, Lum and Abner stood head and shoulders above the rest (yes, that is an opinion -- I'm very biased here).

The Lum and Abner comic strip, penned by the skilled Donnie Pitchford and put together as a collaborative effort with First Arkansas News (yes, I do own that site), is a project we started in late May 2011. We've just bought the rights to use the characters for another year and are looking forward to year two of the series.

Do we get a lot of money out of it? Uh, heck no. We do it because it's fun and pays homage to a couple of legendary Arkansas performers (well, we hope it pays homage to them, at least).

Ready to wind that clock back about 80 years and take a trip down memory lane to rural Pine Ridge, Ark.? If so, click here and have a look at the strips we've posted so far. A new strip is posted every Sunday and you lucky folks who live in the Arkansas cities of Amity and Mena can check out the strip every Thursday in your local newspaper.

So, there you are – you’ve realized that the Yellow Pages section of the phone book doesn’t work anymore and you need to market your local business through the Internet.

So, how can you do that? Bear in mind that marketing a business locally is a bit of a challenge. It might seem like a bit of a paradox, but reaching those customers located within your local market online can be more than a bit difficult. How would a business owner just getting into the game of Internet marketing go about it? Do you have the skills to take on such a project that will either pay off very well for you or fail as your competitors cut into your customer base?

Fortunately, there is a company out there that is set up to help small to medium-sized businesses market locally on the Internet – RevLocal. What is that company? That bunch has spent the past 17 years (an eternity in “Internet years”) dealing with search engine optimization (SEO). What is SEO? Simply put, good SEO means that your business pops up in search engines ahead of competitors, making it easy for customers to find you first. What you need, precisely, is local SEO and RevLocal has the background to help you out in that regard.

Any local business owner out there needs to take advantage of the power of local search and many of them need help getting in front of customers. There was a time when getting in front of local customers simply meant taking out a decent phone book ad and waiting for customers to respond. If you business is still doing that, consider this – how much business is that tactic getting you these days?

The fact of the matter is that more and more people turn to the Internet first when looking for local businesses. If you’re not in front of them, one of your competitors will be. It was predicted in the 1990s that the Internet would change the way we do business. That forecast has come true and local businesses would be wise to adapt to the new landscape.