Google has taken what was once their enhanced listings for local businesses, renamed them Google Tags and is rolling the program out nationwide. With local search becoming more and more important in the Internet marketing landscape this is welcome news for many who are trying to figure out the best way to get the most mileage out of listings that appear in the 7-pack map listing.

Here is what the listing would look like

The Google Blog tells us a little more:

For a flat monthly fee of $25, businesses can enhance their listings that appear on Google.com and Google Maps with a yellow tag that emphasizes specific information such as a coupon, video, website, menu, reservations, photos, or a custom message. Tags do not affect the ranking of the listings, and we clearly indicate which parts of the search result are sponsored.

Tags are also being shown in the mobile results so this offering while being national in scope is also available throughout the entire range of Google search options.

Greg Stirling over at SearchEngineLand discusses ways that this offering could impact businesses and Google as well

With Tags Google is trying to create a dead simple way for local businesses that have claimed listings in Google Places to further stand out and for Google to get incremental revenue from these businesses. Local listing ads, a more complicated, but higher profile local ad category appears to have been retired.

Finally Google is adding Posts

Posts, a new kind of Tag that enables business owners to create a custom message, is also live. These messages can be changed as often as the business owner would like, making it easy to let the world know about a special discount or limited-time offer.

So local goes loco with changes and innovations for your weekend use. Have a great one!