Yahoo is the top display ad seller at this point in time. That may come as a surprise to many because Yahoo has had a rough go of staying on top of anything lately. Now they are coming off a rough transition year and the tumult of the Microhoo deal is behind them (from a public perspective at least) so Yahoo needs to get in gear.

One of the methods it will be using to keep its top spot in the display ad sales category is to do what everyone seems to figuring out as of late: go local. Forbes.com tells some more

National advertisers spend more than $120 billion on advertising in local markets and Yahoo wants it.

This year the Sunnyvale, Calif., company’s sales reps are going after big companies with outlets that advertise in local newspapers and on regional radio stations and Web sites. These marketers include Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King, Pizza Hut, State Farm Insurance and Home Depot. The list goes on and Yahoo intends to call every advertiser on it, offering them the opportunity to target regionally and reach millions of people online.

Granted, when you hear about a sales rep charge to make inroads into a hot market you can only hope that you aren’t on the other end of one of those calls. Despite that though, savvy local advertisers may see the value of Yahoo’s local display offering all by themselves (how about that idea?!) and can take advantage of the traffic that Yahoo’s site generates.

Hearing this kind of focus is being put into what Yahoo is actually good at is a great change of pace from the search “news” that still trickles out of Sunnyvale from time to time. In my opinion, Yahoo as a search entity is pretty much dead. They are a content company that provides a search option that will be run by another company who may or may not be a search company themselves. From a business perspective this push for display dominance makes sense especially since Google is flexing its muscles in this area as well.

Yahoo’s focus on local markets comes as Google is diving into the display world to grow beyond its core search business. Having launched a new ad exchange system similar to ones the stock market uses, Google is heating up the competition, adding more clients to its growing roster of display advertisers. Google is also going after some of the same customers–the burger joints and home-improvement centers–as Yahoo, pitching similar opportunities to reach TV-sized audiences without TV prices. It makes for a big battle.

With location based offerings becoming more prominent in the marketplace (at least by the social media industry types….The rest of the world? We’ll see.) and efforts like AOL’s Patch.com to generate local content for businesses to place ads around this space is getting the attention it likely deserves.

Most of our lives occur on some local level. Even if you live in a big metro area you do much of your regular life in close proximity to your home. Local is for everyone. Of course, it is also different for everyone so how this market plays out over time will be interesting as marketers try to find more ways to reach the consumer closer to home when they are closer to buying.

Your thoughts on local display advertising through large publishers?