You are most likely creating localized blog posts to gain additional search engine exposure for your local area. Yes, this is a great motivating factor but you also want
to grab the visitors that find your post and keep them on your page or at least
give them something to remember you by. This is the first tip of a series that
I will write on ways you can add value to your Localism posts.
Google Maps - Add Google maps to your posts. People love interactive
maps. Go to http://maps.google.com/
and generate a map based on local area searches. For example a good map to generate
would be a map that includes local restaurants. To accomplish this do a search
for restaurants in your city such as "San Luis Obispo CA restaurants". See below
screen shot…
Now that you have the desired map results you can easily get a code snippet
of this map to place into your post. Google makes this really easy!
From the map results click the "link to this page" hyperlink and click "Customize
and preview embedded map" as shown in the below screenshot.
From the customization screen you will be able to control the size
of your map and will be provided with HTML code like seen below.
Paste the map into the HTML view option in your ActiveRain post.
That's all there is to it. This is a great way to offer visitors to
your localized pages an interactive map that they will appreciate.
NOTE: If you are unsure whether your blog will abide by Google Maps TOU you should fill out the permissions form at http://services.google.com/permissions/application
Posted by 
Misty, Great advice! Thanks for sharing! I will be following your posts! Have a great 4th!
Mike Kelly