One of the  basic problem of Search - many smaller businesses don’t have a website (IE: a local dry cleaners) or budget to spend on search advertising - was to be solved by via Local Search and sites like ReachLocal, that creates optimized web listings for businesses that don’t have websites.

However, another approach to getting small businesses on the web is to reach into their bookkeeping and run search related campaigns from it!  That’s a brilliant idea and I wonder who came up with it (at least one person I know works for Intuit and another does Search Marketing for them)?  In this case, by search enabling QuickBooks, Google and Intuit stand to gain both more traffic, more users and more revenue.

The Intuit purchase of SME marketing firm StepUp also is a smart idea as many small businesses need a virtural storefrount for their physical storefront - but that online storefront shoud also be search engine friendly.

Here’s SearchEngineWatch summary of the new additions to QuickBook by Google:

AdWords Starter Edition Integration: Small businesses using QuickBooks will have the ability to sign up for AdWords and manage their campaigns directly within the QuickBooks workflow environment. They won’t need to go to Google to do so; Google will receive a feed directly from within QuickBooks. As an incentive to advertise, new AdWords users will receive a $50 discount. Beyond FAQs and standard information about AdWords, right now there doesn’t appear to be any "hand holding" or other special support. However I was told that additional features and support would come in future implementations. Intuit told me that they would be helping Google better understand and meet the needs of small business advertisers.

One-Click Listing on Google Maps: SME data contained within QuickBooks will pre-populate a set of fields to help SMEs upload their contact information and other details, which they have the ability to edit, in what amounts to one click to Google Maps. They will be enticed to do so with a message along these lines: "Get your business listed on Google for free."

Inventory/Product Feed to Google: StepUp has been working with Google to provide local retailer inventory information to Froogle. StepUp has about 5,000 small business customers. Being acquired by Intuit and integrated into QuickBooks will give the company overnight access to literally millions of small retailers and their inventory data. About half of QuickBooks’ 3.7 million customers use the software for inventory management.

StepUp’s application is similarly integrated into the new, 2007 version of QuickBooks. What this enables is a product/inventory data feed directly to Google/Froogle. As part of the install process of QuickBooks 2007 retailers will be given the option to list all their products on Google.

StepUp works with other distributors (e.g., SuperPages) and intends to continue doing so. "Our mission is to help retailers be found wherever consumers are," StepUp CEO Kendall Fargo told me in response to my question about whether the Intuit acquisition and Intuit-Google partnership would mean any changes in the company’s roadmap or objectives. Beyond the additional reach this gives them, he said "no" and also expressed a desire to work with other partners (e.g., MSN, Yahoo!, etc.)

Google Desktop Integration: Finally the Google Desktop search application is being integrated into QuickBooks so that users can search their computers and the data in QuickBooks with the Google Desktop client. "