Twitter has begun rolling out location-based trending topics. The product, officially called Local Trends, will currently only reach 1 percent of users today but everybody should access to it soon.

Here’s what we can tell you so far:

•    Local Trends allow you to set a specific location, so that you can see the trends around you. Most of the time, this would be your wherever you’re based, however it will be able to change if you travel elsewhere.

•    Clicking on Local Trends gives you a list of different cities and countries in which you can view trends.

•    You can access these trending topics from Twitter.com, on the right-hand column.

•    A full rollout should occur sometime next week, if testing goes smoothly.

We think this is a logical and smart move, especially in the wake of the rise of location-based service. It is good news for small and mediums sized businesses that use Twitter, as they can reach the local area rather than competing on a global scale.

We have recently been working with a client to improve their conversion rate and one of our recommendations was that they make their keywords location specific (within 25 miles.) They are now dominating the traffic searching within that area – which just happens to be over 150,000 searches every month.