• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 30, 2010

AOL on Tuesday named Mike DeLuca as head of sales for AOL Local. DeLuca will be responsible for driving revenue growth at the regional and local level across all AOL Local properties, building and overseeing a sales team and working with AOL Advertising to create and deliver ad products.

DeLuca will be expected to build and oversee a regional and local sales team for the company's local divisions, including Patch, City's Best, MapQuest, and Wow! Deal of the Day.

"In addition to helping people to stay connected within their local communities, these properties present endless potential benefits for local and regional businesses," DeLuca said of AOL's location brands.

In addition, DeLuca's team will sell geotargeted ads on AOL.com and AOL Mail.

"Mike and his group will partner with the AOL Advertising sales team ... to offer everyone from the smallest businesses on Main Street to the largest global marketers a comprehensive suite of local properties and marketing solutions," said Jon Brod, president of AOL Ventures, Local and Mapping.

AOL has spend the last year improving its local properties and services, according to Brod. "Now we are aligning that goal with an amplified effort to increase sales on the local, regional and national level in 2011," he added.

DeLuca joins AOL from Yodle, where he was the SVP of sales and marketing. At Yodle, he is credited with growing its sales team from 25 to over 150 salespeople nationwide.

Prior to Yodle, DeLuca served as vice president of sales for Yahoo's HotJobs division, where he managed a team of more than 200 people in Direct Sales and Client Services for North America.

As part of AOL's broader local push, the company recently relaunched MapQuest with a new "brand identity," and features to support consumers' increasing demand for locally relevant Web content.

It also relaunched its City's Best service with city-specific content, and is currently in 25 cities. The rollout included the expansion of Patch, AOL's hyper-local news and information platform, which is already available in 435 communities.