Finding a job in your own city is tough enough. Finding a job in a new city is even tougher, especially when you feel like you have no real connections there.

But it can be done. Here are nine tactics you can use to improve your prospects:

Research the City

Contact your target city's Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau and ask them to send you information about the city. Then track down the Web site of the city's main newspaper and start reading the articles, especially in the paper's business section. If your target city is in a large urban area, you'll also likely find a business-oriented newspaper or magazine. Finally, if you take a trip to your campus or local library, you can use electronic databases such as Lexis-Nexis to find articles on various companies and organizations in your target city.

Build a Network

You may not know a soul in your target city, but you can change that. For starters, talk to your family, friends and acquaintances. Do they know anyone working in your target city? Ask a career counselor at your school to help you identify and contact any alumni working there. Alums are often the best resources, since they have a common connection with you.

Contact professional organizations in your field and see if they have chapters in your target city. Approach the group leaders for information, advice and suggestions. Finally, as you do your research, you'll read about people working for companies that interest you. Contact them as well.

Contact Campus Career Centers

Many campus career centers will work with recent grads from other colleges. You might be able to work with a campus career counselor at a school in your target city to identify key employers in the area. Perhaps he or she can even inform you about the career center's daily or weekly job listings from the local area.

Approach Specific People Who Have Hiring Power

Once you have a sense of the key employers in your target city, starting sending cover letters and resumes to these organizations. Use the research and contacts you've accumulated to identify specific people to send your materials to, as opposed to simply contacting a company's human resources office.

Make Yourself Seem Like a Local

If you know someone living and working in your target city, ask if you can use that person's local mailing address and phone number when you're contacting employers. If you don't know anyone in your target city, tell the potential employers specifically when you plan to relocate. Anything you can do to make yourself seem like a local will help.

Read City-Specific Job Guides

If you're interested in relocating to a major urban area, you might be able to find a job search guide for that city. For example, Adams Media Corporation publishes the JobBank series of books, which features targeted job search guides for many major US cities.

Don't Forget the Yellow Pages

Often underused, the Yellow Pages offer a wealth of information about companies and organizations. Your campus or local library probably has printed copies of phone books from around the US. If not, try YellowPages.com.

Contact the Local Workforce Center

Most cities in the US, big and small, have government-sponsored workforce centers (often called Job Service) that help people find jobs in the local area. Contact the workforce center in your target city and see what it can do for you.

Pay a Visit

While it may strain your budget, investing in a visit to your target city is a smart move. Not only can you get a feel for what the city is really like, you can also set up informational interviews or actual job interviews with employers and other contacts you've made through your research and networking efforts. Landing a job in a new city will never be easy or quick, so prepare to be patient and persevering. But if you can incorporate these long-distance job-hunting tips into your search strategy, you'll give yourself the best chance possible of finding what you want, where you want.