Yahoo is rolling out the first version of its self-serve ad product, My Display Ads, this morning. It’s a bid to sign up more local advertisers and, more importantly, to convince existing search advertisers to try out display.

Yahoo isn’t the first to try such a model. It’s already in place at Google as well as MySpace and Facebook. AOL’s Ad.com is working on a similar effort.

My Display Ads “opens up access to small advertisers, which we think is important to the overall market,” Yahoo sales senior VP Joanne Bradford told AdAge.com. Author Michael Learmonth estimates the local ad market at $13.6 billion.

Yahoo partnered with Seattle-based AdReady to build the system.

For time-constrained advertisers, there are more than 800 display ad templates from which to choose. Ads can be purchased on a cost-per-thousand impression basis or as part of a cost-per-click auction.

Ads will appear on Yahoo-owned sites and on network properties available through Yahoo’s Right Media exchange.

Yahoo hopes that not only small to medium-sized business will sign up but that My Display Ads will appeal to national advertisers that want to do something specific in a local market,

Another important element to the program is that it gives Yahoo a performance-ad product besides search. Performance based inventory has become the hottest (if only) growing area of search in the current economy.