Certainly, if you KNOW there is a civilization at a star, optical is a great way to get their attention... We could build something that would be detectable for a good number of light years... transmitting data, aside from the 'how do you format a message for aliens' question, is a lot harder- but within some number of light years is possible if we put a huge amount of resources to the task...

But I dont think OPTICAL is a great way to search for aliens... You could select a lot of stars and continually beam lasers at each one and wait to see if you get a response- but thats not very efficient. And unless aliens know we are here and are transmitting at us, there is no point in doing a search.... The fact there is a technological civilization here on Earth could be known only to stars within maybe 100-ish light years? There is ~10,000 stellar systems within 100ly, the majority of these systems will be highly unlikely to have technological life- maybe ~1000-2000 vaguely sun-like systems? I dont know how common technological intelligences are, but I am sure that its rare enough that the odds of it evolving within 100light years AND being active at the same period of time we are is nearly nil....