Local advertising is gaining more and more popularity. Small businesses find that advertising locally is much cheaper than globally and marketing firms exploit this goldmine to attract new customers. Local search marketing yields higher ROI’s due to better targeting (hint: better conversion rates) and cheaper cost. This makes it a very attractive traffic source for many.
But you may ask how this local search works? Well, to many PPC users this is old news really. But newcomers may learn something new. Basically there are two ways to target customers locally with PPC search. It’s either with geo-targeting or by simply using keyphrases with local words.
- Local Search Phrases – This is the most popular method exploited for years by savvy marketers. Some folks created such specific, laser targeted local campaigns for each city/state to drive enormous amounts of quality traffic to their pages.How it works is basically you add a city/town/state/country in front or after your keyphrases. So if you sell “puppy clothes” in Sarasota, FL, you’d use keywords like “Florida puppy clothing”, “Sarasota dog clothes” and so on… Using this technique along with dynamic landing page keyword insertion will give you better CTR, QS, conversions and lower CPC’s. All that PPC marketers want these days.
- Geo-Targeting – Another simple method in PPC world. Major platforms allow you to target by country, state, city and even zip codes. What you supposed to do is create a campaign targeting your local area. If you have a small shop in Dublin, you’d choose to target people living in Dublin. Obviously your traffic will be low, but it may still work better than traditional offline advertising methods.
To gain as much exposure as possible create 2 campaigns. One with local search phrase and one with geo targeting, but broad phrases. If you use geo-targeting location and phrases with local words, you’d barely get enough volume.
Local Mobile Marketing
This is something that’s still isn’t broadly used due to its infancy. Mobile marketing is growing rapidly and if you want to stay in the game, you better start planning for the future now.
Ipads, Androids and these mobile devices soon will be the main way people use internet. But you’re already advertising on the internet right? So there’s not much that’s going to change. Yes, except GPS installed inside these mobile devices. People travelling and searching online will produce amazing opportunities for savvy marketers.
Imagine you have a local restaurant. You’ll be able to target phrases searched online, whenever the potential customer is nearby. Deliver targeted ads when these people are as fresh as you can get. Say something like “25% discount if you order within 30 minutes”. That’s Minority Report for you right there. You’ll be able to reach customers based on their existing location, which will open up a new marketing channel in itself. Such opportunities are still yet to come. But be aware and think how you’re going to execute such advanced local search model.
Summing All Up
For many business local search means being able to compete in your local market more competitively. Ability to take out “big dogs” with their generally targeted becomes possible. Higher CTR’s, better landing page relevancy and better quality ratings will help you get traffic at lower cost.
If you have your own small shop, restaurant, consulting firm or any other local business, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t start advertising in your area today. It takes only minutes to signup and few hours to set up your campaign. While traffic is not mind boggling, setting up local search campaigns on 5 1st and 2nd tier search engines will definitely produce you results.
