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While search engine advertising has been a great advertising medium for businesses
capable of or interested in marketing their products and services to a national
or international audience, the effectiveness of this type of advertising was
limited for businesses interested in advertising to a local market until very
recently.
For example, a realtor with a web site in Minneapolis is likely interested
in advertising on search terms such as “homes for sale” and “sell
my home.” The only problem was the realtor would have to advertise to everyone
in the country who happened to type those terms into search engines. This was
wasteful and ineffective because the vast majority of visitors clicking through
to the site would not be qualified visitors since they lived outside the realtor’s
regional market.
At that time, the only work around to this was to include a regional qualifying
term next to each search phrase, so instead of advertising on the term “homes
for sale” the realtor would have to advertise on “Minneapolis homes
for sale.”
What about the prospective clients who live in Minneapolis, but only type in
“homes for sale?” They’re likely just as qualified for the realtor,
but it there wasn’t a way to target this type of searcher. The gap between
forcing advertisers to use regional qualifying terms or advertising to a national
market was finally closed this spring by Google.
Local Targeting
Targeting a known geographic location of searchers became a reality earlier
this spring when Google launched their local targeting program. So now the realtor
in Minneapolis can advertise on the more general terms, then specifying a geographic
area they’d like the ads to appear within.
The options for this include picking specific cities, metropolitan areas, or
even a distance radius from a specific point. For example, maybe the realtor
only wants to generate leads from within 30 miles of their home.
Does this work?
Yes, it works very well. There are very few types of advertising online or
offline where you have such detailed control over who you are advertising to.
Basically it’s pretty hard to beat advertising to people who are searching
for what you sell and happen to live close to your business. And, since this
is pay per click advertising, you are only charged when searchers click through
to your web site.
Local Advertising Tips
Promote Your Location - You’ll definitely see better conversion rates
for your local advertising if you include your physical address on your web
site. We recommend including this in the footer of every page of your site to
reinforce that you’re local to the prospects.
Track Performance - When you use local advertising you will still have to compete
against businesses willing to advertise nationally on the same search phrases.
This means search terms can get expensive but your conversion rates should support
this. However, as with any form of advertising, it’s important to track
what’s working.
About the Author:
Ed Kohler is the president and founder of Haystack In A Needle - a full service
web marketing and search engine positioning firm based in Minneapolis, MN. |
