Local PPC or local Pay Per Click is a paid digital marketing strategy that helps local businesses target customers in their vicinity or a specific area. The goal of local PPC is to target potential customers and ultimately get them to visit your place of business and purchase your goods or services. It is a scalable method of marketing that helps community members profit by contributing to their community.
Local PPC is all about building relevance and finding the right people that can benefit from your business. Showing targeted ads to people searching for a specific product, service, or information can help put you above competitors. Here are a couple of tips and ideas on how to make the most out of your local PPC budget.
Make Sure You Claim You Local Listings
Google My Business (GMB) is a valuable tool, especially for local businesses. If you have a business that wants to make a name for itself online, it is important to claim your GMB listing. Leaving an open listing increases the threat of developing an unwarranted bad reputation and can also cost you a significant PPC and SEO marketing channel. Google My Business will enable you to:
- Establish trust with your audience.
- Enable you to keep an eye on reviews and respond to them.
- Share promotions easily.
- Enable you to grab an extra spot on the search result page.
Make Sure It Lets People Know You Are Local
Local advertising needs to be tailored to the local audience. Inserting a city name randomly into an ad will not produce the results you desire. Make sure to create an ad that will resonate with the local population and let them know you are in the area and ready to meet their needs. There a couple of ways to do this:
State It in Copy
You can start by using some local landmarks and highways to orient the user and let them know of your location. Include any local language that is common for that part of town and in your niche. Adjust to the rhythm of your town, as well. As a local in the area, you will know the activities and changes that take place over the year. Customize your content to connect over events and activities. The more locally relevant your ad copies and ad groups are, the better your ranking will be.
Use Local Extensions
Location extensions are a great way to qualify yourself as a local business. It can include a map and location of your business in search results. Secondly, it will enable your ad to take up more room in search engines, which will help push down competitors’ ads. However, it is important to note that for your extensions to show up, your ad must appear at the top of the page.
Make Use of Geo-Targeting
Geotargeting is a great way to get an idea of where your customers are located. Start by pulling a location report in AdWords and take the time to study and see where most of your customers are coming from. The report will show you where most of your audience converted and where most conversions failed. Study the data and get an idea of where to target future campaigns.
Utilize Location Targeting
The adwords location targeting feature enables you to target a specific radius around a specified location or by location groups. Go over your geo-targeting data and see what location is likely to produce the results you desire.
Tailor Keywords to Targeted Location
What search queries attract the most customers to your business? Are they inserting the name of the city? Are they making use of the near me option? Make sure to include the city or place with the search term you want to target. This will make sure that you only target people looking for services in the vicinity and will reduce unqualified traffic. This might reduce the overall traffic to your pages, but it will keep those customers that are likely to convert.
There is a lot that goes into a good PPC campaign. There are a lot of factors to keep an eye on. Testing, analyzing, and collecting data are the keys to having successful PPC advertising. If you wish to start enjoying good results for your business faster, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d love to discuss your marketing strategy and help in any way I can.
Rob Dunford is a Marketing Consultant in the Great Toronto Area with over 20 years of experience in implementing marketing plans for small businesses.