Local Businesses Can Profit from PPC Advertising Lorrie Thomas - Web Marketing Therapy - Santa Barbara, CA - May 5, 2009

Pay Per Click (PPC) text ads, such as Google AdWords, are an advertising medium that a local marketer can afford to test once you understand the options available to you.

Local business owners can laser-target their advertising budget to have text ads appear on search results for local phrases that will elicit only a few searches. But those searches are likely to be pre-qualified customers.

For example, a vacuum cleaner company in Austin TX can buy phrases that are very specific, making them less competitive and therefore, less expensive:

• "vacuum cleaner repair Austin"
• "vacuum cleaners Austin"

Don't forget the place names of suburbs as you set up your campaign. Austin suburbs. You might want to include surrounding areas and towns like Rollingwood, Pflugerville, Georgetown, Round Rock, and Westlake, too.

Phrases that have geographic locations built in are less competitive than a broad phrase like "vacuum cleaner," will cost less per click, and have fewer clicks, making advertising costs much lower than for a national or international company that can't target geographically.

Target Paid Search by Location

Local businesses can employ geo-targeting to their paid search message so that it appears only within a:

• City
• Metro region
• Zip code
• A 3- or 5-mile radius from the local business location

This allows ads to attract prospective customers who may not type in the city name in their search query. This is becoming more and more common as local search usage continues to rise.

For example, someone in Austin searching for "vacuum cleaner repair" may not include the city name "vacuum cleaner repair Austin," even if the search is local. Geo-targeting broad phrases to a city, region, or radius allows for greater exposure, yet attracts quality traffic.

Target Paid Search to Local Websites

Moving beyond the search results page, ads can be targeted by location on Google's "content network," websites that carry Google text ads on their content pages. This way, advertisers can have exposure on high profile local websites, such as news sites, TV station websites, or popular city blogs, while taking advantage of local geographic targeting. Campaigns can be targeted by category (entertainment), by topic (sports), by URL (specific websites), or by demographics (age, gender). For example, Google Ad Words campaigns can be targeted to the greater Los Angeles area and only appear on websites specific to sports.

Organize, Plan, Test, Track, Optimize

Local PPC advertising can work wonders for awareness, traffic, and sales, but you'll need to set up your accounts carefully and develop a plan to manage your various keyword campaigns. Ad groups need to be organized into sections so performance can be monitored, quantified and optimized.

For example, if you're an Austin vacuum cleaner business, you might want to set up three separate campaigns for testing to see which works best.

• Local place names. Specific phrases with city names in them: "vacuum cleaner repair Austin"
• Geo-targeting. Broad phrases targeted to geographic location: "vacuum repair" (targeted to the greater Austin area or a radius from the business location)
• Geo-targeted content networks. PPC ads on websites -- either local websites or geo-targeted on national websites.

Segmenting your campaigns by campaign group allows you to monitor traffic, conversions, spend, and click through rate (CTR) so that you can make continual improvements to ensure that your ad expenditures go where they count.

Set a Budget

Local PPC advertising campaigns can be set up with daily or monthly caps to prevent you from overspending your budget. Start small, learn, optimize, and expand as you go.

Targeting local regions can often result in very relevant ads with high click through rates. When the going gets tough, local business that understand and utilize PPC marketing can leave their competition in the dust.

Lorrie Thomas, MA is a Marketing Therapist that helps small businesses get BIG with web marketing. Her team of "wild web women" at Web Marketing Therapy empower professionals with healthy doses of marketing advice to gain maximum wealth from the web. Lorrie speaks nationally and teaches Web Marketing, Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Marketing courses at UCSB and Berkeley Extension.