Targeting your pay per click advertising campaign (PPC) to suit your specific area means that any PPC campaign can be tailored to suit a small businesses. This type of marketing is sometimes called geotargeting and is available by using the features in Google AdWords.
If you want your ads to be seen mostly by people in your area, you’ll need to target your campaign carefully. That’s where geographical targeting comes in. Use Google AdWords to focus down to the city level - only people searching Google in the city or area you choose will see your ads. Even if the same keyword is used in a search, if the searcher isn’t in the targeted area, your ad won’t come up.
You’re now wondering why would anyone want to keep their ads from being seen. Let’s face it, if you only do business in the one city, clicks from outside the area will just cost you money without any chance of a return. If you need your ads to be seen in one city, and only that city, it can be done using AdWords.
Of course, there’s more to geotargeting than just restricting to searchers currently in an area. For instance, if someone who’s traveling to your area is searching for the product or service you offer, you’d like to be able to help them. However, if you target only one area, they’ll miss your ad, even though they could be a potential customer.
The way to deal with this problem is to use a locally targeted keyword list. This will help you include your ad in searches done by people who aren’t in town now, but want to know about the local situation where you are. You can modify the same types of keywords that would normally be used as part of a global PPC campaign to suit your local marketing plan. Just ad the area to the keyword phrase. That means that “car rental” becomes “car rental in St. Louis” or any other area you’d like to target.
Using this type of targeted keyword campaign also opens up your options with other systems besides Google AdWords. Any PPC ad system can geotarget keywords and phrases similar to the way AdWords does it. You can even use a combination of both techniques to target tourists and locals if you really think it’s needed.
There are some important things that need to be mentioned with geotargeted campaigns. Consider whether you need to deliver any goods and if there are limits relating to your specific area. And, remember to stick to your plan, some people lose their way amidst all the technology and forget what their original goal was. These things may sound simple, but keeping it simple is what advertising is all about.
When you do choose your targeted keywords, it’s important that your words or phrases receive a large number of results. That way you won’t completely isolate yourself, which is easily done if you try to get too specific. Check and track the statistics of your ads and see what keywords or phrases work best for you. Targeting a local area with a PPC campaign could spark the surge in sales your small business needs.
