Saturday, October 25, 2008

You Can Target Your PPC Campaign To Reach Customers In Your Area

By Brian Basch

Target your pay per click for more value for your dollar. Advertising campaigns can be specific to your area if you desire, this means you can promote your business in your city using the internet. There are lots of options, but one of the best systems for geotargeting PPC campaigns is Google's AdWords.

If you want your ads only to be seen by people in your area, geographical targeting comes in to the picture as a valuable tool. Use Google AdWords to focus on a specific city. That way, only people searching Google in that city or area that you specified will see your ads. Keywords don't matter here, if the person searching the internet isn't in the city you have targeted, 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.

This gives you a choice about targeting. Using a locally targeted keyword campaign also means that you can use other systems than Google AdWords, though they're still a big sector of the market. Just about any good PPC system can use geotargeted keywords to make it clear who and where you want to market. Use both techniques together for greater effectiveness. You'll find people who are more likely to become your customers.

There are a few things to pay attention to, as well. Ask yourself where and how your goods and services can be delivered. If there's a limit to your effective area, remember to stick to that when you choose your keywords and your geotargeting methods. This might seem obvious, but many people forget it!

Locally targeted keywords should begin with a keyphrase that will receive good results, so do some research into what works. You may want to isolate the interest in your ad, but don't completely close it off by choosing keywords or phrases that are too obscure. Monitor the effectiveness of geotargeted ads, as well as keywords or phrases to make sure your campaign is going well. A locally targeted PPC campaign can work wonders if you do your homework and, who knows, could lead to a sudden business expansion. - 15254

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