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LOCAL SEARCH ADVERTISING
Google AdWords: Local Advertising
Search engine advertising is beneficial for local advertisers as well as national advertisers.
Google's advertising system, AdWords, offers the option to target ads to searchers
in a specific geographic region. Due to the method Google uses to identify the location
of these searchers, though, it's imperative for local advertisers to run national ads as well.
Let's look at a specific example: marketing for a bank in Columbia, Maryland.
With Google's system, it's important to create two advertising campaigns,
one with a national focus and one with a regional focus.
The national campaign needs to include regional-specific keywords
while the regional campaign should include more generic keywords.
Why is the national campaign necessary? For two reasons:
- Google's local targeting is achieved by correlating computer IP addresses to
geographic locations. Users connected via large ISPs (like AOL) will
be routed through proxy servers and the location of those proxy servers
(at the ISP) will be the only location Google can ascertain.
This location is often not anywhere near the actual searcher's location.
- Many people search at work. If these searchers have a long commute,
their geographic location might not match the location from a Google regional
campaign. However, these searchers might be searching for products or services
near their home and not their workplace.
Read the Region and City Targeting Accuracy
section in the Google AdWords Learning Center*
to confirm the need for two campaigns.
The table below includes some examples of the types of keywords a Columbia, MD bank might
employ while creating local search marketing campaigns using Google AdWords:
Campaign 1: Region and City |
Campaign 2: National |
Location Targeting: Columbia, MD |
Location Targeting: United States |
Keywords: |
Keywords: |
- bank |
- columbia md bank |
- banks |
- columbia maryland bank |
- banking |
- columbia md banks |
- savings account |
- columbia maryland banks |
- checking account |
- howard county bank |
- free checking |
- howard county banks |
Keep in mind that a real ad campaign on Google would include phrase,
exact
and negative
matches as well as broad matches like those shown in the above table.
Additionally, a Google AdWords campaign is comprised of ad groups
which include at least one ad and a list of keywords.
The keyword list for each ad group should be organized around
a theme which closely matches the text of the ad(s).
A local campaign targeted to Columbia, MD might include an ad group
focused on checking accounts. The keyword list might look something like this:
checking account
checking accounts
[checking account]
[checking accounts]
free checking
[free checking]
...
and the ad text for an ad in this ad group might read:
Free Checking Account
Choose a bank with local roots.
Locations in Howard County only.
www.Columbia-MD-Bank.com
Columbia, MD
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Note that Google appends a fifth line of text to local ads
in order to distinguish them from national ads.
A bank in Columbia, MD would clearly want to be visible
on the search engines when someone in the Columbia, MD
area does a search for "free checking" on Google.
The ad will be most effective if, upon clicking the ad,
the searcher is sent directly to a page which
talks about free checking options with the local bank.
If the ad is linked to the bank's home page and
the searcher has to search again on the bank's
web site to find free checking information,
the ad will not be quite as effective.
For the national campaign, that fifth line will obviously not
be present so the text of the ad(s) should include the
geographic location.
Note that the campaign is, indeed, a local campaign.
It's configured on Google's system as a national campaign
but it's actually a local campaign since all keywords
include geographic locations.
Accordingly, the ad text should include location
keywords listed in a given ad group:
Columbia Maryland Bank
Choose a bank with local roots.
Locations in Howard County only.
www.Columbia-MD-Bank.com
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Google AdWords is an ideal, yet complicated, platform for the local advertising of products or services.
Any local search advertising undertaken with Google needs to be organized
into at least two campaigns, one with local geotargeting and one with national geotargeting.
The campaign with local geotargeting should include general keyword phrases
while every keyword phrase in the nationally geotargeted campaign should
include location keywords.
If you found this article useful,
read more Google AdWords tips.
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