If your small business is currently using PPC ads, or you are thinking about it is very important that you are geo-targeting your ads. Geo-targeting is simply the way that you make sure that your ads only show up to customers in your area who are looking for your type of business.
If you are a local business and you are not geo-targeting your ads, you need to start now. I don’t know how many times I have been doing PPC research and find businesses from across the country in the PPC results when I have specifically searched for local businesses in my area. This means that literally customers on the other side of the country(and perhaps even the world) are running up these small companies PPC bill and the visitors they are paying for are doing them absolutely no good.
So lets take a look at the two ways that you can geo-target your ads so that you are only paying for customers in your area that are likely to spend money with your small business.
Geotargeting Your Ads
There are two ways to geo target your ads, and as a business that is only looking to attract local customers it is very important that you use at least one of the techniques to make sure that you are only paying for clicks from people looking in your area for what you offer.
Geotarget with your Keywords
The first technique and the one that I have found to be more successful is using the keywords you select to geotarget potential customers. For instance instead of just bidding on the words ‘best hair salon’ you tack on your city or neighborhood to the keyword phrase, so you end up with ‘best hair salon boulder’. Match type is important here and you want to use the broad match more than the other types because people will not always type it in exactly the same. For instance a user may search for ‘where is the best salon in boulder?’ or ‘best hair salon in boulder co’. Using a broad match will assure that your ad is shown for those types of searches, while a phrase or exact match will not.
Geotarget Using Google ‘s Targeting Feature
You can use the geotargeting feature that Google offers which automatically restricts your ad to only be shown to users who are in the area that you determine.
One drawback to using Googles automatic Geotargeting feature is that just because someone is not located in Colorado at the time that they are searching does not mean that they don’t want to find a salon in Boulder. Perhaps they are going to be moving soon and are looking for a new salon, or maybe they will be in town for a few weeks and need to get highlights and a style for an event. Either way I have found that geotargeting by using the actual words that people use to search is my preferred method.
A note about using states to geotarget; obviously using your states to geotarget will only work in smaller states. This tactic will not work in a state such as California or Texas.
Service & Industry Specific Keywords
Another option you need to considering when setting up your PPC campaigns is to focusing on what I call modifying words. Service and industry keywords are simply all of the possible words that describe what your business does, or the services you offer. Try to be thorough and list every word or combination of words that a searcher may use to find your type of business. List all of the services you offer and all of the names that someone may refer to your business as. Also make sure that if your business carries special products that you include those in your keyword research.
