Are you a small/local business looking to rank on the first page of Google along with industry leaders? Most small and local businesses have smaller marketing budgets and it’s hard to determine when and where to spend it. I’m telling you right now, that a good percentage of your budget should go to online advertising. One great way to start is Pay-Per-Click (PPC). Using Google Adwords and utilizing It’s Location targeting is a great way to beat the big guys and instantly get to the top of Google.
If you don’t already use Google Adwords you will need to setup your first account. You will need a Google account, a website you want to advertise, and a budget. I’m going to skip the setup process details since Google does a good job with that, but I will say one thing about it. Adwords will automatically create your first campaign in the Search and Display Networks. For your first campaign I really encourage you to only advertise using only the Search Network. The Display Network can be very expensive if you don’t have a good understanding of how it works.
When you are going through the setup process, Google will ask you where you want to target. This will be the location targeting and the area I want to cover today. Location targeting gives small and local businesses the opportunity to select where in the world they would like to advertise to. Google uses IP information to determine where a user is searching from. In April of 2012, Google came out with an update for location targeting. This update allows advertisers to target down to any combination of zip codes within the United States! This is a great way to limit where your ads are running which helps keep costs down and sends you highly targeted traffic.
If you want to advertise within a certain city, like many local businesses do, location targeting by zip code is the best way to do it. All you need to do is enter the zip codes of where you would like to advertise and then only users searching on Google from those zip codes will see your ads. Let’s talk about the benefits this offers to you.
1. Rank For Competitive Keywords
Now you can rank for a broad term such as “Hardware Store” and not be afraid of losing so much money since it will only show to people within your location target.
2. Use Target Location in Ads
Use the city name or region of where you are targeting in the ad itself. Remember, only people in that area will see it. So if your target city is Green Bay and you added Green Bay as your location target, you can have ads like the ones below.
3. Get Highly Targeted Traffic
One of the greatest benefits of having a well defined location target means receiving highly targeted traffic to your website. Location targeting has made it easy for you to target your specific audience and utilizing other targeting options, such as defining your demographics, you can really get the traffic that will convert.
4. Lower Your Costs
Lastly, the more targeted your audience is, the lower the cost will be. When you have a well defined plan and use the right tools within Adwords, you can get a lot out of your ads without going over your budget.
In conclusion, Adwords can greatly improve your visibility in Google and gives you an opportunity to advertise directly/only to your target audience. I strongly urge you to use Adwords. Do your homework and read more into the tools that Adwords offers. Doing so will help you understand how to effectively use Adwords. One thing that really helped me was becoming Adwords certified through the Google Certification Program. It is a great way to learn the right way and costs a minimum of $50 if you just take one test like I did.
