When it comes to advertising, the majority of companies focus too heavily on the national picture, ignoring local presence at their peril. I firmly believe in using local directories and geo-targeted pay-per-click (PPC) to drive regional messages.
Google, for example, now focuses on geo-targeting and is continuing to produce more relevant results on a regional basis. I wonder how long it will be before consumers only get to see results from companies within a 25-mile radius.
Geo-targeting is the ability to target specific customers by their location, using search engine marketing techniques. This recent tool enables companies to not only reach customers in certain locations, but also those who wish to purchase from a specific location. Now is the time to get ahead of the game and think national, act local -- companies are in a position to generate further, targeted business from this new opportunity.
The types of companies that would benefit from geo-targeting are as follows:
- Those that supply goods and services locally. Perhaps their marketing spend just focuses on one location because this is all they service.
- Companies that run a chain of stores or branches nationally, but where consumers only wish to go to the local branch.
- Businesses that export can also look at geo-targeting -- it works on an international, as well as national level.
In short, some form of geo-targeting can apply to pretty much every type of organisation.
The practicalities of setting up geo-targeting up can be difficult. As with most forms of marketing, the first step is identify who the audience is but, in this case, you also need to know where that audience is located.
The second, and important, step is to take advantage of the key phrase research tools in the pay-per-click (PPC) systems to look at the sorts of phrases that people are searching on and work on these with location-specific phrases and with the more general phrases.
The third step is to use these key phrases in combination with the three main geo-targeting techniques:
- Free local business listings -- with location specific key phrases in your description.
- Search engine optimisation (SEO) of your website for location specific key phrases -- so you appear in the natural or organic results.
- Geo-targeted pay per click (PPC) where you either display your ads in a specific location and/or use location specific key phrases.
The first method, (which is the easiest), is to obtain a free local listing in the search engines. If you operate a chain, or franchise, then you would need a listing for each specific location. You can add or search for local companies by going into Google Maps. However, in the last few months, Google has brought these maps to the top of their normal web listings -- this is called Universal Search and now all the other search engines are doing something similar. Another major change with the local listings is that they used to list in postcode order, now this prioritising is done on a relevancy basis. If the search engine thinks that, for example, one plumber has more relevant content, then it will put them at the top -- even above the natural listings. So if you want to have the most relevant ad, you need to include those key phrases you identified earlier.
Probably the most difficult method is to appear in these natural or organic listings for location-specific key phrases. For example, if you are trying to sell a property in Leicester, then you would ensure that your website has Leicester-specific phrases on one page, whereas you may have Nottingham-specific content and phrases within another. If you are successful, then you would appear in the organic results on the left hand side of Google and the other search engines. This is not always easily achieved and can take some time to do, although a search engine friendly website, which has already been optimised, is likely to achieve this far quicker.
The preferred method of geo-targeting is pay-per-click (PPC). The major PPC search engines all offer some form of geo-targeting, allowing companies to determine where their ads will be displayed. Here you have the ability to target specific cities, countries or areas served. Despite being a paid method, you have complete control and this can be set up straight away. Local PPC campaigns should have targeted general phrases, so that a company is not found for locations outside the target area. National PPC campaigns will have targeted phrases in combination with specific locations or postcodes.
Those companies looking to export will need to identify the language that the search engine or third party site is written in, and the language selected by the user in their browser. From there, countries and regions need to be selected, in conjunction with the key phrases.
Results so far have indicated a reduced cost per click and higher conversion rates where campaigns are more targeted. However, it is important to highlight that this will vary between regions.
To get the most from PPC geo-targeting, it is essential to have the optimum campaign and ad group structure. The other major advantage is that you can use the PPC data to define your SEO strategy, and then create location specific content to increase your organic listings.
Ann Stanley is a consultant, Interaction Media.
