Local PPC Advertising Increases Website Traffic and Sales
The COVID pandemic has kept all of us closer to home. Will your audience easily find you there? If you don’t have a strategic marketing plan that includes local PPC advertising, you’re missing a lot of opportunity.
Working from home? A local PPC ad shows you where to find a nearby coffeehouse with free Wi-Fi. Want to go out to eat? A local PPC ad shows you what’s available in your neighborhood, their amenities, menus, and hours of operation. Find a dentist, a plumber, or an account quickly and easily by simply typing “dentist,” “accountant,” or “plumber” with the key words near me and the first thing you’ll be served are local PPC ads. No need to scroll any further.
See what you’re missing out on? That was almost too easy to be true. But it’s completely true.
Local keywords and geotargeting are the key to successful local PPC advertising strategies on search engines or social media. They serve your ads to consumers in a targeted, local geographic area. You’ll only pay for the ads that get clicked.
Local PPC advertising is not just for local businesses. Maybe you’ve got a national business, but want to run promotions in conjunction with a local event. Local PPC allows you to use your ad spend smartly by only targeting customers who are likely to respond to the promotion.
Want to know how it works? It’s as easy at 1 – 2 – 3.
1) Know your geography. A good place to start is where you currently draw most of your customers from. Depending on your business, that’s usually relatively close to your base of operations. However, you don’t need to cast a very wide net. It’s important to exclude those zip codes that aren’t good potential targets for you, even if they’re right next door. Specific geographic targeting ensures your ads get seen by more people who are likely to convert, than just simply blanketing the area with ads.
2) Keywords. Keywords. Keywords. Even if you have only a rudimentary understanding of SEO, you know the importance of keywords. Sometimes finding the right keywords can be a bit daunting. Good AdWords offers a service called Broad Match Modifiers (BMM) that can help ease your keyword anxiety. Essentially BMM ensures a broad audience can find you, but only if they are using a pre-set keyword. It minimizes the amount of irrelevant clicks that you’d still have to pay for.
3) Enable ad extensions. Get your Google My Business page in good order. Keep it current and add call or location extensions. Call extensions often have a clickable button that allows customers to call you directly. The extra details offered through both the call and location extensions target your ads to more qualified customers, thereby gaining you more bang for your advertising buck.
One last word (OK, it’s actually two) on local PPC advertising: Landing Page. You don’t want to develop an amazing local PPC advertising strategy only to lose business because you’re landing page failed you. Offer clear contact information and an easily-actionable call to action. Make it easy for people to do business with you. And don’t forget, local PPC advertising takes place in your community. Your messaging needs to embrace your local community. Help your customers feel good about supporting a local business that supports their community.
Can you think of a better way to manage your marketing budget, grow your business, and support your community? Neither can we. One easy call and our SEO professionals can have a sound, profitable local PPC advertising strategy developed and launched in no time.
