By
Andrea Greene, Internet Marketing Specialist
Over the last several years, buying keyword listings in the search engines
has become a widely used and effective method of advertising your products
and services online. For businesses with a website and a national audience,
this approach makes most sense. It allows you to put your message in front
of the entire Internet audience, for any potential customers to see.
Unfortunately, for many businesses serving a local market there can be one
major drawback: lack of geographic targeting. These keyword listings can
show up for searches done anywhere in the country, from California to
Florida to Maine. For products and services available nationwide, that might
be an appropriate strategy. But consider the local pizza shop in Beachwood,
Ohio. They don’t want to be stuck paying for irrelevant clicks on searches
for “pizza delivery” from a searcher in Philadelphia because chances are
that pizza shop is not going to make the 900 mile round trip just to deliver
a pepperoni pizza!
Research from The Kelsey Group estimates that at least 10% of searches
are local in nature* and that by 2008, advertisers will spend approximately
$2.8 billion on local search.
Search engines are now developing new tools and programs that allow you to
pick precisely which areas your potential customers will be able to see your
keyword listings. You can target by city, state, region, and in some cases
even by inputting custom coordinates.
Local Keyword Purchasing Programs: Currently, there are a number of
different keyword campaigns available in the top local search marketing
programs. Both Google and MSN have programs in place that can actually
determine where you are searching from and cater the search results to your
location. Other programs let you buy listings directly in the local search
engines, such as Yahoo Local, or in an online directory, like the
Verizon
Superpages, that are displayed when the searcher inputs their location,
usually city, state or zip code.
Example: For Designs of Distinction, a local event production and
planning company, we tested a geography targeted campaign with the Verizon
Superpages. We were able to put our client in the top results of the
party
equipment & supplies category in the Cleveland, Ohio geographic market!
Business Profiles: Don’t want to pay for clicks? Consider letting
Dynamics Online create and manage custom business profiles for your business
in your specified local market. You control the information provided,
including business hours, contact information, payment options, reviews, and
more. Your business profile can be added in the top local search engines and
directories, including Google Local, Yahoo Local, Superpages, MSN Local,
InfoSpace, Switchboard, and many others. See examples of optimized business
profiles in Google Local,
Yahoo Local, and
Verizon Superpages.
If you are interested in starting a local search engine marketing campaign
or just want to learn more, contact
Dynamics Online
today.
*via Local Search Guide:
http://www.localsearchguide.org/html/local_search.html and
Search Engine Watch:
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3316741.
