What is Local PPC?
Should you be running local PPC ads? If you’re a business looking to add locals to your list of customers and improve your local community business prospects, then the answer is likely yes. But wait: what is local PPC exactly?
If you run a business of any kind, and aren’t living under a rock in the 1800s where the Internet isn’t yet kind of a big deal, it’s likely that you’ve heard of PPC, CPC, search ads, and the ‘local’ versions thereof. Just because you’ve heard of them, though, doesn’t mean you know what they are; are using them yet; or, indeed, are even thinking about using them. We’re about to change all that by:
- Explaining what Local PPC is (in the simplest terms);
- Giving you some eye-opening stats on why you should be using Local PPC etc.; and
- Giving you five quick and easy tips to get your Local PPC campaign off to a running start.
What is PPC?
PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click, a model of internet marketing in which advertisers (i.e., you) pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Think of it as a way of “buying” visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically. PPC advertising can be used on search engines (search engine advertising – eg., Google or Bing) as well as on social media sites (eg., Facebook or Instagram advertising).
What Is Local PPC?
Local PPC, or Local Pay-Per-Click, is the same paid advertising strategy outlined above, but in a local context. In other words, with Local PPC you are creating search ads designed to better target prospective customers within your specific geographical area or location. In other words, local search ads – which are the Internet equivalent of the local Yellow Pages. (The Yellow Pages! Remember those? Yeah, we hardly do either.) You actually target the location where you business physically lives and/or offers its services.
Ask us about our Local PPC Management Services that include making use of local keywords, Google Map ads, and geo-targeting; essentially creating a location-based paid search campaign on your behalf.
Who should use Local PPC?
Local PPC is designed for businesses that service a specific community, city, or area. As such, it is perfect for service providers like: trades people/businesses, restaurants that deliver within a certain radius of their brick and mortar location, car dealerships, as well as other small local businesses trying to bring in more local customers.
As a small, locally-focused business especially, you don’t need your ads to be seen by all and sundry all over the world. It’s much more likely that the products and services you’re advertising will be limited to a city, a suburb, or even just a handful of city blocks. This is where geotargeting – and Local PPC – comes in. You get to advertise to only those people in your location or service area, and in so doing you’re not throwing away money on clicks from people who have absolutely zero chance of ever coming into your store or using your services by sheer dint of their ineligible location.
Should You Invest in Local PPC?
Are you a small local business, retail or otherwise? Or are you a service-area business? Then yes. You should invest in Local PPC.
For one thing, Local PPC advertising is one of the best, and most cost-effective, marketing investments you can make. By targeting people where and when they most likely to need your product, and then only paying for each highly-targeted click made on your ad, you are making the best possible use of your advertising budget. Cost per click (or PPC) is substantially less expensive than ‘normal’ advertising. (Note: Overall costs for a PPC campaign depends on your Ad Spend paid to the search engine – a budget decided upon by you, as well as the setup fee plus ongoing optimization fee paid to a PPC Management Company if you choose to get help.)
Need more convincing? These statistics regarding the successes of Local PPC should do it:
- 63% of people say they’d click on a Google ad (Search Engine Land, 2019)
- Businesses make an average of $2 in income for every $1 they spend in AdWords. (Google)
- Google Ads results receive 65% of the clicks that started with buying keywords, while organic results only receive 35% (Craig McConnel)
- 36% of searches have local intent (Wordlead)
- PPC Ads Can Boost Brand Awareness 80% (Wordlead)
- 66% of buyer-intent keywords are paid clicks (Wordlead)
- 75 percent of people who find local, helpful information in search results are more likely to visit the physical stores. (Google)
Five Tips to Make the Most of Local PPC
- Make use of enhanced campaigns in Google Adwords. They allow for very specific radius targeting based on your audience location, plus new changes mean you can even hone in on your ad spend according to specific locations. Read more about enhanced campaigns at Wordstream.
- Make sure you’re targeting mobile clicks in your Local PPC campaigns. People are more than two times more likely to click on your ad if it’s on a mobile device: PPC ads show a 2.7% click-through rate on mobile over a 1% on desktop. (Moz)
- Use the location ad extension! (Doh!) Learn more about Google’s location ad extension here.
- Use the ‘Call Now’ ad extension which allows searchers to call your store with just one click on your ad – particularly good for mobile searches! Learn more about Google’s call now ad extension here.
- Keywords: research location specific keywords that match your niche then use them! (Search Engine Journal has a great article outlining how to find local keywords.) Pro tip: Include ‘negative keywords’ in your Local PPC ad campaign. These are words or phrases that might be related to your selected keywords but have nothing to do with the product or brand you are actively trying to promote. You can even include negative location-based keywords where necessary (for example, Portland Oregon vs Portland Maine). You can include these in your PPC campaign to avoid wasting money on keywords that will bring in irrelevant traffic. Learn more about negative keywords here.
For more help on how to make the most of local search and creating a local PPC plan that works as hard for your money as you do, contact 1st on the List today by calling 1-888-262-6687 or email us at [email protected].
