Local Paid Search Guide:Top 10 Local Paid Search Tips
Local SEM Spending Projected to Double by 2013. A lot of places exist online for local business to spend their marketing dollars which at times can provide a very low ROI.
Below includes some of the best places for local businesses to spend money online that provide the opportunity for the greatest return on investment. These tips can help.
Optimize your local SEO efforts & provide additional lead sources for any business implementing a local search marketing strategy.
Tip #1
Universal Business Listing
Why: Universal business listings publishes your local business listing to over 50 websites including infoUSA, Citysearch, YellowPages.com, SuperPages, WhitePages, Yelp, Local.com and many others websites. Listing can be optimized for your local SEO efforts and include logos, photos, categories, company description, etc.. that will provide detailed information about your company for people searching on these websites in your local area.
Provides an easy way to create multiple web citations that are an important factor for Local SEO rankings.
How: Sign up at http://www.universalbusinesslisting.org
Cost: $30 a year
Tips: Use a local phone number as a lot of websites will not keep you listing published with 800 or other toll free phone numbers.
Tip #2
Enhanced Yahoo Local Listing
Why: Provides maximum exposure & control for your business listing for local searches on Yahoo by allowing you to create a business profile that can include coupons, photos, description, logo, etc.. for multiple business categories in your local area for a flat fee of $9.95 a month. Your “Enhanced Yahoo Local Listing” will show up at the top of results on Yahoo Local, Yahoo Maps & Yahoo Yellow Pages.
How: Sign up at http://listings.local.yahoo.com/ to create your local business listing.
Cost: $9.95 Monthly
Tip: Make sure you have all of your images, content, phone numbers etc.. available while creating the listing, as it is a slow process to edit changes to your listing once it has
been submitted.
Tip #3
Superpages PPC
Why: Google is indexing pages from Superpages that display pay-per-click ads, which means your pay-per-click ad on Superpages might possibly show up in organic Google results for some of your top keywords on Google organically for local searches for your business services.
How: Sign up at http://advertising.superpages.com/spportal/index.jsp?campaignId=SP_header&tsrc=SP
Cost: Varies depending on target area & categories.
Tip: Opt for you ads only to show on Superpages rather than their entire network. Also, Superpages is trying to expand their business and if you manage multiple accounts, try to
get help from an account manager when setting up your campaigns.
Tip #4
Getlisted.org
Why: Provides a quick way to review your local listings on Google, Yahoo and MSN for optimizing your listings for local search.
How: Go to Getlisted.org
Tip #5
Yahoo Sponsored Search
Why: Results show up at for Yahoo results and websites that are important to local search such as CitySearch.com
How: Sign up at: https://marketingsolutions.login.yahoo.com if you don’t have an account.
Cost: Varies depending on target area & keywords.
Tip: Create campaigns by your designated market area and your DMA will show up next to your headline on your text ad which makes it unique among other text ads providing an
opportunity to increase your click through rate.
Tip #6
AdWords – Create a “Geo Targeted” campaign in your target market for your business with generic keywords.
Why: Creating a “Geo Targeted” campaign helps generate leads that might be missed when people search generically for you services in your local market on Google.
It might be difficult for you to compete with national companies for organic search results for generic keywords. For example, if someone searches “pay per click” without any geo-modifiers, it will be hard to compete organically for this search.
A “Geo Targeted” Adwords campaign with generic keywords provides an opportunity to compete against national companies in your local market.
Create a campaign with all of your generic keywords. For example: “pay per click management”, “ppc services”, “paid search consultant”, “adwords expert”, etc….
How: If you don’t have an AdWords account sign up at: http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/ads/ads_2x.html. Opt out of the content network.
Tip #7
AdWords – Create a “Large Area” campaign that includes exact match keywords with local town/cities as geo modifers
Why: Creating a “Large Area” campaign helps capture people working outside your target market or people searching outside your local business area which you might miss if you only use a geo targeted campaign.
How: If you don’t have an AdWords account sign up at: http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/ads/ads_2x.html. Opt out of the content network.
Tip #8
Including Local Business Ads in your AdWords Ad groups will display your ads in Google maps in areas where your local business listing from the local business center might
not display. This is also another way to fight Google map spam which is becoming more prevalent everyday.
Tip #9
Google Search Network
Opt into the Google search network which will further expand your local ads by displaying on websites such as AOL & Ask.com
How: In your campaign settings make sure to opt into the Google search network.
Tip #10
Create in Adwords “Seperate Content” campaigns that are duplicates of search campaigns
Why: Creating “Separate Content” campaigns that are duplicates of your search campaigns helps control costs spent on the content network and also provides additional opportunities
to generate leads by of some local websites which might be part of the Google content network.
How: If you don’t have an AdWords account sign up at: http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/ads/ads_2x.html. Opt out of the search network.
Cost: Varies depending on target area & keywords.
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