Boost Your Local Business Online Marketing With These Proven Strategies

When local businesses dive into PPC advertising, the initial results are typically abysmal.

And they give up on paid advertising — consequently letting someone else capture their online customers.

In local markets, unlike national markets, the audience reach is limited AND competition is relatively high.

This results is either brands paying too much per click to fight for position #1 in Google Ads or paying lower click costs and not getting the high click rates they need to grow the business.

Brands usually think PPC is not for them when it doesn’t get the results they want. From experience, after talking to so many local businesses, it’s usually because of their lack of experience and time to properly manage their PPC campaigns.

Local business PPC can boost your revenue

#1. Localizing your PPC ads with city ad groups

Within Google Ads, you can create ad groups that target audiences by city, zip code, state, county, by radius and DMAs.

But what we’ve found very effective is targeting your ad groups by city for specificity.

What do I mean by that?

For most people, the way their campaigns and ad groups are set up look like this because the focus is on the products:

Campaign: Los Angeles

Ad Groups: Hardware tools, Backup generators, tool storage

Ad Copy: Shop for Discount Hardware Tools in Los Angeles

This is the natural way to process information. It’s a logical structure. But there’s a better way to build campaigns for your local audience.

The campaign setting doesn’t change. It’s still targeting Los Angeles. But the ad groups and ad copy will undergo a transformation.

Ad Groups: Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Simi Valley

Ad Copy: Discount hardware tools in Thousand Oaks near you. Backup generators in Thousand Oaks near you! Buy tool storage in Simi Valley.

As you can see, changing the way your ad groups are structure affects the dynamics of your ad optimization.

By doing this, you focus on the actual local audience (in-store and online) with your ad copy. And that change will increase your click-through-rate (CTR). The hyper-relevant and targeted ad copy will resonate more with your local audience.

#2. Big brand name keywords bidding

Chances are your are in an industry that is already saturated. The big boys with deep advertising pockets are putting their ads in front of customer in your city.

Financially, it is not feasible for many businesses to spend even $1,000 or $2,000 per month on Google ads.

For example, if you are a local plumbing company trying to generate more local leads, I doubt you’ll have a large enough advertising budget to compete against the likes of HomeAdvisor.com or Thumbtack.com.

Au contraire.

Your business can still show up in search results — strategically. This is not a revolutionary tactic. It’s been used by businesses of all sizes for many years.

Bidding on your competitor’s keywords will put your ads in front local customers.

By bidding on “dutton plumbing near me” you increase your chances of reaching more customers.

Granted, these local searchers may not be looking for your business, specifically. But with some creative ad copy you can convince them to patron your business.

You can leverage the search volume behind larger branded keywords, while also marketing your unique mom-and-pop vibe to acquire local traffic and sales.

Here is another article you will find useful. You can scale your marketing budget once you start increasing your sales over time.

#3. Remarketing to your local audience segment

Showing your ads to users who have previously visited your website is what a remarketing campaign about.

If you are looking to maximize your advertising budget, then remarketing is exactly what you business need.

When you target geographically, you are essentially turning your campaign into a hyper-targeted remarketing campaign — and putting your ads in front of users who show a higher buying intent.

Setting your remarketing campaigns up right will drive your CTR through the roof. Our clients typically see anywhere from 30% – 60% in CTR from their remarketing campaign.

Because these are users who are already aware of your business, your going to be paying more effectively for qualified traffic, in turn boosting your local PPC performance and business revenue.

#4. Use ad extensions to expand your visibility

Ad extensions is a perfect way to supercharge your Google Ads ad copy. As you can see, there are many extensions available at your disposal.

For a local business PPC, this can be to your advantage by giving your users more ways to reach different parts of your website to reach your goal.

While every extension can be used, there are specific ad extensions you can use to boost local engagement for your business includes:

• Location Extensions
• Call Extensions
• Dynamic Sitelink Extensions

One of my personal favorite is the call extension. Most local businesses we work with close their sale either on the phone or in store.

With everyone on their mobile devices these days, having a call extension is extremely necessary for your local business PPC. Why?

When the user clicks on the phone number, it calls your business right away. This is so important for any local business who want to get someone on the phone.

#5. Submitting your site to local directories

There are over 50+ directories you can submit your local business to.

Most people obsess and focus on Google or Facebook, but they are not the only places that can get you new customers.

Believe or not, there are directories that, while may not get hundreds of millions of searches is still relevant and can drive healthy amount of local customers to your business.

Here’s the list: enjoy!

Conclusion

Local business PPC is all about targeting, timing, and relevance.

Being in tune with the needs of your local customers will increase your local business PPC campaign performance.

PPC works really well for local businesses. Far too many local businesses do not set up well enough to tap into the opportunities.

Knowing what to do, where to look, and how to set up a local business PPC is what sets a successful business apart from the others.