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local Advertising On the Internet
Written by David Bell
If youre a small business exclusively serving a local market, you probably think the Internet has little to offer for your local advertising needs.
While search engine advertising has been a great advertising medium for businesses capable of or interested in marketing their products and services to a national or international audience, the effectiveness of this type of advertising was limited for businesses interested in advertising to a local market until very recently.
For example, a realtor with a web site in Minneapolis is likely interested in advertising on search terms such as homes for sale and sell my home. The only problem was the realtor would have to advertise to everyone in the country who happened to type those terms into search engines. This was wasteful and ineffective because the vast majority of visitors clicking through to the site would not be qualified visitors since they lived outside the realtors regional market.
Targeting a known geographic location of searchers became a reality earlier this spring when Google launched their local targeting program. So now the realtor in Minneapolis can advertise on the more general terms, then specifying a geographic area theyd like the ads to appear within.
Local Advertising works very well. There are very few types of advertising online or offline where you have such detailed control over who you are advertising to. Basically its pretty hard to beat advertising to people who are searching for what you sell and happen to live close to your business.
Local Advertising Tips:
Promote Your Location - Youll definitely see better conversion rates for your local advertising if you include your physical address on your web site. We recommend including this in the footer of every page of your site to reinforce that youre local to the prospects.
Track Performance - When you use local advertising you will still have to compete against businesses willing to advertise nationally on the same search phrases. This means search terms can get expensive but your conversion rates should support this. However, as with any form of advertising, its important to track whats working.
Create informal alliances with other locally-oriented, non-competitive businesses in your industry. The two best sources for such alliances are first, your customer list, and second, your supplier list. What form could these alliances take? Here are some suggestions: Joint sponsorship of online (or offline) contests, joint sponsorship of golf tournaments, joint participation in local trade shows.
Offer sponsorships or special discounts for products or services to high visibility local organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, service clubs, community sports associations — where you are likely to get exposure for your locally-oriented services. Be sure to insist that your LFI is prominently (and tactfully) displayed.
Register your new site with locally-oriented and industry-specific directories or link exchanges that are likely to send traffic your way. The point of these links is different from link exchanges where you want to get higher SE ranking. These links are for generating traffic.
You must build your pages and your site(s) in certain ways to maximize your chances of scoring well with the SEs. This is the only way you can get good ranking when people search local businesses.
Conclusion
Local advertising makes sense only because CONVENIENCE has changed ALL of our Buying Habits forever. You Must now play the game by the new rules or lose by the new Rules!
I hope this helps in your future marketing decisions.
David Bell
http://www.wspromotion.com/
Advertising research and development center
Additional Articles by David Bell
The Power Of Viral Marketing
Four Simple Steps to Improve Your Sales Copy
How To Maximize Your PPC Campaign
How to write Killer Classified Ad Copy
Offline Ways To Promote Your Business
The Art of Website Optimization
So You Want to Advertise on The Internet
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