Local PPC Management Strategies that Will Boost Local Traffic

Here at BlueTone Media, we love being a part of a small coastal town. We are surrounded by so many wonderful restaurants, coffee shops, and small businesses, that truly offer something unique to the community. At least once a week we leave the office for lunch and go on an adventure to see if we can find something new, and more often than not we do. This got me to think about the differences between how local businesses and national companies approach online advertising. Larger companies seem to have a grasp on the need for digital marketing whereas local businesses often ignore the benefits of reaching more of their core market. 

If you are not already using PPC marketing, start today.
If you own a local “brick and mortar” type of business, you need to give this a shot. One of the most powerful ways to generate new business is by getting found when someone whips out their phone and searches Google for a product or service near them.  Here are 3 PPC strategies that your local business can use to bring you more customers:

1. Ad Extensions

Location Extension

AdWords’ Location extension lets you include your physical address in your ads. What is great about this extension is that you do not even have to input your address into the ad. Google will automatically extract this data from your Google My Business page and place it in the ad, along with your business hours, phone number and other data. It will further link your address to a Google map so that people can physically find your business.

Call Extension

Adwords’ Call extension is similar to the Location extension. But instead of placing your address and business hours in the ad, it only lists your phone number. Where this extension really shines is on mobile ads. People seeing your ad on their phones will see a literal call to action at the bottom of the ad with your phone number, which they can press to call you directly.

2.Geo-Targeting

One of the many features that make  AdWords such a great tool for local businesses is geo-targeting. What this means is that you can target people that are not only searching for a certain keyword, but also who are in a certain location.

How you use this feature depends greatly on what your business is and where it operates. For example, a business in a big city might want to target people within a mile or two of the business, while a rural company would probably want a much larger radius.

Geo-targeting often works best when used in conjunction with ad scheduling. You can schedule your ad to appear only during your business hours, and if you are running a special sale, you can schedule the ad for this sale to appear only during the sale.

3.Device Bidding

If you are a local business, you are probably more interested in running your ads on mobile devices. This is because you will likely reach more people who are in need of your product and service right away. The problem is that there is a lot of competition for mobile users. If you discover that your ad is not reaching enough of these users, consider using AdWords’ device bidding feature, which will automatically adjust the bids of your mobile ads upward so that you can reach more mobile users.