|
/pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> |
Advertise Locally Using Search Engines
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 realtor's regional market.
At that time, the only work around to this was to include a regional qualifying term next to each search phrase, so instead of advertising on the term "homes for sale" the realtor would have to advertise on "Minneapolis homes for sale."
What about the prospective clients who live in Minneapolis, but only type in "homes for sale?" They're likely just as qualified for the realtor, but it there wasn't a way to target this type of searcher. The gap between forcing advertisers to use regional qualifying terms or advertising to a national market was finally closed this spring by Google.
Local Targeting
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 they'd like the ads to appear within.
The options for this include picking specific cities, metropolitan areas, or even a distance radius from a specific point. For example, maybe the realtor only wants to generate leads from within 30 miles of their home.
Does this work?
Yes, it 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 it's pretty hard to beat advertising to people who are searching for what you sell and happen to live close to your business. And, since this is pay per click advertising, you are only charged when searchers click through to your web site.
Local Advertising Tips
Promote Your Location - You'll 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 you're 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, it's important to track what's working.
Ed Kohler is the president and founder of Haystack In A Needle - http://www.haystackinaneedle.com/ - a full service web marketing and search engine positioning firm based in Minneapolis, MN.
How to Choose Keywords to Theme Your Pages and Boost Your Traffic
One of the most frequent questions I get asked is in the choice of keywords for a new site, specifically secondary keywords.. These are the words or phrases that you use when writing your content to help theme the page so that the search engines know what your page is about. These secondary keywords also help to bring in more traffic, because they add more depth to your page, meaning that your page is found for a lot more phrases than just the primary phrase you page is built around.
10 Steps To Higher Search Engine Positioning
There is perhaps no more level playing field in business than the Internet. It is this fact that has created millionaires from paupers. The amount of money that can be made depends of course on your industry and your products and/or services but to be sure, if it can be sold at all, it can be sold online.
Meta Tags Help Optimize Your Web Site Rankings
Are you working on getting your web site up onto the internet?
Why is Search Engine Optimisation Expensive?
Many of our customers (http://www.internet-marketing-australia.com) find search engine optimisation (SEO) services quite expensive. From the client's point of view the results are intangible and the process is lengthy. Therefore, the clients are often reluctant to commit to the additional expense.
How To Stay One Step Ahead of the Google Dance
It's taken you 6-months of hard work, constant changes, reading every shred of information on search engine optimization strategy not to mention thousands of dollars trying out web optimization tools and services.
9 Ways to Keep Google Happy
A recent Google patent application has the SEO community buzzing. At a bare minimum this document reveals the direction Google is taking its future search criteria. Changes in the way Google will be evaluating pages for search rankings are intended to address two major problems:
High Search Engine Rankings - A Long Term Strategy
The last 1.5 years have shown major changes in search engine behavior across the board. Algorithms change at random dates. Websites that ranked great in search results are suddenly completely wiped out from the search index. It becomes less and less predictable what a certain change to your website will get for results. A major change to a website or the way how it is promoted could have a major impact on search engine success for that website.
What is Google Talk ?
The advent of Internet has affected lives of almost the entire world and websites, e-mails and chating on net none need any introduction even for young kids. There is an outpour of websites throughout the Internet all offering numerous services to attract the potential visitors online. The question actually matters is what's the foolproof way to keep visitors glued to a particular site and not jump to other numerous sites that are upcoming each new day. What makes one of the web pages much more popular than the other when both are based on almost similar theme. The answer lies in the way of presenting the information and the simplicity with which the users can avail services offered.
Buying Textlinks: The Latest SEO Craze
With search engine algorithms changing seemingly daily, the quest to rank high in the search engines and stay there is proving to be quite the challenge for most webmasters. One of the more recent popular ways of achieving this is through buying text links on websites that have high PR's (page ranks) on Google and that also rank well in the other major search engines. Is buying text link placement worth it?
Optimize Your Site Pt1
Listed here you will find the five of the most important points to remember when optimising your site and individual pages for the search engines.
Top 2 Ways To Get Higher Rankings in Major Search Engines
Top 10 search engine rankings. Everybody wants it but a few achieve it. Search engines have always been an important source of traffic for many marketers. Achieving high search engine rankings should be one of your goals because it can be profitable in the long run.
Googles Next Big Move
November 2003 might go down in history as the month that Google shook a lot of smug webmasters and search engine optimization (SEO) specialists from the apple tree. But more than likely, it was just a precursor of the BIG shakeup to come.
Is Page Not Found Making Google Tell The World Site Not Found?
Search Engines are hard to tame, that's for sure. But if you can get on their good side, search can be your biggest ally when it comes to generating tons of free traffic to your business web site. Not many people understand how search engines think. So, search engine "optimization" ends up either ignored or left up to highly paid experts.
Attack Of The Killer Google Zombies!
Don't share this with people of a nervous disposition because I really can't restrain myself any longer.
An SEO Checklist
Search engine optimization is on every webmaster's mind these days. Achieving a favorable ranking for the right keywords can mean a steady stream of targeted traffic to your site, and all for free - that's hard to beat. The key to high search engine rankings is structuring your website correctly, including plenty of content that is relevant to your keywords, and making sure your website is spider-friendly. You can use this checklist to make sure all of your Web pages can be found, indexed and ranked correctly:
Search Engine Optimization: Site Structure and Popularity
In the Global Internet era the industry presence is undoubtedly related to the company online presence. Where is the scope of the online presence limitations and does it refer only to the search engine optimization aspect or it broadens into many related components.
Your Website Title Could Be Costing You Money
Nothing could be simpler than the title you give to your web pages right? Unfortunately, the vast majority of the websites I visit these days have absolutely terrible titles that hurt their online business. The title of your website is a very important part of getting good rankings on most of the major search engines. A good title also goes a long way towards getting your prospects to click on your listings.
Complete Web-Site Optimization For Search Engines (Part 1)
SEO or search engine optimization strategy now becomes widely popular among online business operators. Nothing strange about it as it allows to substantially increase your gross income, as a result of growing traffic or visitors flow.
SEO India: Tips & Techniques
SEO is all about "Individualism"
SEO Expert Guide - Proposition Development (part 2/10)
It is literally amazing how many people start their online business presence by buying a domain name (close to their business name) and building a brochure-ware page. Only later do they turn their mind to optimizing their site for (i) their audience and (ii) the way their audience find them. Fewer still take a long, hard look at what their competitors are doing first.