Local PPC: How to Optimize Your Ads So the People Come to You

There is a big difference between a local PPC and traditional PPC campaign. Standard strategies typically focus on developing ads to attract customers across a country or beyond, which isn’t always the best option for small businesses or budding startups who are up against giant enterprises. 

A local PPC ad campaign enables small ventures to promote their products or services to a smaller audience, as they can run ads in a specific city, state, radius, or neighborhood. As a result, it can help small businesses, such as restaurants, stores, or services, to reach the top of the search results and capture locals’ attention.  

While your business is less likely to compete with huge brands when running a local PPC campaign, you must optimize its ads so that people come to you. 

How to Execute a Local Business PPC Campaign 

Rather than allowing simple mistakes to destroy your Google Ads local campaigns, you must introduce some tried-and-tested practices to enjoy more success online. For example, you must narrow down your chosen location, optimize a landing page, and even speak your target audience’s language. 

Single KeywordKeywords are the words and phrases that potential customers might search for to find your business. Ad Groups 

Ad groups enable companies to target multiple keywords at a time in their ads. Yet, single keyword ad groups can prove much more powerful, especially when running local Google Ads campaigns. 

Using single keyword ad groups will provide a local, smaller audience with more relevant copy, which can improve the ad’s click-through rate and quality score. For instance, you can use single-word ad groups to target a specific demographic that is most likely to convert due to their keyword or search query. 

Local Lingo 

Help your ads capture attention by incorporating local lingo. Also, using common terminology could increase your reach, as your target audience will receive relevant ads for their searches. Using local jargon or terms will humanize your business, and local visitors might be more likely to engage with your business than an impersonal brand. 

The Location Name 

Drive as many high-quality leads as possible to your website by featuring your location name in a local PPC ad. For instance, you can include the city’s name to directly target locals, and people from outside the city will know you only serve a specific location. It will prevent low-quality leads from clicking on the ad, reducing your company’s ad expenditure and customer acquisition costs. 

Google Ad Extensions 

Boost ad engagement by incorporating one of three of Google’s ad extensions into your local PPC company campaign. It can freshen up a standard text ad that will appear on Google while boosting a site’s advertising power. 

For example, you can use an ad extension to incorporate additional hyperlinks into a text ad. It can feature a backlink to a product page or customer testimonials, encouraging more engagement. 

If your business has many locations across a city, add a location extension to the ad. It will provide a dependable list of your locations, as well as its proximity to the user. After clicking on the location, they can access Google Maps directions from their address to your business location. 

To encourage web users to pick up the phone to contact your business, a call extension is ideal, as the ad will include a hyperlink with your embedded phone number. Your target audience can decide to call you directly or save your number to their smartphone to ring at a later date. It is a must-have extension if you tend to generate many sales over the phone. It will ensure your phones are ringing off the hook day after day. 

Mobile Optimization 

As mobile devices account for more than half of all online searches, you must incorporate mobile optimization into local campaigns to earn more leads and customers. To do so, you must optimize your landing pages for mobile devices to avoid a high bounce rateBounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who visit only one page. A high bounce rate indicates that visitors are not satisfied with your website. and increase engagement.  

If your site takes more than a few seconds to load or it has a poor resolution or dimensions, you can almost guarantee a visitor will click away from your site, and they are unlikely to consider your brand again. 

Also, you can combine Google local campaigns with social media PPC, such as Facebook advertising. For instance, you can run Facebook proximity ads that will appear when a mobile device enters your specified radius, which is great for promoting a local sale, happy hour, or special deal. 

Competitor’s Branded Keywords 

If your business is forced to compete in an oversaturated local market with some big players, you might find it an impossible challenge to boost online engagement.  

For example, if you run a local coffee shop, you might fear you can’t compete with Starbucks’ PPC ad spend.  

To gain an advantage, you could bid on a competitor’s branded keywords to appear on the same results page.  

For example, when locals search for “Starbucks near me,” you could create an ad using the query to convince them to visit your coffee shop instead.  

Most locals will likely still visit Starbucks, but your engaging copy could encourage a percentage to visit your nearby coffee shop over the chain. 

Conclusion 

There is no question local PPC is a powerful way for small businesses and startups to improve their online presence, increase their brand awareness, and boost their conversion rateA conversion rate is the percentage of visitors that take a desired action on your site..  

After all, your local ad can appear at the top of the search results, helping to drive more traffic to your site. Also, you can target a smaller audience with a genuine interest in your products or services.  

Unlike banner ads and physical flyers, you can review clear metrics to monitor an ad’s click-through rate, conversionA conversion is a desirable result on a website that leads to an action such as completing an order, filling out a form, or simply clicking on a link. rate, and total impressions to identify what is and isn’t working to adjust your strategy. 

If you are ready to kickstart a paid search campaign, look no further than Click Intelligence for dependable PPC services.  

We know how to run a PPC campaign that delivers exceptional results, and can create an effective strategy that complements your business’s wants and needs, which can include white label PPC, paid social, or PPC audits.  

Book a free consultation to discuss your goals and requirements with our friendly, knowledgeable team.