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Transcript: 5 Local PPC Tips for AWESOME Google Ads Local Campaigns

Running a local PPC campaign is very different to running a national campaign. First of all, you’ve got less budget than those who advertise nationally. You also have the added problem of competitors in the market within a small area where you’re targeting, very few people looking compared to nationally as well. All of these challenges make local advertising more difficult in a lot of ways than advertising a major service nationally. In this video, we’re going to explore how to best set up and execute a local PPC campaign using the best tested and tried methods to get the best results. Coming up.

Hey guys, Darren Taylor of thebigmarketer.com here, and my job is to make you a better marketer. Now, if you’re new to the channel, I’m Darren Taylor, a trainer and consultant specializing in PPC and SEO as well. If that sounds of interest to you, you should consider subscribing to the channel and don’t forget to ring the notification bell. In this video, we’re exploring the implications of local PPC campaigns on Google ads search and what you should do as a local location-based business promoting local services in order to get the best results possible from your PPC campaigns.

Jumping right in, first of all, we need to understand how people search locally. There are three ways that customers and consumers search for location-based services. These three ways are generic, geo based and also proximity based as well. These are the three methods and ways people search for local services as a consumer.

Let’s start off with the first one, which is generic. How do people search for location-based services in a generic fashion? Well, that’s pretty straightforward. Say, for instance, the keyword, “emergency plumber”. If someone goes to Google and typed in the search term, “emergency plumber”, they are looking for a service for their house, because, of course, the implication is they’re looking for a plumber. Usually 9 times out of 10, they’re talking about residential, so therefore it’s their house.

However, they’ve not specified where they are or asked Google to return any results to them based on where they are either. They’ve simply typed in the search term, meaning it’s generic, and they trust Google to deliver relevant results to them. Next, let’s take a close look at a geo targeted keyword. The same example– We’ll use the same example in this as well. The keyword “emergency plumber” in London is a geo-targeted local search term. This person is obviously based in London or has an interest in getting services within London, which makes this keyword geo based.

They don’t trust Google necessarily within their search that they’ll provide results in their local area, or maybe, even more importantly, they’re not actually searching from the area they want services from, meaning they need to put the geo in there in order for your campaign ads to show up to them as a relevant audience, even though they’re not in that target area. There’ll be more on this later when we check out how to set up and structure campaigns for local services, too. Stay tuned for that one.

Finally, the last kind of location-based search that you’ll see on Google ads is a proximity based search. This is where the user implicitly says in their search term they want the service where they are, which is using terms like “near me” or “nearby”, and those terms and those operators on a keyword, if we follow the same example and look at the keyword of “emergency plumber near me”, that person is looking explicitly for a service based on where they are right now. They trust Google to deliver that as well, because they understand Google knows where they are, and they trust the results will come back to them in line with what they’re looking for.

Now, you understand the three ways that people search for local services. We’re going to look at how we can use that information to structure campaigns and also look at the other tips as well. Here, we’re coming with five tips on how to set up a local campaign, but before I go into those five tips, if you like what you’re hearing so far, please hit the like button below, and let me know in the comments question of the day, are you struggling with your local campaigns? Let me know in the comments what problems you’re having with your local based campaigns. I reply to pretty much every comment I get.

Let’s crack on with the five things you can do to improve your location based local campaigns. As I mentioned, one of the methods people use to search for location-based services is to use a geographical term in their search. I also said that the person searching with a geographical term might not even necessarily be in the area they’re looking for services for.

Say, for example, I’m looking for plumbing services for my grandma, and she doesn’t live in the same area of the country as I do. If I’m looking for those services for her, I would have to use a geo operates on my search term. That’s a challenge you have there, because, of course, I want to service in your target area, but if you set your campaign up with targeting around a radius or particular locations, you’re going to miss my business.

I’m a relevant searcher from outside of your search radius, so how can you target me as a consumer? Well, the idea here is you split your campaign into two. You have a local geo based campaign with no geographical implications on keywords. You target a very concise and tight radius around your business or your zip codes or postal codes in the UK, and you target that area with generic search terms. Somebody searching from the area, it’s implied that they’re looking for services within that area.

However, if you plan a national campaign targeting the entire country, whether it’s the US or the UK or wherever you’re running your campaigns, and ensure every keyword in the national campaign has a geographical implication as well. “Emergency plumber in London” or whatever the location modifier you want to use is, that means you’re targeting the entire country for anyone who’s looking for your services based on where you are, because they’re using that geographical modifier.

Now, of course, with this technique you need to be careful as well, because, of course, there are multiple places in some countries with the same name and the implications could be negative for your campaign. For example, in the United Kingdom, there are two Newcastles, and if I’m targeting one Newcastle, and I target nationally to have the keyword “emergency plumber in Newcastle”, the user might be in either of those places. I need to be very careful when setting this up to ensure that my geo-targeting could only be referred to one particular place.

This method may not be for everybody, but if you’re confident in the area you’re targeting is specifically for that particular geo, then this method will be brilliant for your campaigns. In addition to that method, it’s really important as well to set your campaigns up to tell Google that you only want to target people within your target location specifically. Now, the reason I say to do this is twofold.

First of all, by targeting people only in your target areas specifically as well, when you’re targeting two different campaigns, one locally and one nationally with geo terms, then it guarantees that Google will show your ads to the right audience. They won’t have any crossover or any mismatches when you do that. By selecting that specific targeting, it means that it’s going to be no issues. Now, the other reason I say to do that as well, is it reduces the risk of out of area, phone calls or inquiries.

The last thing you want to do is spend your budget on people who aren’t even in your serviceable area. By doing this and making sure that you only show your ads to people in area, it removes the guessing game that Google perform to contextualize and understand where people are, and try and make sure that they’re searching for your services even if they’re not in area. Google shouldn’t make that decision for you. You should make that decision for yourself. By changing that one option, you put the power into your hands, and it gives you more options to optimize with further down the line as well.

The third thing you can do to really improve your campaigns is to use geographically targeted landing pages for your campaigns. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, all I mean is if you’re running a campaign with multiple locations and somebody clicks from the search results using a geo term and they land on your website page, they should be able to see the geographical area reflected within the page.

It will give them confidence that they’re in the right place and that your services will fulfill what they need. If they land on a page where the location they’ve typed in is an area you can service, but you haven’t mentioned it on your page, then unfortunately, they might go back to the search results and look for another result, where they’ll get that confidence that they can be serviced in that area.

It’s really important you set up segmented landing pages based on your geographical locations. You’re targeting is really important, and it’s a great way to make sure people stay on your website and inquire about your business before heading back to the search results and looking elsewhere. Now, I’ve mentioned landing pages before. I want to mention this, too.

If you’re using landing pages with a geo based term and you’re repeating the content, be sure not to screw up your SEO and make those new pages you’re creating no index, no follow, because that will allow Google to ignore those pages, and the duplication of the content you’re using as those landing pages won’t affect your SEO. It’s really important to do that as well, if you’re going to use this technique.

Another thing you can do to improve the performance of your local PPC campaigns is to add locations to your campaign in the most segmented way possible. What do I mean by that? Well, instead of adding all of an area as one part of a campaign– Let’s say, for example, your campaign targets only Houston in Texas. If that is your target area for your campaign, instead of adding Houston as a Metro area or a geo area in your campaign, add every single zip code within Houston that’s recognized within Google ads as an area.

By doing that, you add multiple locations to your campaign, and when you add the multiple locations to your campaign, it can all be optimized. If you see an area in your campaign that’s not performing in terms of the zip code, you can take a look and reduce your risk by lowering the bids in that particular geo. Of course, conversely, if you’re seeing an area that’s performing, where you’ve got room to spend more budget in that area, then you can increase your bids and increase your exposure and increase the yields of leads and sales you’re generating.

You have a lot more to play with if you add multiple locations based on zip codes or small segments. Maybe, they’re towns, maybe they’re areas, either way, in any case, don’t add a whole location as one target are. Segment your location as much as you can, because it gives you a ton of opportunities to optimize your performance.

The final way, I would say, you can improve local campaigns is to add negative exclusion targeting in areas around the edge of your target area. If you know you receive out of area inquiries from your general day-to-day running of your business, preempts that from Google Ads as well, because, of course, if it’s happening to you in normal other methods of generating traffic, it could happen to you on Google Ads as well. Add exclusion targeting to areas outside of your target area.

Maybe, make a wall of red in terms of exclusion targeting around the areas you’re positively targeting. The reason for that is because Google’s IP targeting, in terms of that geo-targeting, is not 100% accurate. There is a liability or room to have target area inquiries that fall outside of your [unintelligible 00:11:23]. This is something you need to address when you’re using Google Ads. It’s really important to add negative targeting and exclusion targeting for your local campaigns just to make sure you’re conserving budget and give you the peace of mind that you are excluding areas you cannot explicitly cover in your business.

That, guys, is exactly how you can implement five simple tips to improve your local PPC campaigns. If you like the video, please leave a like below. Let me know in the comments again. Question of the day: Are you struggling to optimize your local campaigns? I’ll be more than happy to help you down there in the comments. I reply to pretty much every single comment I get. In addition to that, don’t forget to subscribe. Check out the other content across my channel, and I’ll see you guys on my next video.