Increasingly the Internet is being used as a tool for
finding local resources. Not just for finding information
or buying products online, but you can use it to find homes
for sale in your neighborhood, local independent insurance
agents, local retail stores and local law and accounting
firms for example. It is becoming increasingly important to
keep geo-targeting in mind when optimizing for search
engines. It makes sense to not only target by a searchers
keyword but also by the searchers geographic location.
Hypothetically, let's say I own a business located in
Philadelphia, PA. I am looking for a public relations
firm in order to help market my business to consumers
living in the Philadelphia area. As you would expect, one
of the first ways I look for a public relations firm is to
search online using a major search engine such as Google.
Because I am a small or medium sized business located in
Philadelphia, it makes sense for me to do business with a
public relation firm located in the Philadelphia area.
So the question is, how do I find a public relations firm
located in the Philadelphia area? I can search on Google
and type in "public relations firm" and I will get a list
of thousands of public relation firms from all over the
world. Since I want to hire a Philadelphia area public
relations firm, the search does not give me what I am
specifically looking for. Chances are, local companies are
not found easily in this type of search. Internet users are
becoming more savvy on how online searches are conducted
and more and more users search using geographic locations.
For our discussion, I would search using the keyword phrase
"Philadelphia public relations firm," which gives me a
better listing of local public relation firms for which I
am looking to conduct business.
The concept is fairly simple and makes sense; however, many
websites do not include this concept as part of their
Internet strategy. As a company or organization conducting
the majority of business with local companies, how do you
take advantage of the concept spelled out above? The idea
is to develop your search engine optimization strategy
around the concept of geo-targeting in order to increase
your search engine rankings when a potential client or
customer is searching for your product or service locally.
There are two ways to get your website listed on search
engines such as Google. The most popular is organic search
optimization, also known as natural search optimization; it
is a continuing process allowing a web site to gain free
listings within the major search engines without incurring
ongoing marketing costs. If you are targeting clients
within your local area, you may want to consider the
following geo-targeted strategy.
Include the following:
1) Full address on all your WebPages, the higher on the
page the better results.
2) Areas where you do business throughout your website copy.
3) Geographic location in your title tags and Meta tags.
4) Your city in the link text when linking from other sites
to your Website.
5) Register for local search with the major search engines.
The second way to get listed on search engines such as
Google is through "pay per click" (PPC) campaigns. If you
use PPC advertising, you pay each time one of your ads is
clicked on a search engine. Google PPC marketing is called
Google AdWords, which is located on the right side of a
search page
How PPC (pay per click) works:
1) Register with a PPC system, provide credit card number
and load your account.
2) Create one or more ads with title, body text and link to
your appropriate WebPage.
3) Associate your important keywords with each ad.
4) Bid on each keyword, the more you bid the higher the
listing.
The key for a local businesses using PPC is to take
advantage of Geographic Targeting. Google allows marketers,
using AdWords, to specify the geographic locations in which
their ad will appear. For example a business in Boston that
targets local companies can set up their campaign so that
only people in their market area will see the ad. This
makes a lot of sense because the Boston based company does
not want to be charged because a person from Florida
clicked on their ad. By taking advantage of geo-targeting
the searcher from Florida will not see the ad.
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Article written by Jason Lomberg, founder of The
Philadelphia Marketing Directory
(http://www.philadelphia-marketing-directory.com), Internet
Marketing Expert and Internet Strategist with 12 years of
experience from the Philadelphia area. Jason holds a
Marketing Degree and a MBA from Rutgers University. He can
be contacted at jason@philadelphia-marketing-directory.com
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