Businesses Win Big With These 7 Local PPC Strategies

Competing with similar local businesses without a solid marketing strategy wastes time, money, and effort. However, with pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, local companies can be at the top of customers’ minds who are looking for their products or services.

A local PPC management agency reveals the top seven PPC strategies for local businesses:

1. Develop a hyper-local audience.
2. Perform thorough keyword research.
3. Ensure local relevance in ad copies.
4. Use geotargeting.
5. Consider ad extensions.
6. Run local PPC on multiple platforms.
7. Monitor and optimize.

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1. Develop a Hyper-Local Target Audience

A powerful way to adopt PPC is to create foolproof targeting for a hyper-local audience. With this kind of audience, local businesses can increase targeted traffic or prospects that are more than ready to buy.

The first step to developing a hyper-local audience is to identify the audience's specific geographic area and ensure that the business covers their location. Learn about their demographics and interests and make sure that they align with the business objectives. 

Companies are able to produce relevant ads that appeal to their audience with this information. Here are additional tips for a hyper-local audience:

• List and optimize Google Business Profile (GBP). This lets the business appear in local search results, get leads and inquiries, and answer questions about their services or products.
• Allow location assets in Google Ads to show up on Google Maps. Update GBP, including business address, phone, and email. Add updated and relevant photos and videos.
• Follow SEO best practices. Every size of business benefits from SEO. Use local keywords in the metadata, such as meta titles, descriptions, and headings. Add the business address and phone number to every page of the business website.
• Create a mobile-friendly website. Ensure that text and headings show clearly, the site is easy to load, and use clear calls to action (CTAs).
• Be part of online citations and directories. Use updated information and make certain that business profiles remain consistent in all directory listings.

2. Perform Thorough Keyword Research

Another critical element of a strong PPC strategy is keyword research. For a local paid ad campaign, keyword research and use revolve around location-specific keywords. These keywords are relevant to the business as well as its target audience.

For example, a local car rental business wants to maximize their marketing campaign budgets with PPC. They use local keywords that include the city's name or the business's location. They also consider "near me" keywords, which help their business appear in more local searches. 

Aside from these strategies, they also utilize the following local PPC keyword research techniques:

• Establish clear PPC goals. Consider the action that visitors must take to convert (e.g., sign up for a newsletter or email alerts, download a guide, or participate in an offer).
• Use a keyword tool. Google Keyword Planner is a free tool for discovering relevant keywords. Use it to search for keywords that competitors are using.
• Consider keyword metrics. Strike a balance between a good monthly search volume and cost per click (CPC).
• Target keywords using data. Remember the match settings: broad, phrase, and exact match keywords. Businesses have to get more precise in matching keywords with customers to increase conversion rates.

3. Ensure Local Relevance in Ad Copies

Optimizing ad copies to make them more relevant to the local audience is also part of a winning PPC strategy. Adding local relevance helps the audience connect with the offer, considering the product or service as the solution to their issues. 

Additionally, ads with local flair are more likely to appear in local searches. Consider these techniques to optimize ad copy for the local audience:

• Add local information to the ad copy. Use local landmarks, streets, customs, traditions, events, language, dialect, or weather.
• Include a photo of the local office. Highlight products, services, staff, features, and amenities.
• Incorporate localized page features to lead customers to the office, branch, or store. Add a map, a clock with the local time and date, traffic conditions, weather, and other relevant information.
• Use reviews and ratings from local customers to promote expertise and authority.

4. Use Geotargeting

A great tool to enhance PPC targeting is to adopt geotargeting strategies. This is a feature that allows businesses to focus their search ads on customers in a particular location. They can also use geotargeting on a set of locations, which helps local businesses that cover more areas or nearby locations.

Local businesses that use Google Ads for paid ad campaigns may take advantage of geotargeting options according to countries, areas within a country, the radius of a location, or multiple locations. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram also offer geotargeting features.

Remember these techniques to improve geotargeting for local PPC ads:

• Use local signifiers. Add dynamic keyword insertion to landing pages to include names of locations in the keywords.
• Customize ad messaging to include location or reference locations.
• Use a phone number with a location-specific area code for ads and landing pages. People are more likely to call a local number than a toll-free one.
• Test ad campaigns locally before scaling to a new market or servicing a broader market.
• Be time-specific by optimizing ad bids during times when the business is open.
• Exclude areas that are not performing well. Maximize bids in areas that respond well to geotargeting.

5. Consider Ad Extensions

PPC ads have limited space on a search result page, which offers only some information about an offer. However, with ad extensions, businesses can add more details to their PPC campaign. More information means ads perform better, and local businesses get more out of their PPC budgets.

Ad extensions can be location or call extensions. With a call location, customers are able to contact the business directly. Here are more examples of ad extensions that work best for local businesses:

• The site link extension places additional links in the text ad. These are links to other pages on the website.
• A callout extension is a 25-character text describing the valuable features of the business, services, or products.
• The structured snippets show the business’s amenities, categories, types, destinations, or specific locations.
• Call extension places the business phone number in the ad to enable customers to call ASAP.
• The location extension features the business address, phone number, and map with the ad. It may also be a link that opens a local map.
• The price extension places a service's or product's exact or estimated price.
• The promotion Extension displays deals or special offers on the ad.

6. Run Local PPC on Multiple Platforms

Local PPC ads run on social media platforms and search engines. Thus, for a business to reach more people, it needs to optimize its reach by running on multiple platforms. This means having ads on social media platforms relevant to the company, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube. 

In addition, use search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo to spread offers. Having PPC ads on multiple platforms provides excellent advantages. Here are some best practices to follow:

• Use Google Ads for precise location targeting. Set radius targeting to improve reach within a specific distance from the business.
• Consider Facebook Ads for the demographic and behavioral targeting features. Facebook has budget-friendly and scalable ad options and objective-based measurement (which considers awareness, consideration, and conversion).
• Keep the target audience and business objectives in mind when selecting platforms. Use Microsoft Ads for valuable ad opportunities, especially for local businesses.

7. Monitor and Optimize

PPC ads need constant monitoring to make sure that they are working as expected. It includes an analysis of key performance metrics, including clickthrough rates (CTR), CPC, and conversion rates. Businesses use data to inform their campaigns. They can optimize their PPC ads in real time.

If a business uses search engine optimization (SEO) with PPC ads, they might use their best-performing keywords to improve their local PPC campaigns. Aside from this technique, the following top strategies also help monitor and optimize PPC ads for a local business:

• Update local keywords regularly.
• Run A/B testing on all ad elements. Test the ad title, description, copy, offer, CTA, image, and more. 
• Partner with a local PPC management agency to create effective, cost-efficient campaigns.

Summing Up

Businesses can maximize paid ad strategies with a hyper-local audience, keyword research, and localized ad copy. Geotargeting, ad extensions, multiple ad platforms, and campaign monitoring also help companies win big. PPC guarantees quick results and, when correctly implemented, takes your business closer to your goals.

Learn more about how local PPC management makes a difference in your campaigns. Partner with an experienced PPC agency. Contact Digital Authority Partners (DAP) today.