This article is a guide for how local businesses can use Google Ads effectively. You’ll learn how to use Google Ads to boost local traffic to your website/content, and how to make purchasing services from your business more compelling.
Google Ads (formerly AdWords ) is a PPC platform that allows you to create and edit advertising campaigns within the search giant’s cloud-based ecosystem. The platform gives you the software tools to target local prospects with your advertising messages, and when they appear in search results.
Instead of searching in the Yellow Pages Book – most people are now using Google to find new suppliers. As with traditional advertising print, Google has free listings and paid listings. Google Ads is the paid listings, while organic is the free listing
Google Local Concepts
Before we go into using Google Ads, it is good to grasp some key concepts about local advertising and marketing.
- Google SEO (free listings). Also known as organic or natural traffic. To learn more about organic listings check Local SEO Tips
- Google My Business: A free listing for local businesses or companies with lots of local regions. Show in Google Maps and within Google web search.
- Google Ads (Search/Display advertising): Google Ads is a platform that allows you to control when users see your advertising messages. But there’s a steep learning curve because using Google Ads effectively is anything but simple.
If you’ve ever typed a search query into the Google search bar, you will often see a combination of regular (organic SEO) and paid ad links. The paid links are Google Ads at work by allowing advertisers (like you) to show ads to search engine users after they type in particular keywords.
Think like a Buyer
How often do you search for a service in the town or city that you live in? (E.g. electrician London, solicitors Newcastle, dry cleaner Birmingham). Look at the sponsored adverts and the list of 10 organic website page listings.
Think of how a prospective customer would find you – and what keywords they would use- and what part of your business offering could appeal to them the most.
Targeting is key – Local Keyword Targeting Tips
Your keyword strategy is imperative to making the most of your advertising budget. The right keywords will save you money that would otherwise be wasted spend, so it’s worth taking the time to research which ones are best for you. It can be tempting to choose only low-cost terms, but a mix of high, medium and low-cost keywords is usually more effective. Remember Google Ads pricing is determined by an auction, so your established competitors will bid higher on the highest converting keywords.
- Create Local keywords by combining the name of your profession with your location town or city. (e.g. Accountant Wimbledon, accountant near me, local accountant).
- Create commercial intent keywords by finding the stem keyword for your profession – then adding words like services, company, supplier, provider etc. This will give you a small list of targeted keywords that show people who are looking for what you offer specifically. Stem keywords are also known as base or root keywords. By adding commercial modifiers to these stem keywords, people searching will know to come to you when they’re ready to buy something new.
Target Location Correctly
As a local, brick-and-mortar business, it’s essential that you know how far people are willing to travel to take advantage of your services. If you provide rare services, then customers are probably willing to travel further than if you do something more common.
Google Ads lets you configure who sees your advertising based on their location. If you go to the Settings tab, and then “Locations,” you can tell Google Ads precisely who you want to see your messages. Be careful when choosing location settings: too broad a search area, and you’ll end up showing customers messages who will never buy from you. Too small an area, and you’ll miss out on crucial business.
Google Ads allows targeting by postcode, town name, city name, radius targeting and country.
Also, think carefully about your proximity to the competition. Let’s say you operate a fishing rod store in a rural location, near the main road that runs between two towns. One of the towns has a fishing rod store in the town centre, while the other doesn’t. Customers in the town with the fishing rod store on the high street are more likely to go there than your business, while those in the town without the store are more likely to visit you. It’s not sufficient, therefore, to target customers based purely on their radius from your business: you also want to consider neighbouring regions where competition is absent. Radius targeting can be miles or kilometres around a target location such as a postcode, town or city.
Use Negative Keywords to block irrelevant traffic
Every time a user clicks on one of your adverts, it costs you money. Because of this, you want to avoid non-local users from ever seeing your paid links (sink they are unlikely to buy your services). The way to do this is to use what Google Ads calls “negative keywords.”
With negative keywords, you can tell Google Ads which search queries should not show your advertising. For example, if you are a car mechanic operating in Birmingham, you do not want your advertising to show up in Google results when a user types “car mechanic London.” Likewise, if you operate a fleet of trucks in the North East, you don’t want Google showing advertising for your logistics services in the South West. For more details on negative keywords, see our blog post Negative Keywords for Google Ads Guide
Build your Local Brand
Creating awareness for your small business in your local community is the first step to making it shine brighter than the competition. This must happen both offline and online as part of your Google Ads strategy–especially since nearly half of all Google searches are seeking local information, and three-quarters of those looking for something locally will visit a business within five miles from them.
Monitor your Impression Share.
You can see your impressions share as your market share of local searches. While it is understandable that small business owners are focused on the bottom line, there are many PPC metrics that can tell you how well you are using your ad spend. Sadly, one metric gets overlooked.
Local awareness is key, and one way to measure it is by your impression share. By using tools like Google Trends, you can identify searches popular in your area and target keywords related to those searches with Google Ads. Even if you’re only getting impressions, that’s still a success for small businesses!
Different Stages of a the Search Buying Funnel
Focusing your Google Ads energy on increasing the volume of website traffic is a good net step if you have already maximised bottom-of-the-funnel search traffic.
For example, running ads at the top of your funnel can help interest viewers and get them to click through to your website. You can then use lead magnets on your site to engage visitors and collect their information if you are not ready to convert on your website as a sales lead or purchase. As you grow traffic and leads start coming in, you can begin refining your strategy with data gathered along the way.
Run Google Local Services Ads
Service-based businesses will be pleased to know that Google offers an ad type designed specifically for the local SMB service industry. This improves the matchmaking experience for both the advertiser and the searcher.
Local Service Ads can easily be employed as they’re managed from your Google Business Profile. You’ll only get charged for qualified leads, which are customers within your service area that have been confirmed by Google. Therefore, Local Service Ads are a great option for getting more attention from relevant local markets.
Make sure your ads have a strong CTA (call to action).
Your ad’s call to action is integral to whether it will succeed in generating leads. By pre-qualifying your audience with your ad copy, you can give them a better idea of whether they want to click and convert. You don’t want someone who clicks out of confusion and frustration; you want conversions on your landing page. So, always use clear language that entices users to take the next step.
Keep Your Advertising Messages Local And To The Point
Web users don’t want to have to take a comprehension test every time they read an advertisement from your company: they want to be able to understand what you offer immediately so that they can decide whether to pursue things further with you or not.
The good news is that Google Ads doesn’t provide a tremendous amount of space for adverts anyway, so you have to be brief. But it’s still worth trying to get your point across in as few words as possible. Be concise and direct whenever you can, and try to communicate the essence of your product, enticing users to find out more.
Choose A Compelling Local Headline
The headline of your advert is the part that forms the blue hyperlink users click on to visit your site. The headline is the most important thing to get right since this is what most users will read. The majority of people won’t bother to read through all the supporting text below (though you should still include this for those that do). Notice how in the image above the local town Wimbledon is mentioned in both adverts of local service providers (Profession & Town Name)
Communicate your Local Business USPs
It’s all well and good selling local services to nearby users, but sometimes your customers need a little extra persuasion to leave their offices or home and visit your business. Try including offers or discounts in your call-to-action that help to increase local footfall.
Make sure your website business offering is clearly communicated in your website copy and advert copy. What are your industry USP.s, guarantees, promotions, and benefits- and what are your strongest points, and call to action? Your adverts and landing page should focus on your industry, but also specifically on your company. Use Ad Testing to ensure to learn what parts of your business offer appeal most to your customer.
Activate All Advert Extensions for Google Ads
As a local business, your primary objective is to encourage users to visit your store in person. You’re a local business, and so you rely on local trade (rather than, say, an e-commerce retailer that ships nationally).
Google Ads provides a range of extensions that gives your business the opportunity to show customers both the location of your business and who they can call if they want to find out more.
To use location extensions, you’ll need to link your Google Ads account to your Google My Business Account. If you’ve already set up your Google My Business account, you can do this instantly. Otherwise, you’ll need to apply to Google for a unique PIN to confirm the physical location of your business.
There are other methods you can use to get more leads from PPC, in addition to driving traffic to your website. One such method is using ad extensions on Search ads. For example, lead form extensions enable viewers to fill out their information directly from the SERP. Call extensions work essentially in the same way, by converting from within Google instead of on your website.
Sitelinks are extra links you can post under your ad text that will ultimately lead to an increase in website traffic. By providing users with more options to click on, they are more likely to visit your site. Sitelinks can also be used as direct conversion sources, by sending users straight to a contact or purchase page.
To learn more about, see our blog post Ad Extensions for Google Ads
Use Local “Call Only” Campaigns
Data from Google suggests that more than 70 per cent of people who want to buy something on its platform from a local business call that business from their telephone via search results.
Because of this, phone calls are a big way for local companies to gain traction from local customers over the internet. Google knows that the transition from its search results to your landing page is the leakiest part of the conversion process, so it gives your customers the option, through Google Ads, to provide instant calling in search results.
Direct phone calls to local businesses result in much higher conversions than links to websites, so you may want to consider using Call-Only campaigns that better capture customers and don’t rely on slow landing pages.
Measure your advertising – Conversion Tracking
Make sure you are spending the most money in the best-performing areas. Use conversion tracking and Google Analytics to measure your advertising. Test your assumptions and learns from the performance data. See what parts of your business offer appeal most to prospective and new customers. See which keywords are the ones generating leads. Optimise (improve and refine) your advertising goals such as a target cost per lead or sale. To learn more check out our Guide to Google Ads Conversion Tracking
Control costs using budget and bids
Use conversion tracking results to set keyword bids. Keyword performance can be measured by metrics like recorded converted leads, and cost per converted lead, If a keyword is doing badly- then reduce its bid, or if a keyword is doing well increase its bids. To learn more see our blog post How much does Google Ads Cost? as well as bidding strategies for Google Ads
Know your bidding strategy options
Your bidding strategy plays a significant role in your ROI (Return on Investment).
There are options available that allow you to optimize for a certain cost per acquisition or ROAS.
If you’re not happy with the returns you’re seeing, take a look at your bidding first. It’s possible you need to adjust your strategy to be more or less aggressive, which would alter your position on the SERP and how many quality clicks or conversions you receive.
If you are unsure which bidding strategy to select, our comprehensive guide of the pros and cons for each automated bidding strategy in Google Ads will assist you.
Invest in a CRM
Google Ads reporting can show you a lot of data, like how many leads your campaign is generating. But if you want to measure lead quality, you’ll need a CRM system that goes beyond just using Google’s data. HubSpot.com will let you see which keywords are driving sales revenue so you can measure your ad campaigns’ ROAS (return on ad spend). This will help you get an even better ROI.
Your Google Ads campaign may be performing well, but if your internal processes aren’t up to par, you’re going to miss out on following up with a lot of potential customers. A customer relationship management software can track and follow up with your leads so that you never have to worry about an opportunity passing you by again by using techniques like marketing automation.
Furthermore, a CRM will save you time so that you can focus on more important tasks, like working on your Google Ads account.
Summary
Dominating your local market with Google Ads is possible by following these tips and making sure your website is popular with your website users. If you need more information, just send us an email or call today.
