While search engine branding has been a grand marketing medium for businesses capable of or interested in marketing their products and services to a national or international audience, the effectiveness of this type of selling was limited for businesses interested in branding to a local sell until very recently.

For example, a realtor with a web site in Minneapolis is likely interested in selling on search terms such as homes for sale and sell my home. The only problem was the realtor would have to sell to every body in the country who happened to type those terms into search engines. This was wasteful and ineffective because the vast majority of visitors clicking through to the site would not be qualified visitors since they lived outside the realtors regional sell .

At that time, the only work around to this was to add a regional qualifying term next to each search phrase, so instead of marketing on the term homes for sale the realtor would have to advertise on Minneapolis homes for sale.

What about the prospective clients who live in Minneapolis, but only type in homes for sale? Theyre likely just as qualified for the realtor, but it there was not a clear-cut way to target this type of searcher. The gap between forcing advertisers to make use of regional qualifying terms or selling to a national market was finally closed this spring by Google.

Local Targeting

Targeting a known geographic location of searchers became a reality earlier this spring when Google launched their local targeting program. So now the realtor in Minneapolis may advertise on the more general terms, then specifying a geographic area theyd like the ads to appear within.

The options for this include picking clear-cut cities, metropolitan areas, or even a distance radius from a clear-cut point. For example, maybe the realtor only goal to make leads from within 30 miles of their home.

Does this work?

Yes, it works very well. There are very few types of branding online or offline where you have such detailed control over who you are selling to. Basically its pretty hard to beat selling to everybody who are searching for what you sell and happen to live close to your business. And, since this is pay per click advertising, you are only charged when searchers click through to your website.

Local Advertising Tips

Promote Your Location - You will definitely see better conversion rates for your local advertising if you include your physical address on your website. We recommend including this in the footer of every page of your site to reinforce that youre local to the prospects.

Track Performance - When you utilize local selling you will still have to compete against businesses willing to sell nationally on the identical search phrases. This means search terms may get expensive but your conversion rates should support this. However, as with any form of marketing, its important to track whats working.