Getting people in your area to notice your business means more money in your pocket. Local targeting puts your ads in front of the people most likely to become your customers. The importance of local marketing is that it speaks directly to the customers most likely to visit your brick-and-mortar business. The clients it drives to you prefer to deal with neighboring companies in a “support local” effort.
An effective online advertising campaign to target local people may make the difference between a thriving business and a struggle to continue. Bradford Strategies has helped many businesses with local targeting in successful digital marketing campaigns. They develop the best strategies for your particular location.
How Can I Help Local People Find My Business?
Having a Google business profile is a powerful way to connect with people in your area. Your business profile tells customers the reasons for visiting your business or using your services, such as your:
- Address
- Contact information
- Business hours
- Customer reviews
Your business profile is the first interaction many customers have with your business. In it, you can post photos to show off what you do and how your business looks. Reading and responding to reviews help you improve your business while telling customers you’re there to help.
Once you have a business profile, your Bradford marketing team sets up a Google local campaign. This local advertising campaign focuses on increasing customer visits to your physical location and raising local awareness.
How Do Customers See My Locally Targeted Ads?
Targeting customers with a Google local campaign puts your ads across Google platforms for people who’re physically nearby or looking for results in your area. The Google platforms your ads appear on include:
- Google Search Network. Your business comes up as a sponsored result on Google.
- Google Display Network. Your ad is featured on relevant websites across the internet.
- Google Maps. Your business shows up on maps when people search the area.
- YouTube. Potential customers see your ads on the page while watching videos.
Billions of people use these Google platforms every day. With local targeting, your business is only presented to people nearby or searching for relevant topics. Local targeting doesn’t waste resources advertising to people who’ll likely never become customers.
How Does Google Determine Who to Target?
Google uses a radius for local marketing. The radius of people they target with your ads consider several factors, including:
- How far a potential customer is likely to travel
- If there are other similar businesses nearby
- The population density of your area
Google uses a searcher’s location data and the contents of their search to determine if they’re in your target radius. If a person is close to your business and looks at their Google map, they’re targeted with your ad. Additionally, if their search is for results in your area, they’re also targeted.
Can I Improve My Local Ranking on Google?
You can improve your local ranking by keeping your business profile up to date and by posting new, relevant, unique content regularly. Local results are based on three factors:
- Relevance, how closely your business profile matches the search
- Distance that each result is from the searcher
- Prominence, determined by reviews, rankings and search engine optimization of your website
Bradford Strategies has many insights on how to get your business ranking higher on local Google searches. Contact Bradford Strategies to improve your local targeting and find more customers.
