Knowledge is the Foundation To Success  

Did you know that over 20% of searches on Google are related to location, and that 88% of people who search for local information on their smartphones take action within the same day?  Local advertising on Google is HUGE, and if you are using Google AdWords to advertise your business locally, we have some very exciting news.  Google recently introduced three new features that will allow local advertisers to create ads more relevant to potential local customers.

The first local advertising enhancement is the ability to target customers by zip code.  Prior to this, advertisers were only able to target their accounts by cities and/or metro areas.  Google AdWords campaigns will now have the ability to target over 30,000 US zip codes with performance statistics available at the postal code level.  This means that you will be able to literally SEE exactly where your clicks are coming from and the quality of leads you receive from each specific postal code.  Advertisers will then be able to optimize their campaigns based on which area produces the highest ROI for their business.

The next update to Google AdWords local advertising is the ability to have “more clarity and control” through advanced location targeting.  Basically, Google is making the location targeting options easier to understand and implement by allowing them to easily ensure that people who should be seeing their ads do, and those who shouldn’t don’t.   This update should improve the click-through-rates (CTR) for locally targeted campaigns.

The final, and in my humble opinion, most exciting update to Google Adwords local advertising is the ability to create Location Insertion ads.  Similar to Keyword Insertion ads, location insertion allows ad text to by dynamically updated to include city, postal code or phone number that matches a searcher’s geographic location.  This update will allow advertisers to have extremely relevant and customized ad copy shown to potential local customers.  In order to start using location insertion, location extensions must be enabled in the campaign.  Next a parameter tag will need to be added to the ad text.  Google will then replace the parameter in the ad with information that most closely matches the location extension of the local searcher.  These location specific parameters can be inserted into the ad title, description lines and both the display and destination URL fields making for extremely relevant local ads.

Since the introduction of SiteLinks, Google has been collecting a lot of data, as well as experimenting with a plethora of expansion opportunities. The conclusion to their never-ending testing and tweaking has been called “one of the strongest performing experiments” at Google.  Enhanced, augmented, amplified, or upgraded – any way you put it, the Google SiteLinks Extensions have grown up and out, literally. SiteLinks blossomed from a few lines of directed links to full-fledged custom ads created by advertisers.

On February 14th, as Google took the cover off the Enhanced SiteLinks experiment, and worldwide advertisers should be excited to see the new amazing opportunities available to them.  Advertisers can now show their original ad, as well as four additional ads pulled from active ads closely related to the SiteLinks in their campaign.  This new feature effectively triples the real estate for the advertisement!

See an example of Google SiteLinks here.

Wouldn’t it be nice if these Enhanced SiteLinks were simple to implement? Unfortunately, they are not.

As with many of the new (and somewhat confusing) intensified features Google AdWords rolls out, Enhanced SiteLinks can be complicated to master.  The account managers at JumpFly have found that best practice is to create ad copy as closely related to your SiteLink’s titles as possible.  If your account then meets the proper criteria, your SiteLinks may show as Enhanced SiteLinks.  If your account is given the opportunity to to display these new, powerfully dynamic ads, the rewards could be truly amazing.

ComScore Inc released a study on US mobile retail usage, and the results only underscore what I’ve been telling my clients in the last few months – Mobile Matters.

You can see the full report here, on the comScore Inc’s website.

Google Analytics and the Device segment in Google AdWords reports on mobile traffic to a website, and that number is increasing for all my clients, no matter the type.  Also to note, in most cases, the bounce rate is significantly higher than desktop devices and the conversion rate is lower, which are not the statistics anyone wants.

You might be thinking that I’m only talking about BtoC or ecommerce sites, but that’s not the case. More and more business people are doing initial research on companies from their smartphones – maybe while sitting in a meeting or while at the airport.

When they get to your site, what’s their experience like? In a February 2011 Harris Interactive Mobile Transactions Survey, 4 out 5 users experienced a problem on a mobile website, and 85% of users expect the mobile experience to be better or equal to using a laptop or desktop experience.  How does your site stack up?

- Is your site easy to read or is the text so small that the user has to pinch, expand and scroll?
- Is the search function easy to access?
- Is your phone number clearly shown?
- Does your site load quickly (less than 5 seconds)?
- Do you have flash content on your home page that doesn’t work on certain mobile devices?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to a mobile experience. What’s the call to action on your website (making a purchase, filling out a lead form, calling your company, downloading a PDF)? How does that translate on a mobile device – can it even be done? I’m seeing significantly lower conversion rates for my clients on mobile devices, most likely meaning that the visitor couldn’t complete the action. Experience also has larger ramifications for a company: based on research from the Harris Interactive Study, 63% of online adults surveyed said that if they experienced an issue on a mobile website, they would be less likely to buy from that same company, even through a different purchase channel. And these statistics, from Compuware “What Users Want From Mobile” are even more staggering:

- 57% of users would not recommend a business with a bad mobile site
- 40% of users have turned to a competitor’s site after a bad mobile experience

Ouch. That’s bad news for a whole lot of companies out there. From a PPC standpoint, I actually stopped advertising to mobile devices on Google AdWords and MSN adCenter for some of my clients not seeing productive results due to their mobile user experience. Can you make your mobile results shine above your competition?

Google offers a pretty good tool to test how your site looks and operates on mobile devices.  They also offer mobile site best practices, as well as case studies on other companies, including some pretty impressive before/after shots.

Make 2012 the year of your mobile friendly site. Your customers and bottom line will thank you.