Knowledge is the Foundation To Success  

According to a recent Official Google Blog post, your Google Places account for your local business will soon be obsolete.  If your business has yet to embrace the awesomeness that is Google+, now would be a great time to start learning how Google+ can help you interact with both current and potential new customers.  All good things come to those who wait and this exciting Google improvement is no different.  Google+ Local will be rolling out and replacing Google Places accounts in the next few months.  What does this mean for your local business?

If you are a local business that has a Google Places for Business page – great news:  Your Places page will be automatically transitioning into a Google+ Local page with little to no effort on your part.  According to Google, you will still be able to log in to and manage your local business information through Google Places for Business.  From there you will be able to verify and update basic listing data and respond to reviews.

If you have already created a Google+ Page for your business – great job:  You are ahead of the curve and should be receiving information from Google on how to link your Google+ Page to your local listing.  Once the transition is complete, your Google+ Local page will be a fully functional social media machine capable of all sorts of complex customer interaction and fun stuff like status updates, hangouts, circles and more.

Either way, the announcement of Google+ Local is super exciting for local businesses.  Why not take advantage of all the cool social features being offered by Google+ Local?  Don’t forget to thank the Google for another free and extremely robust way to keep your business in front of customers.

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.

Do I need to Create a Local Business Ad to advertise on Google Maps?

Google has begun, more than ever, pulling regular search ads into the Google maps display – especially if there are limited competitors running local business ads.  They have also started to default the maps display to the small map with many more local listings and sponsored listings displayed on the screen.  This has created a need for more ads to run in this space – typically there are only three that run when a full map is displayed.

Despite that, a Local business Ad is much more powerful because of the actions the user can take to interact with your ad and find your business.

When you run a Local Business Ad:

1. An icon that you design is displayed on the map.  If done correctly, this can cause your location to stand out from the crowd.
2. Your address is displayed in the ad.
3. Your ad has a link that says “Show on Map”.  As I discussed in my last post about Google Local Business Ads, if your audience is particularly sensitive to location, seeing your location on the map can be a great selling point.
4. Once they have select the option to show your information listing on the map, the user can get directions, show the street view, save to their saved map locations or send the listing to an email address or even a GPS system!
5. Also on the information listing, you can display your phone number and an image.

How do I run Local Business Ads?

First, you must have a Google Local Business Listing  – this is something you should have regardless of whether you run ads.  It is free and when you have a local business listing, properly optimized, your listing can show up on the first page of Google maps for your targeted key phrases.

Second, once you have created a local business listing, you can add a local business ad to any ad group from within the Adwords Editor interface.   Simply select the Ads tab, the Local Business Ads tab and Add Local Business Ad.  You can add the business location, the ad copy, an image to be displayed on the Information listing and a small little icon to be used as a Map Marker on the map.

For more information on creating and managing local business ads, contact the PPC Management Professionals at JumpFly.