The Evolution of Google Mobile

The area of mobile marketing is becoming very exciting, especially for local businesses.  

Recently, Google put together a good demonstration video of how users might use Google local search on their mobile devices over at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_62nFjUW7Q&feature=channel_page

They developed a new feature whereby users can bookmark local stores they want to visit on their home computers and then have them ready-for-access, along with directions and contact information, on their mobile devices.

This is significant for several reasons:

1.  Google is staying on top of the changing mobile landscape.  They're helping people use this new medium.

2.  Mobile marketing is coming of age.  The potential of it is no longer a pipe dream.  Local businesses need to be aware of it and how customers are finding them.  If you're not already, get listed in Google's free business center: http://www.google.com/local/add 

3.  How people get information is changing.  In this example, it appears to be morphing into a combination of using the home computer for detailed information and then finishing off the purchase on the run with mobile.

Advantage For Local Businesses: Location Extensions

Last week Google announced here that you can now add more specific address information to your ads.  Your ads are then matched-up with local searchers.  The right address is shown to the right searcher automatically.  This new feature does away with local business ads and now allows you to add address information to existing text ads.

The advantage of this is it attracts more attention to your ad.  Local searchers can quickly see you are a local business and where you're located.  The result may be higher click-thru-rates.  You have an advantage over other local advertisers who don't add this information.

This feature will be added to accounts in the coming weeks.  Some advertisers have already had this feature added.  You can set-up inside your campaign settings and under "locations."

How Local Businesses Can Use The Content Network

If you have a local business, then you may have a hard time finding places for your ads on the content network.  So, in this post, we're going to give you some ideas of where you might place your ads.

Let's take a look at 3 different places:

1.  First, there are review sites, such as Yelp.com.  Yelp allows text ads under the "Find Reviews" listings.  If somebody is looking at a pizza listing in your city and you run a pizza place, then this would be an effective place to have your ads.  

Another trick to find sites to advertise on is to Google the name of the site you want to advertise on with "Related:" in front of it.  For instance, we can find all of the similar sites to Yelp.com by typing in: related:www.yelp.com/. We then see:

 

We can then check each of these sites inside your AdWords
account using the placement tool (accessed when setting-up
a placement campaign):

By doing this, we see Zagat does not use Google ads.
However, UrbanSpoon.com (a review site) does.

2.  Create a local business ad inside your AdWords account to advertise on Google Maps (Maps.Google.com).  Inside your AdGroups, the link to create your ad looks like:

3.  Type-in your city into the "Describe topics."  Let's type-in "Atlanta:"

You then get loads of local sites to place your ads.  You might get more specific and type-in "Atlanta Restaurants" or "Atlanta Blog" to get more targeted listings.

You want to look for sites where those likely to become a customer would visit.  Don't just use a site because it's local.

Simply put, there is a lot of opportunity here to get great placements on a local level.  It just requires some looking and not getting stuck on just having your ads on one type of site.

Optimizing Your Local Business Listing

If you have a service or local business, then you can get free listings in the Google search results and in Google Maps (Maps.Google.com).  Recently, there has been a lot more attention paid to local search.

MSN's launch of their new search engine Bing uses its local search features as one of its main selling points.  In addition, Google has been hard at work as well.  They recently introduced analytics to their local listings for business owners.  So, you can see exactly how much traffic you're receiving.

An article about the release of this analytics data and why it's important can be found at:

• http://searchengineland.com/google-local-business-center-adds-detailed-analytics-20323

Simply put, it may not have been a big deal to for certain businesses to ignore local search in the past, but it's becoming much more important today.

This is why we're going to walk you through the process of optimizing your Google local listing shown in the search results and on Google maps.

The first step is to sign-up for a free account over at:  http://www.google.com/local/add 

You then have two choices:

Upload a data file is for when you have numerous locations.  If you just have one or a couple locations, hit "Add new business."

You can then fill-in your business information.  When creating your listing, you want to be as complete as possible.  Even if certain information like business hours is not relevant to you as a service business, it's important to put it down anyway.  Google wants to show complete listings.

In this first section, take care when filling in your description.  Offer compelling reasons to click-thru on to your website or get readers interested in learning more about you.  Don't just offer a generic description, such as "Hair salon" but you might emphasize what's unique about your service.

After you hit "next," you're can select categories.  Input as many descriptive categories that fit your service.  Five are currently allowed.  The categories you select help to tell Google when to show your listing.

You also have the opportunity to upload pictures or videos from YouTube.  You should do both.  If you don't have a picture of your location, then you might upload a picture of you.

For videos, head over to YouTube and you can select videos.  A great idea is to create a "Tour video" of your business using a digital camcorder, upload it to YouTube, and then input it into your local listing.

After you've submitted your first listing, you then verify your listing.  Google will call you with your verification code.  

You then are logged-in to the local business center where you can add more details to your listing or add another location of your business.  After a while, you then get stats about how your listing is performing.

Just click on "Edit" to add more details to your listing:

Plus, there's one more feature Google offers and that's to create coupons:

You might offer a discount on a service to bring the customer in the door.  For instance, your discount might be, "50% off a consultation" or "Free review."  Thus, you're not lowering the value of your core product or service.  Rather, you're building value for it because you're setting a value for your time to do a consultation or review.

The bottom-line is that you can take advantage of your listings the best way by using it to set-up customer expectations before they even get to your website or talk with you.  You're pre-selling them on your business.  This makes getting the sale much easier when you finally do personally interact.

In addition, you can also add your business to MSN here: https://ssl.bing.com/listings/BusinessSearch.aspx and Yahoo here:  http://listings.local.yahoo.com/

AdWords Geotargeting Keys

One of the most powerful parts of Google is that it allows you target specific countries, regions, states, or even a specific neighborhood.  

Here's are some ads that appears when you type-in "Restaurants NYC:"

 

Notice that the first ad has a specific street address at the bottom.  This ad has targeted a specific neighborhood/area.  The second ad has targeted New York City and the final ad is not using local geotargeting.

In addition, I am not in New York City or anywhere close to it.  Yet, I was able to trigger local ads.  This is because Google doesn't always follow geotargeting guidelines.  They're most interested in serving relevant ads.

Since I typed in "NYC," in my search query, Google figured I wanted local ads.  

If I were traveling to New York City, this could be a good thing for merchants.  If not, this could be a waste of money for the advertiser.

And, even if I were traveling to New York City and looking for restaurants to eat at, it's not going to be right away and so I could easily change my mind.  As a local business, you need to be aware of this and address this concern in your landing page.  You must have reasons or systems in place to capture outside visitors and encourage them to follow-through.  Be aware that not all visitors are looking for an immediate solution.

At the same time, if you just type in "Restaurants," then only local ads appear.  Although the geotargeting can still be off to a small degree, it largely works as directed. 

If you don't want your ads to show in a specific area within an area you targeted, Google allows you to exclude them:

 

So, if I wanted my ads to show in the United States, but not Alaska, I can specify this.

This then leads to the question, who exactly should be using geotargeting?

Just about everybody will probably want to target specific countries.  

A tool Google provides to help you decide what countries or regions you want to target is at:

• http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

For more specific region or local targeting, Google's most interested in serving relevant ads to local searchers.

If you don't have a local business or local solution, then you might cater to them by creating specific landing pages targeted for a state or cities.  For instance, if you sell an e-book on dog training, then your landing page might incorporate local information about local solutions on it.

Finally, it's also may be a good idea to separate the different areas you're targeting into separate campaigns so you can more easily track the response.  For instance, if you get lots of traffic from the U.S. and Canada, then you may create separate campaigns for each.

The Online-Offline Business Disconnect.

There's a stunning disconnect.  How consumers find businesses is changing.  Local businesses aren't adapting.

No, the yellow pages haven't disappeared.  Word of mouth is still vibrant.  Yet, there's a new player in town. According to a study detailed here, 63% of customers now turn to the internet first fo find local businesses.  Of those, the wide majority look on Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

Yet, despite this change, only a whopping 44% of local businesses have a website!

How many of those do you think have even a basic understanding about online marketing... and, of those, how many do you think are using AdWords?

Simply put, local businesses aren't serving the demand. 

And here's what this means to you:  If you have a local business or you sell products that are sold in local businesses, there's a huge amount of opportunity here.  The competition is virtually non-existent.

You can tap into this opportunity by:

• Creating content just for certain areas or regions.  Target local search terms in the organic search results.

• Create campaigns or Ad Groups targeted directly to regions or certain areas.  Create custom ads and landing pages just for that region or area.  In addition to using geo-targeting, you can also Include local keywords by adding the location in front of the search term.  For instance, if you're targeting New York, then you would put it in front of you keyword.

• Look for areas where local businesses are missing the boat.  What needs are they not addressing, but that you can cater to?  For instance, you may emphasize that your product is easier, quicker, or in some way better than the local alternative. Most local businesses that do have a website, only give basic information.  They do not address all of the questions and concerns customers have.  You can do it for them.

Simply put, for a large amount of products and services, you may want to have a "local" component to your campaign.  Even if it does not directly apply to you, you're now aware of changing search patterns.  For a lot of you keywords, there may be those looking for local solutions, but aren't finding them.

From The Yellow Pages to The Google Pages.

How people find local businesses is changing.  No longer does everybody head straight to the yellow pages to find the local products and services they need.  More and more are heading straight to Google. 

In addition to searching on Google.com, there is also the rapidly evolving http://www.Maps.Google.com  

You can now see a visual of any building on a street level view.  Every detail about businesses is given in one place, including reviews, hours of operation, website links, hours of operation, and more.

At the same time, Google shows AdWords ads as your browse:

Imagine if you owned a local restaurant.  What would it be worth to you to get your ad in front of hungry customers looking for a place to eat?

This feature is just a small taste of what AdWords has to offer.  It's a one stop shop to do all of your local advertising from getting ads on local blogs to offline newspapers, local radio stations, mobile phones, and even television.

Simply put, if you target a local community, AdWords can be a mainstay source of new low-cost business.

Best of all, many local advertisers are afraid of using pay-per-click search engines.  Using it right can seem complicated.  If they do use it, they often only dabble in it.  They don't get the power of it.  

This means you as an advertiser can take over.  There are a wide-number of techniques you can implement to dominate the local results.

Here are just a few tips for targeting local areas:

• Look for local blogs or review sites to target with your ads on the content network,
• Pay close to the areas you're targeting.  You want your ads to only show-up for those likely to become a customer.
• Don't use your business name as a title. Come-up with unique headlines for each of your keywords.  For instance, a common search likely is for "Pizza restaurants."  If you bid on this term, be sure it's clear that this is what you offer and why you're the place to go to.  
• Look-up zip codes to include in your keywords.  For instance, if a user types in "23412 Restaurants," you can bid on this term. 
• Encourage customers to post reviews of your business on your free Google listing.        

You should also keep in mind that you don't have to have a local business to target a local area.  For example, if you're a florist and you ship anywhere, you can target local areas competitors ignore.

All in all, it's important to realize that how you're customers find you is changing.  Offline advertising will always be important, but you shouldn't make the mistake of underestimating what local AdWords advertising can do for you.

Test, tweak, experiment and track results to tap into this growing source of new business.