Local search is one of the areas we frequently forget about, yet there is a lot of money in it. If you are selling on a national scale, not to mention global scale, local advertising might look like a waste of money but it certainly isn't. Similarly to local SEO, local advertising can work well for every business but it is of vital importance to local companies, such as stores, restaurants, medical practitioners, repair servicemen, real estate, or any other business that targets the local community.

Why Should I Advertise Locally When Google Shows Local Ads Anyway?

While it is true that Google takes into account the IP (location) of the searcher and shows them local ads, too, this alone is not enough to reach your local community. The reason is that even if Google is precise to correctly identify the location of the searcher through his or her IP, this targets only one group of potential clients of yours � the individuals who are currently in your location.

The problem is that it can't target another group you might be interested in � the group of individuals who are not in your location but who plan to visit or even move. For real estate companies, hotels and other tourist services this group of potential users is huge and they are even more affected by the IP filtering because their customers are mostly out-of-the-area folks.

How to Set a Search Campaign for Local Folks

Local search campaigns aren't that different from normal search campaigns. Obviously, one of the differences is whom you target. When you set a new campaign, Google allows you very precisely to choose the target location.

As you see, you can limit your ads not to a country only but also to a city or a region, or even latitude/longitude coordinates. You can also open the map and pinpoint your target location directly. This guarantees your ad will be shown only to individuals from your area.

How to Set a Search Campaign for Outside the Area Clients

As we mentioned, there are two groups of customers you are interested in � people who reside in your local area and people who are not there but plan to move/visit. The approach described in the previous section obviously doesn't work for the second group. If you want to reach them, you need to change your tactics.

Basically what you need to do is to include your location in your keywords. So, if you are advertising real estate in California, you might use keywords like these:

real estate California

real estate San Francisco

homes for sale California

homes for sale San Francisco

The easiest approach is to add the location to your keywords. Try to add as many areas/neighborhoods as possible because this way you will be able to reach more searchers.

As with any other ad, you need to perform split testing, so that you can see which ad version brings in the most clicks. However, have in mind that local ads generally tend to get much fewer clicks, so even if a keyword is not getting many or any clicks, don't remove it. With local ads, it is fine if an ad gets just a few clicks because all these clicks are very targeted.

Integrate Your PPC Ads with Google Places

Google Places is one more opportunity for local advertising. When you create a Google Places page for your business, this is one more way in which your customers can find you. If you want to do an even better job, you can integrate your local PPC ads with Google Places.

To do this, in your AdWords account, select the Ad Extensions tab and then select Location Extensions.

From here you can link your AdWords campaign to your Google Places account, so that when searchers see your ad, they will also have additional information about you and directions how to find you.

However, before you integrate your AdWords campaign with your Google Places account, don't forget you do need to take care that your Google Places page is fine. Make sure the data there is correct and do your best to earn positive feedback. If these are not true, displaying your Google Places page to potential clients could turn your visitors off rather than make them click your link.

Target Local Mobile Users

Local mobile users are a special breed of clients you wouldn't like to miss. If you aren't doing local mobile ads and local mobile SEO, you might be missing a huge opportunity. When users are out and they have their mobile with them, they will be searching for local stuff. If you give them the opportunity to call you directly when they see your ad, this could boost your visits really a lot.

To make it easy for your users to call you, you use the Call Extensions tab in the Ad Extensions tab of your AdWords account.

From the Add Call Extension screen, select Allow Only Clicks-to-Call and you are done � the visitor will call you directly without having to go to your site first. This is especially good when your mobile site isn't top-notch and you are not eager for visitors to see it.

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