Search Hits Close to Home: How to Implement Marketing Strategies in the Local Search Zone
One would be to steer the user to a car-buying website instead of a local dealer’s physical location. Another would be to consider a broader area. Maybe by going the extra 10 miles, they would get better price, service, and selection. Another tactic might be a radical switch. Say you wanted pizza tonight, why not a total change? How about Chinese takeout, whereby you then click for your 20 percent discount coupon?
Keyword Research
Unfortunately, you may find that it’s hard to get a large enough sum for local search terms. Don’t be put off if you use research tools like Overture and Wordtracker to find very few results. The thing to remember is that according to AltaVista’s research, a few years back, 25 percent of all search queries were unique. But as a point of reference, here is a table for real estate terms that shows the breakdown by percent from national to local search queries in the real estate space:
(click for larger image)
As you can see, local search is the ultimate long tail. As a matter of fact, local search has a higher percentage then brand search does. That, by the way, doesn’t mean brand isn’t important. In fact, many people combine local search AND brand.
Technologies and Players
There are a number of technologies and companies offer a combination of these technologies on the market today. When you’re designing a local search campaign you may want to take this into consideration.
• Non-Geographic Search is offered by the majors like Google, Yahoo, MSN and many secondary search engines, should you use geographic specific terms to create a local campaign.
• Local Search is now a specialty that is being offered by companies Local.com and Truelocal. At this point, these are considered secondary search engines, but by growth and partnership, this may change. Of course, local PPC is now a standard option with Google, Yahoo Marketing, and MSN, but each has very different features.
• Pay-Per-Call: Instead of having a web page, a search result displays a special 800 number that users can call. For many small businesses this is a better option then a web page because these don’t even have a web presence.
• Web Page: It’s the default, but pages may be displayed on more than just a personal computer. Other devices include PDAs, Game Consoles, and Cell Phones.
• Cell Phone: Bears repeating by itself, the cell phone companies are either directly or by partnership expanding directory services with web services that offer much more than just a phone number. How will Short Message Service (SMS) vs. “full” web access play out on small screens?
Moving forward with this series of articles, the local search landscape will be explored. Hopefully you’ll be able to compare your business model and see how local search fits into your marketing plans.
Reader Comments.
Great article, I believe that the local search landscape will change before the end of this year. Offering marketers better strategies than what is available today.
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