How to create a “hyper local” AdWords campaign

Google AdWords is not the preserve of large companies, or businesses that operate on a national level.

If you are a local business, serving a limited geographic location, you can still use Google AdWords to drive traffic and customers, all with out breaking the bank.

Here is how.

This post will show you how to create a laser targeted Google AdWords campaign only local customers will see.

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For the purposes of this post, I am going to take the approach I am a Nottingham based law firm, with multiple offices in the surrounding area, and I want to advertise my Will writing services. I am also going to presume you have an AdWords account set up and ready to go.

Lets get started.

Create a campaign

The first step is to set up a brand new campaign within your account. Because I am only interested in people searching for Will making services on Google itself, I am going to specify it is “Search Network only”.

Target by location

Next I will choose the geographical location I want to target. Because I only service the Nottingham area, I will choose to target by “Town/ City” and specify Nottingham.

Additionally, I can choose to tell Google how it will decide upon who fits in to this audience.

I can choose to ask Google to determine this by the searchers physical location (i.e. they are in Nottingham), or by the keywords they use in their searches (i.e. “Wills Nottingham”) regardless of where they are in the country.

I am going to ask it to cover both to make sure all my prospective customers are covered.

Choose the devices

Now I have set who sees my adverts, I can choose which devices will show my adverts.

Because of the nature of my product (i.e. it is not something people search for on the go) and my budget, I will  stick with “Desktop and laptop computers”.

Google Places

I can also take advantage of the local search information Google displays on localised search queries by setting up a Google Places profile and attaching it to this campaign.

This will make my advert stand out more, and it will also add my offices to searches through Google Maps.

Writing an advert

Now it is time to write my advert. The key information I need to convey are the Will writing services, my office location, and I am also going to run a price promotion for couples to increase my click through rate and conversions.

You’ll notice in the title I have used “{KeyWord:…}” . This tells Google to auto-insert the search term used in a query my ad is shown, as long as it doesn’t take the ad over the 25 character limit. This greatly increase CTR.

Choosing when my adverts will be shown

Because I don’t have an unlimited budget, and I want to target people during the periods I know are busy, I am also going to use the day parting feature and have my adverts run at the times I want them to.

And we are done!

I now have a campaign set up for my Will writing services that will only be shown to people in the areas I support, and at the times I want them to be seen.


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