7 Tips for Local SEO and PPC Success
I count my lucky stars that my fortunes don’t rely on SEO and PPC alone. I’m happy to be part of a couple of agencies with a full range of interactive and traditional marketing solutions. That means I don’t have to pretend like SEO and PPC always are the best choice for clients. They’re not.
I thought it might be refreshing to talk about when SEO and PPC are NOT a great choice for local businesses- but not just to discourage you- The reasons they don’t work can tell us something about the businesses, what they should do next, what makes a good business in a certain niche, and so on.
First, let’s think about what makes for success in search:
1. Relevant keywords
2. Prospects that convert
3. A competitive advantage or a not too competitive niche
4. Proportion of cost and revenue that creates positive ROI
5. Trackability that can prove that ROI
We’ll look at each of those in the ideal situation, and how problems in each can lead to marketing failures for local businesses.
1. How a Lack of Relevant Keywords Can Doom Search Efforts
I typically divide keywords into two groups:
- Brand names
- Category (general) keywords
The brand searches are the low hanging fruit. If a local business has a strong brand and repeat customers, there’s good ROI here. And you can make it even better by testing ads.
Category keywords could be vertical-related, offering-related, or geomodifiers. For a mexican restaurant, it could be “mexican food”, “myrtle beach restaurant”, or “myrtle beach mexican restaurant”.
Where this breaks down:
–> If you get too long tail; for example, “myrtle beach mexican restaurant with California burritos” isn’t going to show evidence of volume in Google’s Keyword Tool.
–> If your vertical is too competitive, and you’re not near any geomodifiers that get search volume; e.g. a golf course in the boonies on the edge of Florida and Georgia might run into trouble- not committed enough to get good results from either state, not near a big golf tourism city, and “golf” itself is way too competitive in SEO and too expensive in PPC. Add in lack of brand recognition, and you’ve got an uphill battle that looks a lot like a sheer cliff.
–Brian Carter
Tags: analytics, brand, business, competition, google analytics, keywords, PPC, roi, SEO, social media, social media marketing, tracking