The Ready-to-Buy Psychology of Local Online Marketing

The internet is not just a global medium. It’s a powerful local medium. No matter where you live, people are searching for the service you provide with a local modifier: “[your city] [your service]” (like “Chicago dog walker” or “Kansas plumber”).

Marketing with this “[your city] [your service]” technique has some advantages: It’s faster to achiever higher search engine ranking placement and it costs less because you’re not competing against larger multinational conglomerations with huge search engine optimization budgets.

But there’s something else that is important to consider about the psychology of searchers who are searching locally. Let’s say you are thinking of buying a car. You type in “car” into a search engine and see what comes up. Maybe you narrow it down by manufacturer.

So, let’s say that as you do your research you go from searching for “car” to searching for “midsize car” to searching amongst “general motors”, “ford”, “dodge”.

This is all at the conceptual level; the research level. What happens when you’re ready to buy? You don’t just type in “Ford dealership”.

No. If you live in Atlanta, you type in “Atlanta Ford dealership”… Notice that’s the [your city] [service] search.

So, the psychology of people search locally is this: They are ready to buy.

The web is a powerful research tool, but the terms used to research are general and broad. Searchers hit credible, authoritative sites to get more information. And when they’re ready to buy? They add a local modifier and look to a solution provider in their neighborhood.

Local Google AdWords Recommended

Read a great article in the New York Times. In their Small Business section, they offer a really basic guide on Google AdWords. Most of the article is fairly basic stuff that many people already know. But I was particularly intrigued (and pleased) with the eighth paragraph, which reads:

Focus on Local Markets
“When Apple first introduced the iPhone, Matt McCormick, who runs a phone-repair business called Jet City Devices, saw an opportunity. Knowing that the iPhone’s screen was prone to damage, Mr. McCormick began bidding on keywords like “iphone repairs” and waited for business to flood in. A problem soon became apparent: while his site was swamped with traffic, very few people were actually mailing in their phones to get them repaired. But, after changing his campaign to run only on searches initiated within 50 miles of Chicago and Seattle — cities where he had physical shops where customers could drop their phones off in person — Mr. McCormick says his conversion rate jumped to 10 percent: ‘If you’re in business in only one or two cities, then Google’s localization feature can save you a ton of money, reduce AdWords competition, and bring great traffic.’“

(From the New York Times article “Real Life Lessons in Using Google AdWords“).

This is a great example of local Google AdWords in action. A broad category like “iphone repairs” would get all kinds of clicks from everywhere. But a narrower target — through the use of a local keyword ”bethesda iphone repairs” – would lower the number of clicks but dramatically increase the conversion rate. In short, adding a local modifier to your Google AdWords can reduce your costs but increase your revenue.

Check out out our pay per click search ad services and local organic search domination services.

Local Search Engine Marketing Basics: Long Tail Keywords

Local Search Engine Marketing Basics is an occasional series of blogs providing definitions and basic guidance on search engine marketing concepts.

Defining “Long Tail Keywords“

In order to understand “long tail keywords”, you need to first understand the “long tail” concept.

The “long tail” is a concept introduced by Chris Anderson in 2004 in which he talked about a phenomenon in business where there is an initial large amount of purchases of a product or clicks on a website (called “the short head”) but those began to trail off (the “long tail”)… however, the amount of the combined trail was equal to or greater than the short head.

In other words, a movie might make $50 million at the box office during its initial theatrical run. But it might make another $50 million or more in “cheap seat” cinemas, DVD sales, and international sales.

Read more about the long tail at Wikipedia.

This “long tail” concept has been broadened to the search engine marketing world.

Common keywords, like “marketing” or “restaurants” are the short head. Millions of people type these into searches every day. Not surprisingly, large companies invest millions of dollars each year to appear at the top of Google searches for these terms.

The local business may have a very challenging time appearing at the top of those “short head” searches. But, for local businesses, the long tail provides some serious possibilities!

Short head keywords might be “marketing” or “restaurants”. Long tail keywords are very specific. On their own they might be searched as much as the short head keywords, but the cumulative amount of search for long tail keywords is dramatic.

So, a local Maryland-based marketing company might forgo the short head keyword “marketing” in favor of several “long tail” keywords like “Maryland marketing”, “Maryland advertising”, “Maryland marketing company”. A Boston-based restaurant might not have  a prayer of achieving a top Google ranking for “restaurant” but they have a much better chance of getting to the top of Google for a long tail keyword like “Boston restaurant”.

Targeted Search Engine Traffic

Targeted Search Engine Traffic for your local business.