Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I always had a regional index for my content but it wasn't that easy to navigate and I think it was too much for the search engines to traverse as it was designed.
With the new changes not only have the search engines index yet more and more data but AdSense seems to be pulling in more local ads as well from the various regions.
Needless to say, AdSense income from regional information has within a years time gone from insignicant to being about 25% of the AdSense income generated for the site.
I don't think all sites could transition into the regional markets, but if you I think it's a great opportunity to expand your reach to new visitors and new advertisers as well.
There is zero money in regional content. Your site can't possibly be adapted to it. And even if there were some token pennies left there, my new site will take all of them by next summer.
;)
I've suspected that regional content is of value to my audience, and helpful to reaching that audience through search engines
I didn't know that Adsense could do a good job of targetting and monetization for regional content, as incredibill's experience suggests. I've wondered if I need to seek out regionalized affiliate programs or promote activity related widgets.
I was wondering if the best I could hope for was ads stating "Find hotel near <small to medium town>" leading to a travel engine that says "Sorry, no hotels near <small to medium town>. We have no idea why our affiliate bid on this term as we only have hotels near major airports."
Bill's experience seems to suggest otherwise.
Bill's experience seems to suggest otherwise.
It varies as some areas seem to have more local advertisers than others.
Very large cities seem to have lots of advertisers like "Bay Are Widgets", "Kansas City Widgets" and some people out in the middle of nowhere run ads like "Central IOWA Widgets" but I still get a lot of generic ads in the regional pages.
I'm just shocked that I get the volume of local traffic that I'm getting, that in itself was worth the amount of work to make the site target the various regions.
I was in a hurry and hit submit before I ran out the door and now it's way too late to edit.
Grrrrr
Through experimentation I've found that people search differently from each other. Canadians, for example, tend to search by "keyword(s)+ city + state" - to disassociate their SERPS from American website results, (regardless of whether they use Google.com or Google.ca).
So, if Adsense is using more local data, I'd say - "Yes - get regional!"
And if you have directory type sites - it works wonders to your earnings! :)
July first week Earnings = X, CTR = Y
Oct first week Earnings = X+341%, CTR = Y+269%
Yes. Those figures are correct. Yes. The stats show that the much more "local" searches are the ones which are providing the traffic and revenue.
It seems to be making sense, or Adsense(!), to "go regional".
