A letter to Google Adwords - Local Business Owners Need Help

big out of state corps buying top ad spots

[skunker]

Hello,
I've been a long time adwords advertiser. I like the service, however, lately, I've noticed that small business owners that advertise their services to the local market (in my case, #*$!X, Texas) are getting squeezed out by large corporations that are buying and paying a ridiculous amount of money for the top 5 keyword positions in Adwords. These corporations are using my local city's name in their ads and making people think they are a local company. What this means is that the real local businesses, like mine, get pushed down to the bottom of the ad pile (usually on the next page or so).

I have a suggestion for Google: Can you optimize or increase the visibility of a genuine local advertiser's AD by letting searchers know that, for example, my ad is a REAL local business and not some corp paying top dollar? I think a few points should be given to people who actually do work in their local city. Many visitors prefer to work with a local business rather than one out of town or state. I know that Google puts a local advertiser's city name beneath the ad, but that's confusion to most searchers--what does this mean? Google needs to somehow improve the signage so searchers know that I am a genuine local business.

Just a suggestion.

[rfung]

How would Google know who is a valid local business or not?....

[skunker]

A valid mailing address in the local area? They already use Google maps for small businesses.

[Green_Grass]

The adWords system is automated, geared to generating max $$$ for G. They really donot care for local biz.. per se...

You will have to compete with the big boys.

Try maybe site targetting, site targetted PPC (new, if available to you)to gain visibility in local media.

Just my 2 cents.

[rocknbil]

Yeah, it's tough. The ones that bug me are pay per click services that flood adWords with their own high bid ads. So someone clicks the ad in Google, the cost of that ad is passed on through to their PPC service, which is why those PPC services are so expensive in the first place. But you do get traffic don't you?

[skunker]

I'm in the web design field..so I'm only targeting local customers.

There are lots of big time webdesign companies based in Chicago, New York, etc that target all cities (etc "#*$! webdesign") and they use my city name so people think they are in my city. Then they bid like $7 a click. I'm not paying that. To make matters worse they copied my ad so now I have to keep thinking of another one. Whatever works, they just copy from me.

All I am saying is that it would be nice if Google had a way to show searchers that I am a REAL local business, not some shop in Chicago advertising that they are a XX city shop.

[londrum]

if the fact that you a real local business is an important issue, then you could draw more attention to it in your ad copy. make that the selling point, rather than the product.
that's not something that the big boys could copy... play up your strengths.

[skunker]

I use my city name about 3 times and lose quality rankings. Basically "excessive" keywords according to Google. Plus, it looks tacky.

[netmeg]

About all they got is the local stuff that's tied to Google Maps.

[farmboy]

FWIW, and this may be related to this topic, I am an AdSense publisher and now an AdWords user.

It's obvious from my experience with both AdWords and AdSense that Google thinks I am located in a certain large U.S. City, where my ISP has a large presence, yet that city is 200+ miles from my location.

My point is, Google may not be able to determine with any degree of accuracy where a visitor is located and thus not able to correctly show local ads, regardless of how well you word the ads or manage to get the big companies blocked.

FarmBoy

[rocknbil]

If you're targeting local business, "off the web" is your best advertising tactic. For my wife's retail business, which is very visual, television was the ticket, radio is second best, print advertising is worthless.

This may seem like an outrageous expense to you but it's not as bad as you think - check it out.

[ogletree]

Move to the center of your city as close to the court house as you can or get a executive suite. Create a dba that has your keyword in it. Sign up with Google local you will get the best placement for free.

[skunker]

yea i noticed that works! The closer you are to the downtown, the better.

[eWhisper]

Three quick tips to beating national companies:

Use geographic targeting - this adds the 5th line of ad text.

Use local business ads - these will show on maps.google.com.

Use regional lingo in the ad copy (and keywords). These will stand out from the standard 'city industry' ads with something equally compelling to the location of the searcher.

[skunker]

your regional lingo idea sounds great! I will try it.

[skunker]

I don't know if this is new, but Adwords is now displaying local phone numbers beneath the ads...this helps distinguish real locals from corporate companies acting like locals.

Is this new? It looks great.

[ogletree]

As a searcher I wish the;y would fix it. Broad match is out of hand. I have to go to a local search engine most the time to find something local. Google sucks at local search.

[skunker]

Just beautiful...i made some changes as suggested here and now i'm on page #3! As a matter of fact, there are no more local businesses on the first page--it's all capped out by huge corporations that have no experience in my local area--but they have the #1 - 10 ads.

[londrum]

maybe you've just got to bite the bullet and accept it's not going to work in this case, and find a more profitable form of advertising--like one of the other guys said. otherwise you're just chucking good money after bad.
the big companies with their endless pots of money have got a definite advantage over us and there's not much we can do about it... unless we win the lottery.