I run a small K-6 private school and decided to contact Google to set up a campaign. (I'm a newbie on this so I'll apologize in advance if I don't use the right lingo.) I selected the zip codes in the cities close to the school (most parents will only drive so far) and I developed some simple key words that most parents would use in searching for a private school. When I launched the ads I noticed that the ad was not showing up on my computer - I live 2 blocks from the school. So this was my first education in geotracking - I learned my web address with DSL Extreme is far from the area of my school.
As I am mostly near small bedroom communities I'm guessing this is maybe true for most of the people in the area around my school - they are not going to see the ad, because their web address is not near the school.
One possible solution I thought of, but I don't understand enough to know if it is smart or ignorant: I would use city names with ALL of the keywords. Instead of a key word being only "private schools", I would have Coolville private schools, Devon private schools, Monterey private schools, Asheville private schools, and so forth. Each of my keywords would have all the local city names attached to it. Of course, this would make for a much larger list of key words. I'm hoping this means that I could widen the perimeter of the campaign, confident that the only people that are going to see the ad are those who are actually looking for private schools in THOSE cities. I'm pretty sure most people looking for a private school are not just going to search "private schools", without any city name, as it is unlikely they will get much useful info. They will search "private schools in (city name)", or "(city name) elementary schools", or something like that.
So does this make sense or not?
Appreciate any information.
