Google AdWords is Google’s pay per click (ppc) advertising platform. For local businesses, buying irrelevant traffic is always a concern. If my company only services one county, I wouldn’t want to buy traffic from visitors in the next state. The answer to this problem is location targeting.

What is Location Targeting?

The power of pay per click advertising is in knowing exactly what your visitors are searching for so you can create an ad and landing page focused on that topic. It is all about relevancy. Location targeting ensures that local businesses are getting traffic from potential customers and not paying for irrelevant traffic outside of their service area. Even companies not limited by geography can take advantage of location targeting to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns in different markets.

How Does Location Targeting Work?

There are two ways Google determines if the searcher is relevant to your location targeting settings. The first is by IP address. Every computer on the Internet has an IP address that identifies it. Google uses the IP address to determine the location of the searcher. This is the same technology that Google uses to create the Map Overlay report in Google Analytics.

The second method Google uses is based on the search terms. If a searcher types in a geographic specific search in your service area, your ad will be shown regardless of their physical location. For example, if I own a carpet cleaning company and my location settings include Chicago, IL, when someone types in Carpet Cleaning Chicago my ad will show even if they are searching from Indiana.

Setting up Location Targeting

To set up location targeting in your adwords account select the campaign that you would like to apply the location targeting to. Once you select the campaign, click on settings and then location. Within the location settings you can target your ads based on country, state, zip code(s), or custom area. Custom area is the most flexible and gives you a couple of different options. You can select a point on the map and set a radius around it or set multiple points creating a custom shape on the map.

Location targeting provides another level of filtering to ensure that your money is being spent effectively on your Google Adwords. For local businesses servicing a specific region, location settings are required to run an effective campaign.

Have questions or comments on location targeting. Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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