As discussed in my last post, finding the right keywords for your search marketing campaigns is essential for getting the right traffic to your web site at the right price. But many small and midsized businesses should also consider adding geographic keyword modifiers to their search campaigns to really target their search marketing campaigns. In this post, we’ll define geographic modifiers and discuss why they are important to localized search marketers.

What is a geographic modifier?
A geographic keyword modifier is the use of a geographic term in the beginning, end, or in the middle of a keyword term. For example, if my core keyword was “health insurance,” you could geographically modify the keyword by adding the term “Denver” to it, making it “Denver health insurance” or “health insurance Denver.”  Pretty straight forward, eh?

Why would I use a geographic modifier?
Even if a business wants to appeal to searchers on a national basis, it’s not a bad idea to start out by targeting a local market, because they will be able to see better results more quickly. Why? Because competition can be fierce on the national level, and the timeline for success can be considerably longer.

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Selecting the Right Keywords for Search Engine Marketing

Here’s a fundamental concept that all budding search marketers need to understand: How to choose effective keywords for your online marketing efforts.

While approaches and strategy change from medium to medium (search engine optimization keywords vs. pay-per-click keywords vs. local search keywords) there are some fundamentals of keyword selection that work across all types of search engine marketing.

Defining Keywords
Before we jump into the actual keyword selection process, I want to define what a keyword is in a search engine marketing context. So, in the context of this description, we’ll refer to a keyword as:

A single word or multi-word phrase that is used when searching for information on a search engine.

Even though “keyword” seems to indicate that it’s only a single word, such as “insurance,” it can also be a short phrase, such as “auto insurance,” or an even long phrase like “my grandmother wants to buy auto insurance for her 1982 Buick.” In this context, if a searcher is searching for something on a search engine, that search is a keyword! (That’s a lot of search in one sentence!)

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SEO stands for search engine optimization, the process of trying to make your web site visible in the search engine results when people search for things that are relevant to you.

To critics, SEO is all about gaming a meritocratic system—using tricks to move up the search ranks before you’ve actually earned it. To SEO proponents, it’s about making sure your needle of a web site has a chance of being noticed in the haystack that is the Internet.

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CPC, CPV, CPM, CPL…

Too many acronyms, right? Well let’s talk about one that you really need to know — the one that helps get more customers for your business.

PPC, or Pay-Per-Click advertising, is one of the best ways to make your company’s name visible to prospective customers and get qualified leads for your business. The Pew Internet and American Live Project reported that 69 percent of Internet users click on web ads. There is huge opportunity in this market for businesses to grow and expand their current marketing efforts.

When you get results from a search engine, at the top and right side of the page you see “Sponsored Ads,” “Sponsored Links,” or some other variation of those words. These are the PPC ads. When a company uses paid search advertising, they choose keywords that will trigger the display of their ads. As a result, these ads target only the people who are looking for products or services that your business provides. In all your PPC efforts, the more precise and targeted you can be, the better results you will achieve. Continuity between your keywords, ad text and landing page is crucial.

You also pay for the ad only when someone clicks on it, making PPC one of the most economical and efficient ways to market your business online. You set your own budget, so you know exactly how much your paying for each lead your receive. Tracking your ROI is extremely important to your success. In addition, most search engines protect their advertisers from competitors constantly clicking your ads, or “click fraud,” ensuring that you get genuine leads.

Why pay for an ad to show up in search results when you should be there organically anyway?

Paid ads get you placed front and center in the search engine results page (SERP). Your ad is often the first that searchers will see. This placement is critical to your visibility and can also help your organic search ranking because the more clicks you get, the more recognized your brand can become. In addition, think of a search engine results page as real estate- the more property you own on the SERPs, the better.

Another benefit to PPC is trackable results. If you change your ad text or target different keywords, you will easily see what positive (or negative!) affect this has on your ad performance. Being able to track the effectiveness of your advertising is one of the most important advantages of online marketing.

So what are you waiting for? Go out there and launch a PPC Campaign today! Actually doing the work and experimenting with your results is the best way to learn, and Kutenda makes it easy to get started. When you start to see the leads come in, you’ll be glad you did.