Search Engine Tigers

Most people would agree that local applies to a certain physical geographical location that has its own unique characteristics. Everyone knows that in some areas it’s called pop, in others soda, and that you shouldn’t try to sell a car called NoVa in a Spanish speaking country. So how far does that reasoning apply to a virtual world? Should people target things differently online? Yes, especially since that virtual world is used by people who live in the real world, and are looking for products / services in that same real world.

Just as your regular offline marketing dollars are spent differently in order to try and capture as much of a market share of the demographics that you’re targeting, your online dollars should be doing the same, and there are plenty of tools out there to help you accomplish that.

The first of these, for those doing a PPC campaign is geo-targeting. This is the ability to target a particular message(s), at a particular range of prices, for a particular set of keywords, in a specific location / set of locations. Simply go to your PPC engine of choice (Yahoo, Google and MSN / Windows.live all offer this option), and select the location(s) to target the ad(s) to.

The second option, for those using MSN/Windows.live, is to use their demographic targeting tool. This targeting is based on estimating the demographic that a user belongs to by the websites that they’ve previously visited.

So what kind of fluctuations can you expect when you target by location or demographics? Well, YPA (Yellow Pages Association) recently put out a study of the Most Frequently Referenced Headings in 2006 (in the regular old style yellow pages phone book). Mapped against data from three sample IYP sites / four locations, you can see that different areas most definitely have different needs, and these needs do not come close to matching the offline yellow pages usage categories. Based on these numbers, if I were in the tattoo ink supply business, I would want to make sure that I had a decent spend going into Lincoln, NE.

From YpMetro.com

Atlanta , GA

Plumbing Contractors(10)
Restaurants(1)
Attorneys(6)
Beauty Salons(11)
Hotels(28)
Doctors offices and clinics(2)
Insurance Brokers(12)
Dentists(8)
Apartments(60)
Auto Repair and Service(4)

From Windstreamyellowpages.com

Lexington , KY

Restaurants(1)
Employment agencies(41)
Air Conditioning Contractors and Systems(61)
Real estate agents and brokers(26)
Heating and Ventilating Contractors(54)
Apartments(60)
Auto Repair and Service(4)
Beauty Salons(11)
Fence Contractors(101)
Movie Theaters(17)

Lincoln , NE

Restaurants(1)
Apartments(60)
Employment agencies(41)
Tattooing(>130)
Heating and Ventilating Contractors(54)
Doctors offices and clinics(2)
Insurance Brokers(12)
Hotels(28)
Hospitals(9)
Movie Theaters(17)
Real estate agents and brokers(26)

From YpUnited.com

Los Angeles , CA

Restaurants(1)
Plumbing Contractors(10)
Limousine Service(117)
Apartments(60)
Carpet and Rug Cleaners(23)
Beauty Salons(11)
Attorneys(6)
Child Care(39)
Dentists(8)
Health clubs(>130)

The numbers in parens are the rankings from the YPA 2006 Industry Usage Study “Most frequently Referenced Headings”

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