Google AdWOrds gives United States pay per click users the ability to only show an ad when the searcher is in a specific geographic area.

This is very useful for advertising broad keyword matches or broad & direct keywords, in a local area which could not be afforded, or is not relevant, to the entire United States.

If you only serve an area of the Unites States, or only offer services in particular geographic regions, this is a great opportunity to advertise on highly searched terms, yet only reach local searchers.

While this program sounds great, it does have its drawbacks.

The ads are only shown on Google’s main site, and syndicated ads (such as those shown on AOL) do not display regional targeting ads. So while you can expand your pay per click keyword advertising with this program, your keywords will not have the full visibility of a regular United States targeted ad.

The other problem is that Google does not know where every searcher’s physical location is. If the searcher’s location is not known, then only national ads are displayed.

The advantage is that you defiantly know if your regional ads are shown, the person was identified to being in your target market, the drawback is much less overall visibility.

If you are a local company, we believe you can advertise for many keywords using geographic specific keywords along with your keywords that accurately describe your product. (i.e. Pennsylvania rare books, New York City cab services).

At present, regional targeting is best used as a compliment to your regular use of pay per click advertising. It is possible for some businesses to get substantial traffic from regional targeting, a lot depends on the targeted market and keywords.

We are very excited about the possibilities of this program. As local search technology continues to improve over the coming year, we hope that this program will offer many more features to fully take advantage of regional advertising.

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