


To do this, we’re going to navigate to the Campaigns tab within your Google Ads account, select the campaign you want to modify, then click “Settings”. To get started with hyperlocal marketing in Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords), we want to make sure our geolocation settings are configured correctly. We’ll also be taking a look at our keywords, as well as our options for hyperlocal social marketing. How Do I Set Up a Hyperlocal Marketing Campaign?Īs hyperlocal marketing focuses on limiting ads to a highly specific geographical area, the settings we’re most interested in are our geolocation settings. In short, proximity is likely to remain an important ranking signal in hyperlocal SEO, but as with everything else with trying to stay one step ahead of Google, your mileage may vary. Then there’s the matter of this patent, which was quietly filed by Google in January 2017, which appears to describe a system that determines the quality of a location-based search result based on distance and expected travel time, which seems to suggest a move toward even greater weight to proximity in local searches, if such a system isn’t already in place. This can be complicated even further by additional considerations such as an individual’s search history, social ranking signals such as share count, previous purchasing behavior, and potentially dozens of other factors. This raises questions of how proximity interacts with other ranking signals – such as the quality of a business’ My Business listing – in local results. As Darren and his team observed, sometimes Google will display a shorter local pack of results – with only two businesses listed rather than three – if the location of a relevant business is determined to be too far from the user, even if more businesses are located within the proximity of the searcher. However, this doesn’t hold true all the time, either.

However, this is where things get a little complicated.įor one, it appears that Google sometimes prefers to serve users local results in clusters if possible, even if other more relevant businesses are closer to the user’s physical location at the time of the search, according to research conducted by Darren Shaw in a fascinating blog post for Moz. It’s worth noting that proximity – the distance between the user and a local business – is also considered a My Business ranking signal. This includes many of the details that appear in listings of individual businesses in Maps results, such as opening hours and address, as well as the cool little Knowledge Graph-style data points such as when a business is busiest.

Google My Business listings – formerly known as Google Places – are where Google sources most of the information it serves to users in local searches and Google Maps results. When it comes to maximizing visibility in local search results, one of the most important steps you can take is to ensure you have as comprehensive a Google My Business listing as possible. A Comprehensive Google My Business Listing We do, however, know that several specific factors are very important. What Ranking Signals Matter Most for Hyperlocal ?Īs with anything to do with SEO, there are very few things we truly know for certain when it comes to ranking signals for hyperlocal searches. The combination of widespread mobile device adoption and Google’s heightened emphasis on local search have made hyperlocal marketing a very effective way of attracting new customers to your physical store.
