Dallas Local Online Advertising

In my business, I speak with local business owners every day. Recently I spoke with several local businesses here in Dallas who expressed their disappointment with several "local online advertising experts". Apparently several companies have many salespeople on the ground here in Dallas pitching their local online advertising services. I found a common theme among several disparate business groups:

• Lack of trust
• Large cash outlay
• Lack of understanding online advertising
• Guaranteeing page one results, but not for your website
• No defined percentage of advertising spend versus cost of the program

 

As a local business owner myself, I was appalled at the stories of paying from $4000 to $30,000 in advance for online advertising, and not being told how much of that would go DIRECTLY to advertising online!

So, to help my fellow local business owners understand online advertising here in Dallas, I decided to write the guide below.

Disclaimer: Yes, of course, I manage many local and national clients' advertising online. My reason for writing the guide below is to educate Dallas based business owners before making a buying decision and/or a making a mistake.

A Guide to Understand Local Online Advertising in Dallas

First, let's start with the basics. You most likely found this article by searching online. The words you used in your search are often called keywords (search terms). A keyword can be a single word, or several words, known as a keyword phrase. Local online advertising is no different than advertising nationally, because the basis of online advertising is keywords.

For instance, if you do a search on Google for Dallas search engine optimization guide, you'll find this website on the first page of the organic search results. Got it? (We optimize websites, so our site should be optimized, right?) Let's move on.

If you have a website, great. If you don't, get one! Regardless of what you sell, products or services for local consumption, you should have a presence on the web. That is your first step in advertising online in your local market. And that's Dallas for most of us.

The Two Parts of Local Online Advertising

Let's start with a fictitious website named DallasWidgets.com. Searching Google or Yahoo, you can assume that if you do a search for Dallas Widgets, the website would come up in the results. Most searches for exact company names work just that way. But if the searcher does not know the company name, they won't find what they're looking for.

A better search would be for products or services that Dallas Widgets sells. What does Dallas Widgets sell? Someone looking online may not know your company name, but they are searching for what you sell.

Let's assume Dallas Widgets sells widgets in different colors, and they also sell widget services. Local searches typically include a geographic qualifier. In other words, a city name, a zip code, a neighborhood. So, likely searches for widgets in the Dallas area include neighborhoods and suburbs:

• Dallas red widgets
• blue widgets 75230
• widget services Highland Park
• White Rock Lake widget services
• Plano widget makers

The search terms here are known as keywords. Keywords and keyword phrases are the basis for all search engines and how they rank, or index, website pages.

It is logical at this point to break up our discussion into the two parts: Part One - pay per click (PPC) advertising, and Part 2 - search engine optimization (SEO).

Part 1: Pay Per Click Advertising in Dallas

Part 2: Search Engine Optimization in Dallas

Article by Cliff Koraska, © Copyright 2007

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