Google finally offers paid local listing ads!
A few years ago in December of 2007 promised to create some type of “Simple Ads” for small business owners in hopes to offer a simpler version of Google Adwords.
In my line of work, most business owners that I run into don’t know how to run an Adwords campaign, nor do they have the time. And in my opinion, it’s probably best that way because business owners could possibly lose a lot of money in a short period of time by not understanding the program.
Since then, no one has heard much about that experiment until yesterday! A slightly different version of this concept has now been introduced at “Google Local Listing Ads”. This program is only being tested right now in San Francisco and San Diego, so if you are located in another city you are just going to have to wait.
As I’ve noticed with this new set up, these ads will appear on Google.com, right above the “10 pack” in local results and in Google Maps. The great thing is that WILL NOT be competing with Adwords at all.
They are going to be fairly simple ads, with just the business anme and the contact details. I’ve also read that the URL in the ad can be directed to Place Pages or to the website.
Also, what’s really nice for small businesses is that these ads will be processed on a flat-fee basis. I believe, after doing some research, that it looks as though there will be varying flat fees depending on the type of business. I think Google will be experimenting with pricing for awhile.
But if you’re a small business reading this, you must have a verified Google Local Business Listing (LBL) before you can purchase the ad space.
At this point, since it is brand new, no one is really sure how it will affect, positively or negatively, on Adwords so we will be further analyzing this at it develops and grows.
In the end, I think this is a great opportunity for small business owners to get their businesses more exposure. And don’t forget that Yahoo also has a version of this called Local Featured Listings that has been running for several years. Yahoo has had some really good success with this program from what I have heard.
So, this is almost “breaking news”, so if you’re a small business owner you might want to run, and not walk, to this new tool before anybody else in your market!
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This is a great post! This is being talked about all over the news. It will be interesting to see how this affects smaller search engine marketing companies.
I think we will see some problems though with this for small businesses because there are only 4 spots available for these new local ads.
How is Google going to accomodate everyone? We will have to wait and see.