Jeff Woelker : Chicago SEO, SEM, and Social Media Consultant

So I recently had some difficulty describing two types of paid search techniques. The first was in regards to a set of keyword terms which include a geographic location such as “Chicago dentist” or “New York plumber”. The second set of keywords I was trying to describe was a paid search campaign which used generic keywords “plumber” or “dentist”, but only showed those ads within a specific geographic area, such as Chicago or New York. Well, after some discussion with our head of media, he let me on two terms to describe both.

Geo-targeted: Which I was able to describe prior to this discussion. This is my latter example where a user enters a generic term and you show only the paid advertising for the geographic region they live in. For example, I’m searching in Chicago and I search for “pizza” or “dentist” and the mere fact that I reside within the targeted geographic area means the ad will display for me.

Geo-modified: Which I understood the technique, but just didn’t have the vocabulary to describe. This is the former technique whereby a user is explicit and says “Chicago dentist” or “New York plumber” and it doesn’t matter whether I am in Chicago or Denver. If I search for “Chicago dentist”, the geo-modified keyword phrase will cause that ad to be displayed.

And in case you missed it, Google decided to liven up the whole mix over the last few days by releasing geo-targeted results for natural search queries. So when a user queries things like “pizza” or “dentist”, Google returns the natural results, but also includes “relevant” local results. This is still to be determined as to how accurate these results are, but at least it’s a start. I’ve included a screen shot of what this looks like below:

I’m kind of against this technique as it trains users away from using longer queries to get more detailed information. I understand the logic that many of the queries they are using are localized queries: pizza, dry cleaning, chinese food, etc. however, I’m not 100% sure users will understand that when they need local information, they can just type in a one or two word query with no modifier. I think this might confuse Google’s experience a bit for any cases where Google either provides too much or too little information. If a user enters “Chinese restaurants“, they receive information about those restaurants, along with localized listings. If they use the phrase “traditional Chinese restaurants“, they do not receive any local listings. I know I’m giving Google a hard time about semantics and they will get better over time, but it’s the behavior they are reinforcing that I have an issue with. It should be “local modifier + term” yields local results – every time. If no local modifer is specified, it should yield non-local results – every time. By creating this muddy situation, they are diluting from the user experience, ever so slightly.

Any other cool targeting terms of features I should know about? Let me know if the comments.

Photo courtesy of timsnell.