Should You Advertise On Other Local Websites?

Writing by Brick Marketing on Sunday, 11 of May , 2008 at 11:00 am

If you are a local business that is trying to optimize your website locally to gain the most traffic from people in your area or because you do a lot of off line business locally and you want to have a website that reaches your local target market, should you put your advertising banners on other websites within your area? Generally, I’d say yes, but that’s not always the case. Some times when you might NOT want to put your banner on other local websites are:

• When the website is your competition
• When the website is out of your niche
• If it serves a different demographic than you serve (for instance, you sell women’s clothes for ladies of size, but another website sells clothes for teen age boys)
• There is nothing to be gained from the added exposure

If you run a local travel website then you probably want to look at every opportunity you can to have your banner on other travel sites within your area. The local chamber of commerce may be a good place to get a banner link. The local visitor’s center and city hall may also be good places for links.

It all starts with the proper research. Is your target market local prospects or visitors from out of town? Whichever is the case, you probably want your banner on other local sites that cater to the same market, but not the other.

Specific keywords may not be as important for a local business as for other businesses, unless the keyword is a geographic place name. If your primary keyword is your local home town, for instance, then you might gain from having a banner link on another website outside of your niche whose primary keyword is the same place name, but if your keyword is “motorcycle sales” and you just happen to be located where you are but do business over long distances then geographical place names won’t matter as much.

When it comes to placing banner ads on other local websites online, you have to weigh the advantages to you and to your target market. Will it pay?

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Category: Local Online Advertising

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