Making Sense of the Google Adwords Changes for Local Businesses

[Linda Buquet]

This is a well thought out article that sums up the current situation.

<a href="http://streetfightmag.com/2016/02/29/making-sense-of-googles-changes-that-just-blew-up-online-ads-for-local-businesses/">Making Sense of Google?s Changes that Just Blew Up Online Ads for Local Businesses | Street Fight</a>

Small Businesses Who Advertise Locally
Thousands of small businesses currently use Adwords to drive leads, generate phone calls, promote downloads, or achieve any of a dozen common marketing goals. Targeted, relevant, and cost-effective, Adwords were the most obvious place to compete with larger players. Even tiny companies who ran smart campaigns could drive value out of Adwords at lower positions. That?s not going to be the case anymore.

Local SEM Providers
ReachLocal and Yodle, already struggling with harsh churn problems, are going to see their campaigns suffer tremendously.

The article goes on to discuss the impact on specific verticals such as car dealers, insurance and eldercare.

For commentary on the subject from our community see the original discussion here:
<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local/40108-local-impact-4-google-adwords-top.html">Local Impact - 4 Google Adwords on Top</a>


Thoughts?

 

[James Watt]

Pity I didn't scrape a list of adwords advertisers in different cities for my keywords... now would be an amazing time to reach out to business owners left in the dust, and be the expert that makes them aware of the situation and helps them decide on what they're going to do about it. Ah well, c'est la vie. At least there's big aggregate businesses like Yodle and Dex that mainly use adwords to reach out, and it's easy to find business owners currently using services like that.

Unless... I don't suppose anyone knows a way to see adwords advertisers that are currently being outbid and aren't showing?

Either way, cool time to be in the trenches seeing what's shaking loose.

Hope you're using Dragon today Linda, be careful with your hands! I've just started having a little keyboard related issues with my own hands, definitely a good reminder to be mindful about lifestyle for me too.