GeoTargeting Missouri & San Diego

I’ve been reading up a lot on GeoTargeting articles online for greater profit. The concept is simple certain search strings are virtually impossible to rank well for even with the help of a powerful domain name like eHow or InfoBarrel or HubPages. A simple and lucrative keyword like real estate license (CPC $4.88 - ) is simply unattainable but by GeoTargeting it to a specific geographic location like Missouri or San Diego the term suddenly is within reach.

I have experience GeoTargeting already albeit accidentally. When I was first learning about how to write for eHow I stumbled upon an eHow user that said that one of his highest earning articles was something along the lines of “How To ________ in A Random City”. At the time I thought, interesting; maybe I’ll try it.

Targeting Missouri Specifically

And I did. I wrote an article about getting a Missouri real estate license and I posted it up on eHow. In the following months I’ve sent a handful of anchored links at the page (as I just did right there) and it has actually become one of my better earning articles. It’s not the best but it is pretty darned good. To date it’s in my top ten and get’s roughly $17.42 per 1000 page views. I’ll take that every day of the week. The term is only ranking 27 in Google for my keyword too; it’s got quite a bit of potential left in it.

The reason I bring this up is that I’ve learned through the teachings of Vic at Blogger Unleashed (an excellent make money online blog) that the CPC of ads is typically spread along a spectrum of prices. The average CPC which we see in Google’s Keyword tool is just that, an average. That means that many of the clicks for your keyword are actually quite higher than the average CPC and many are lower.

Why GeoTarget?

A company advertising for the term “real estate license” for example is most likely a school or training company selling a learning service. A San Diego school likely doesn’t want to reach people in Missouri nor does a Missouri resident want to find schools in San Diego. Because of this the San Diego school won’t pay the average CPC for people searching for “real estate license” unless the person searching is in the San Diego market. In this case the San Diego school is willing to pay more than the average CPC to get that lead.

In my example I wrote an article tailored for Missouri residents. By doing so I ensured that I would split the market to 1/50th of the eligible searchers by targeting Missouri over all other states. In return for doing this I ensure myself better ranking for searches related to Missouri real estate licenses and better CPC rates for those visitors that do in fact click ads on the article.

If I was targeting the generic term “real estate license” I would likely not rank as well and would get less CPC from those visitors that did find my page and click an ad. Is it worth it to GeoTarget? Having just this one article to show for it I think it does make sense because I don’t feel I would have made as much on this article if it was for the entire country rather than just one state.

I can say this because many of my articles that show potential for better earnings don’t actually earn well because I can’t rank for my term even with a few good backlinks in place. You have to have visitors to your page from the search engines to have any chance at making good money and if you have to narrow your market to get those visitors then so be it.

Targeting San Diego Specifically

Now having a better understanding of GeoTargeting and having one article to look back on as experience that GeoTargeting can work even with a tough keyword like “real estate license”, I have decided to try one more similar article in an experiment targeted to San Diego. Yesterday I posted an eHow article on Custom File Cabinets in San Diego and was lucky enough to get my exact keyword string in my URL. Exactly one day later the article already is serving ads that say “custom cabinets San Diego” in the ad text itself. Now al I have to do is wait and see if I can rank for this and get search traffic to this article.

I have a feeling this will turn out well I’m just anxious to see what kind of traffic there is for this level of GeoTargeting.

In a related topic I previously mentioned some of the tactics I use to increase SERP rank including sending dofollow anchored backlinks at my eHow articles. My favorite place to do this is from InfoBarrel followed by the big article directories. You can read more on this process in my backlinks with Infobarrel post and at the tail end of my SERP Rank update post.

And lastly, in other news, I’m going to be working up another eHow earnings case study over the next handful of days. Look for in the near future. It will be based on the general category of Gardening. And don’t worry; it will not be GeoTargeted to San Diego or Missouri. :)