Including Hyperlocal Keywords in Paid Search Accounts
How Implementing Neighborhoods Increased Conversion Rate by 343%
Neighborhood Keywords: The Charlotte market is highly saturated with a high percentage of competition within the multifamily industry. In October, we launched neighborhood specific keywords to run alongside our Charlotte keywords in an effort to help curb rising CPCs and enable us to reach highly qualified buyers. We selected one neighborhood to test, but you could test a variety of neighborhoods and/or work with your client to find what is best for you.
We used one property for this test due to its location, matchback report data*, and the fact that it was pausing down at the end of November, making it a great candidate for the experiment.
Visual Examples
While accounts at Digible never target a city in entirety, city focused keywords can naturally capture a larger audience versus neighborhood specific keywords as exemplified by the map.
Findings
Keywords surrounding Charlotte as a city versus hyperlocal keywords for areas in Charlotte. Data covers just one account for 5 weeks.
| Keyword Type | Clicks | Impressions | CTR | Conversions | Conv. Rate | CPL | Avg CPC |
| Charlotte Keywords | 113 | 1,271 | 9% | 6 | 5.3% | $60.15 | $3.85 |
| Neighborhood Keywords | 81 | 796 | 10% | 19 | 23.5% | $14.79 | $3.46 |
| % Change | -28% | -37% | 11% | 216% | 343% | -75% | -10% |
Conclusion
Implementing neighborhood specific keywords can be an excellent way to drive more efficiency in accounts and get qualified buyers to your client’s website, as seen by the 75% decrease in CPL and 343% increase in conversion rate.
*matchback report data showed that the majority of our unqualified calls were being generated by “apartments charlotte” keywords. This keyword does have a lot larger reach, but it drives lower quality clicks and leads. It was negated from the “Charlotte keywords” data due to its poor back-end performance
Main Takeaways
- Conversion Metrics
Total conversions and conversion rate both increased drastically when implementing hyperlocal neighborhood keywords, 216% and 343% respectively. This proves that targeting users with more specific location keywords provides more qualified users on-site. When possible, it’s important to implement specific neighborhood terminology and jargon into accounts in order to hit the most qualified searcher as possible.
- Efficiency
Not only did conversion metrics gain efficiency, but CPC also decreased and CTR increased. Oftentimes, more singular targeting can increase cost metrics, however, this was not the case with the Charlotte market. As Charlotte is a highly populated city, keywords surrounding “apartments charlotte” or “apartments for rent charlotte” are typically above industry average CPC and highly competitive. Targeting hyper local neighborhoods within Charlotte allow us to narrow the audience and narrow the competition in order to gain efficiency.
