PPC / Google adwords question

I'm setting up a PPC campaign and I am setting it up to be applicable to location London*. If I want to target the ads at people in a specific area of London (Chelsea, for example), am I advised to include place names in all the keywords e.g cafe chelsea, cafe battersea, internet cafe chelsea etc. Or, because Google can determine the location of the person making the search or his/her preferred location, should I omit the place name? Should the placename be excluded entirely or just partially?  I find that the keywords with the place names included usually have too low search volumes anyway.

*I note that I can only limit it geographically to London and not any region of London (apart from Poplar for some strange reason) - can anyone verify that?

Any help on this matter will be appreciated.

Keyword research tool is your friend.

Adam, thanks, but not sure that answers my question. Say I only wanted to target the campaign at people looking for a cafe in Chelsea (only an example - my campaign is something else), which one of following do I do: a) JUST enter keywords which involve chelsea, battersea etc [i.e. cafe chelsea, cafeteria chelsea, cafe battersea] b) as (A) but also include versions without the place names [i.e. cafe, cafeteria] OR c) TOTALLY EXCLUDE placenames in all keyword combinations (as long as I set the location where the ads are being targeted)

Philip, what I found using adwords, at the start i used a lot of keyword, more keywords = more costs.

I then limited my search area to 12 mile, and limited my keywords, to about 6 to 8. I then bid more for these few keywords.

I now find that any close word to what I do (not my keywords) brings me most of the time to the near the top of google PPC listings in my area (bedford)

You do have to keep an eye on it, because this may change with the other people in your trade using PPC.

This is only my finding for what I do and it works for me at the moment.

Martin - good advice, thanks. I'm still not clear about how to focus on the area I want to focus on (which is actually Greenwich in South East London). I can't seem to select Greenwich in the settings, so will have to settle on London. Then if I enter keywords Cafe Greenwich and similar, the search volumes are too small. If I just enter Cafe, I am competing with all of London - far too much competition. So not sure what to do.

Hi Philip,

Have you tried entering postcodes in the location setting rather than place names? When I tried it, it brought up some of the London borough names i.e. London Borough of Lambeth although it didn't work for all the codes I tried (don't really know south London well).

If you can do this to narrow things down, then you can use keywords with and without the location.

Hi Alison, I think I have got all this sorted now, thanks. In general, I won't be including place names (e.g. internet cafe Greenwich has far too low search volumes), there may be one or two which are worth including e.g. cafe SE10 (I think), but in general I will a) make it clear from the ad that its Greenwich and b) use negative keywords to prevent ad appearing when people type internet cafe London - for example - (make place names such as London, Chelsea, etc. etc.  negative keywords). I tried entering postcodes in the settings and I could not select the SE10/Greenwich part of London. It seems you can select Poplar and one or two other areas - very inconsistent and might odd, I must say!

Great - be interested to know how you get on with this approach.

Coincidently, the Twitter PPC chat session last night was looking at location targetting and the UK contributers were pretty negative about it's effectiveness.

Disconcerting to note that no Google ads appear for cafe london, cafe glasgow, cafe birmingham, cafe manchester etc. etc. (I set my location on left hand side before trying each one) so not sure if this means her ad will appear every time someone looks for a cafe anywhere in London (cafe Canary Wharf etc.) and I'm going to have to include hundreds of negative keywords to prevent this. Also, the does it (the fact no cafe ads appear) mean her campaign will be totally fruitless? Her ads aren't  live as Google is still approving them

I wouldn't think there's any point to running PPC for a cafe?

Tend to agree, Adam - the customer value will low and even if the clicks are cheap, the cost of managing it will be disproportionate. And there's no easy way to measure conversions.

For a business like this, I'd be tempted to try Facebook rather than Google.

I am actually running the campaign for an Internet Cafe (for a client, not me) and its a real challenge to get the ads to appear at all to keep below her max CPC. Latest problems are a) Google says the ads are appearing, but they seem not to be* b) the most bizarre thing I do not understand is that when I click on the ads tab, it's got 0 all the way down the Clicks column except for "Total - all deleted ads" 8, as if Google can't add up!

*I did get the ads to appear, but now I'm repeatedly searching on various keywords (using the ones which Google says the ads are appearing for) and can't get any ad to show. Her budget is not used up and I temporally pushed her max cpc up.

Honestly, please advise client running Google PPC for this business is absurd.  

Consider FB ads but that's it - and even then just link to a fan page with offers/deals but no sales garbage.

Yes, it looks like her PPC campaign will be closed. To be fair, she offers an extensive array of services (not just cups of coffee), so getting people into her shop could lead to a bigger spend. Alison is right that it will be hard to measure conversions.  I still do not understand why account shows total clicks 8 for an ad group with only zeros  against each ad in the ad group. Client is running facebook ads and she has also been advised to try Pinterest (and she is also trying Foursquare).

Hi Philip,

This is what Adwords Express was created for :)

If you are going to go down that road defintely have a look at Adwords Express. I have some £50 Adwords express vouchers going free if you would like one?

Let me know :)