

Ask HN: Can Google AdWords help local pizza? - abdulkundi

Search pay per click has become a dominant ad platform for advertisers. Google. yahoo and MSN are trying to attract local advertisers by offering geo and demographic targeting. Still a look at their advertisers suggest that local barbers, plumbers and pizza parlors are still not advertising on search engines.<p>Yellowpages and local newspapers are still the preferred channel for these geographic businesses. The question is what role will internet play in local advertising and in what format?<p>I hope this hacker site can answer this question.<p>regards<p>Kundi
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earl
well, yodle and reachlocal, amongst others, are trying to answer that question

In general, though, it's hard to do well. Problems include the fact that many
people don't turn to google first thing for pizza, that google still doesn't
do a good job looking up businesses by name, that even with geo-targeting food
delivery is hyper local and very competitive, that even yelp and seamlessweb
have interesting penetration in only a tiny handful of cities, etc. Frankly, I
don't really think the internet is the wave of the future for a lot of
restaurants -- I'll find out about them from word of mouth or from walking
around my neighborhood. Plus, adwords is expensive, and irrational competitors
can drive keyword prices sky high.

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abdulkundi
The issues you point out are real and no one so far has answered them
conveniently. What do you think will be the parameters for success if someone
comes up with a local advertising or promotion platform. What will be the
driver for local businesses to generate leads or traffic.

Kundi

