Local online advertising is designed to target and deliver local customers to your site and your door but don’t forget that your local advertising can reach much farther than across town! One of the ways to keep your local online advertising ‘local’ is to exclude IP’s (Internet Protocol addresses) from areas outside your region. But, depending on the nature of your business, this could be a mistake!

If you own a hospitality-based business such as a restaurant, hotel, bar, tour operator, or other business where you depend on travelers for a big part of your revenue, you want people from other areas of the country to see your ad so you can attract their business.

An Example of Local Online Advertising with a National Reach

Let’s say that you own a hospitality-based business near Orlando in Kissimmee, Florida. Since the region attracts lots of people from all over the country and the world and a lot of those people will be using the Internet to help plan their itinerary, limiting the reach of your local online advertising to IP addresses in Florida only severely limits the marketing power of your advertising.

Since the success of your business depends on the revenue from these travelers, it’s imperative that the reach of your local online advertising extends far beyond the scope of the local population. Only you can know for sure how much this applies to your business but when looking at local online advertising providers, you may wish to check out whether they limit IP’s from outside the area or not.

Bear in mind that this is not applicable to many industries. Like most Internet marketing strategies, local online advertising achieves the best results when it has been customized to the specifics of your niche or industry.

If you own a dry cleaning business or another type of business that is dependent on locals for the majority of your revenue, it may make sense to limit IP access so you can potentially save some money on your advertising. But even if only 10% of your business comes from outside the region, if done correctly, that number could swell to 20% or even 25% with effective local online advertising!

About the Author: Nick Stamoulis is the President of Brick Marketing and Website Magazine's “Local Thursdays” weekly contributor.