5 Things Home Improvement Contractors Need To Know About Google AdWords
As the beginning of the next season gets closer, outdoor living professionals put their marketing efforts in overdrive. Rightfully so, this is prime-time pickings. Successful landscaping, pool-builders, and really any home improvement professional that is dependent on good weather looks to (and can) book up a good portion of the season by the end of March. And if you have all the right things (content/blogging, social media presence, good photography of past work) in place, its possible. For those struggling to get the right boost in enough jobs, Google AdWords can be a good addition to your overall marketing approach - but before you jump in, make sure you know the tool inside-out. Here are ten things you need to know about Google AdWords (that you probably didn't know before).
1. The first line in your description text will likely be brought up into the headline.
As you're writing that first line of your description text, you wouldn't think that it could land in your headline! It can and here is how: if you use punctuation that completes a sentence - such as a period or question mark on the first line of your description text and your headline is just a couple of words, Google can add those two together. In most cases, it's not a big deal, but if you use the same word in both places, it'll make you lost points in the searchers eyes. For example, let's say your headline is "Looking for a landscaper in cc, ss?" and then your initial description is, "we are a landscaper in cc,ss," your headline will be: "looking for a landscaper in cc, ss - we are a landscaper in cc,ss." Not good!
2. Your cost per click could range anywhere between pennies to $15+.
Depending on your competition and your ad campaign setup, your average cost-per-click (cpc) can literally cost you pennies.. or several dollars. Research and good strategy drives the cost down here. The right keywords to target include those that have a perfect combination of high search volume and low-mid competition. Sometimes this means that longer keywords are better than short ones. Setting up the right locations will help you weave out unnecessary competition. Most importantly, use negative keywords! Read this related article for more info: 5 Top Mistakes Contractors Make with Google AdWords (PPC).
3. Google has automated rules - use them!
No matter how automated your PPC campaign is, it never means you can leave it alone for too long. Effective Google AdWords campaigns are constantly monitored and edited - they can never be perfect enough to set and forget! Okay, now on to these automated rules. To help you get the most out of your money, Google has automated rules you can set up. As Google puts it (read the whole article from Google here), here are some examples of these automated rules:
- Schedule ads for special promotions or events
- Pause low-performing ads or keywords
- Change keyword bids to control your average position
- Raise keyword bids to ensure ads show on first page
- Send yourself an email if a campaign’s budget is nearly exhausted early in the day
4. Google AdWords for marketing automation.
Well, kind of anyway. Marketing automation allows you to take buyers through a sales cycle, automatically with follow ups. Inbound marketing is one way to make this happen. Google AdWords can be used to help by using their remarketing lists for search ads - which targets people that have visited your website in the past. This way, if someone continues to do research on specific services you offer, you can make sure you stay present in their search results. This of course doesn't replace effective content marketing which makes sure that you will stay in those search results with useful content. It does however complement this content strategy and can also be great if you're just starting with content marketing.
5. Click-to-call extensions can increase your AdWords campaign by 6-8%.
They're free (well, they don't cost extra), offer an instant opportunity for searchers to click to call your company, and are displayed on mobile and desktop (unless you choose otherwise). There is no reason to not add this extension to every Google AdWords campaign you run. You can even set the ad up to only show this extension during your business hours. Read more from Google here.