Google Adwords Tips For Contractors

carlsore

Are you spending some of your advertising budget with Google Adwords Pay-Per-Click? If so this short article will offer you some important tips that can help you increase your ad positioning while actually lowering your overall click cost. And the most important part, help you generate more leads!

First Off... Let's talk about the #1 mistake nearly every DIY Adwords advertiser makes. (I was guilty when I first started) Too Many Keywords = Wasted Adwords Dollars.

Here's the reason why. Most contractors advertising with adwords are going to be sending all of their visitors to the homepage of their site. This might seem okay but poses a major targeting problem when you have too many keywords in your account.

Let's say for example you're a Landscape Contractor. There are probably more then 50 different services that you may offer your clients.

MOST adwords advertisers would buy those 50 keywords related to their landscape services and drive the traffic to their homepage. This works. No question. But it's not running like the well oiled lead generation machine it could be with proper targeting in place.

Here are some examples.

I own ABCLandscaping and I want to start paying for clicks through the Google Adwords program.

Here's my Ad:

ABC Landscaping Company
Fast, Professional Landscape Service.
Call Us For A Free Estimate!
ABCLandscaping

I go out and bid on keywords such as:

"Landscape Contractor"
"Lawn Maintenance Contractor"
"Yard And Garden Cleanup"
"Landscaping Services"
"Retaining Wall Construction"
"Pond Construction"
"Water Garden Construction"

Now here lies the problem... If a local user searches for "Yard & Garden Cleanup" or "Pond Construction" they are going to see my ad offering "professional landscape service" It's not necessarily "exactly" what they've searched for. This is called "poor targeting".

Google is a search engine that thrives on delivering it's users EXACTLY what they searched for. Not only that but they also REWARD their advertisers for following this credo.

Example.

I own ABCLandscaping company and I want to properly setup my Google Adwords Campaign.

Here are my advertisements.

Fast Yard & Garden Cleanup
We'll Clean Your Yard Quickly.
Affordable Yard & Garden Cleanup.
ABCLandscaping/YardCleanup

This ad above would be focused on the Yard & Garden aspect of my business. I would bid on "Yard & Garden Cleanup" related keywords. It would be beneficial to have this ad lead a searcher directly to the page on your website that talks all about your Yard & Garden cleanup services.

If your keyword was "Yard & Garden Cleanup" and you're ad was written as displayed above. When someone typed in "Yard & Garden Cleanup" into Google the keywords will lightup in BOLD within your ad because you've delivered what's called an "Exact Match"

Fast Yard & Garden Cleanup
We'll Clean Your Yard Quickly.
Affordable Yard & Garden Cleanup.
ABCLandscaping/YardCleanup

Another Example Below.

Outdoor Pond Construction
We'll Build You A Quality Pond.
Call Us Now For A Free Estimate.
ABCLandscaping/Ponds

This ad above would be focused on the Pond Construction aspect of my business. Like above we'd bid on all our pond related keywords with this ad. Again we'd want to lead the searcher directly to the page on our website that is about our Pond Construction services.

Here's what that ad would look like to someone who searched for "Pond Construction"

Outdoor Pond Construction
We'll Build You A Quality Pond.
Call Us Now For A Free Estimate.
ABCLandscaping/Ponds

Are you starting to see the point I am trying to make...? I like to call this "Micro-Targetting".

This method of targeting through Google is the most surefire way to improve your CTR (Click Through Ratio) as well as your Quality Score. Both the major deciding factors in where your ad ranks and how much you pay for the traffic. By improving your CTR and Quality Score your ads position will increase up the page and your Cost-Per-Click will actually decrease. Google rewards those who deliver relevant content to their users. It's not necessarily the highest bidder wins. Being smart with your Adwords campaign is a better strategy.

Hope this helps some of you!

Carl Sorensen

Magic Hammer

Thanks for the tips, it makes sense. Google ad words can get some traffic.

Grumpyplumber

Thankyou Carl, excellent pointers.
As I read through I immediately recognized a few changes I'll need to do asap.

rbsremodeling

Thanks as well I thought the tips were very valuable. Some of the stuff you mentioned I noticed on my own but did not know how to implement them

__________________

BreyerConstruct

Thanks Carl, I owe you one...

I've been looking at he keyword issue, but haven't fully understood it till now.
Thanks for your input!

~Matt

__________________
Custom Deck Builder Deck Designer Lancaster Deck Builder Berks Deck Cleaning
Breyer Construction & Landscape, LLC Facebook Page
www.BreyerConstruction.com

jamesimprove

would you guys mind reviewing my landing page for my shed business. I have about 8-10 keywords such as (storage shed, sheds, outdoor storage, etc.) all keywords that I think closely target my business.
My website for sheds is

www.TheShedSpot.com

any input would be great to see how I could convert more leads.

Thanks

carlsore

Hey James,

The first thing I noticed about your website is that you're hosted on Yahoo with a framed/masked domain name.

So basically no matter which page of your website I am on your URL always says theshedspot.com

It would be beneficial to you to have seperate pages with the corresponding urls. Such as:

theshedspot.com/gardensheds (a page devoted specifically to garden sheds)
theshedspot.com/prefabsheds (page devoted to prefab sheds)
theshedspot.com/workshops (page devoted to building workshops)

This gives the search engines something to see... As right now your site is nearly invisible to Google, Yahoo, MSN and every other search engine.

As for your PPC campaign the same rules apply.

If you're bidding on a keyword such as "Outdoor Storage Shed" you could do something like this.

Outdoor Storage Sheds
We Build Outdoor Storage Sheds.
Call Now For A FREE Estimate.
theshedspot.com/outdoorsheds

Now... Here's another tip.

If someone searches the keyword "outdoor storage shed" it doesn't really mean that searcher is ready to buy one.

So to better refine your traffic you use [exact match] and "phrase" keywords.

Example...

[buy outdoor storage shed online]
"buy outdoor storage shed online"
[outdoor storage shed construction]
"outdoor storage shed construction"
[outdoor storage shed builder]
"outdoor storage shed installer"

These are keywords that are more along the lines of someone who's ready to buy. Don't waste your money on the broader keywords.

What's the difference between Broad Match, [Exact Match] & "Phrase Match"?

A broad match keyword is like so...

Outdoor Storage Shed (no "" or [])

This means your ad could display for the keyword "outdoor" "storage" and "shed" in no particular order and with any other words.

[Outdoor Storage Shed] (surrounded by [] is an Exact Match keyword)

Because this keyword is an Exact Match keyword it will only display when someone searches Outdoor Storage Shed in that exact order.

"Outdoor Storage Shed" (surrounded by "" is a Phrase Match)

Because this keyword is set to Phrase Match the ad will display anytime someone searches a keyword phrase that includes "outdoor storage shed" They could search "cheap outdoor storage shed" and your ad will display.

Which lastly brings me to the Negative Keyword. We use negative keywords to help refine our targetting.

So let's say you sell Steel and Wooden Garden Sheds but you don't sell or carry Plastic Garden Sheds.

You could enter your keywords like this:

[garden shed construction]
"garden shed construction"
-Plastic
-Cheap

Now your ad will not display if someone searches for "plastic garden shed" or "cheap garden shed" This is just a simple example but negative keywords are an essential part of any adwords campaign. You want to disqualify all of crappy traffic.

You want to refine the campaign to the point that your traffic that's coming through is qualified based on their search queries. You want to deal with people in the "buying frame of mind". The result is less advertising spends and better ROI!

I hope this helps!

Carl Sorensen