Month: December 2019

Google Ads is one of the best ways to generate a lot of leads for your local roofing business quickly. In fact, 63.7% of local businesses say that paid search is either “very important” or “somewhat important” to their marketing.

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You may wonder, “How much does it cost to generate roofing leads with Google Ads? Is it worth the investment?”

Google Ads is priced like an auction. The going rate depends on your competition. In 2019, we generated roofing leads in volume via Google Ads at $40 to $120 per lead.

Although Google Ads can get competitive, don’t be intimidated by the cost!

When you drive your conversion rate higher and higher, the lead cost goes lower and lower. For example, you can maximize your ROI by using superior targeting, compelling ad copy, and highly relevant landing pages optimized for conversion.

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of using Google Ads for roofing contractors and how to leverage the advertising platform to attract high-quality traffic that will turn into customers.

Why Use Google Ads To Promote Your Roofing Business

Over the years, Google has taken steps to maximize the performance of Google Ads, which can generate far more leads per day than organic search results (SEO). Combined with a high-converting website that turns visitors into customers, you can increase the ROI and make Google Ads quite affordable.

It’s also easy to get started with Google Ads since you can adjust the ad spend based on your budget. This allows you to adapt your bidding strategy to optimize the resources you have available.

In addition, the leads you get are exclusive – meaning that prospects will call you directly. Unlike a lead generation platform from which you’d purchase “shared leads” (e.g., HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack, CraftJack), the competition is lower and you’re more likely to win the business.

Without the middleman, you keep most of the profits. You can also track your close rate and the effectiveness of your advertising strategy much more easily and gather meaningful metrics to improve results.

The Bonus SEO Benefit Of Using Google Ads

Boosting your website’s SEO is the best long-term strategy for driving low-cost high-quality traffic to your site. However, it often takes 6-12 months to build up your domain’s “SEO juice” if you depend on organic search results alone.

Google Ads can help drive traffic to your website right away while indirectly increasingly your free organic leads. How?

Google’s database keeps track of hundreds of factors on billions of things, including your business. It knows how often people search for your business. It can even gauge how relevant and helpful your website is based on the way users interact with your content and how long they stay on your site.

Google’s algorithm “likes” businesses that people search for, links that they click on, and websites on which they spend time because these are all signals that indicate the relevance and usefulness of a site.

When you use Google Ads to propel your site to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs,) you’ll be attracting more attention. People will see your ad and Google your business directly.

When Google sees that your business is being actively search for, you get “bonus points” that will move your business higher in organic search results. In turn, you’ll get more clicks that signal relevance to Google, so your site will move even higher in rankings. The virtuous cycle continues, helping you dominate the first page of Google.

Showing up multiple times and consistently on search results can also help you build brand awareness. After consumers see your business name a few times, your brand becomes familiar. This helps you build trust and makes people more likely to click on your free organic links that may be lower on the page.

How To Use Google Ads Effectively To Grow Your Roofing Business

Google Ads can get competitive and the cost per lead can be expensive for roofing contractors. In order to maximize profits, you need to generate the highest-quality leads and maximize the conversion rate. Here’s how:

Expand Your Service Area

One reason why Google Ads can be so effective for local service businesses is that it gives you the ability to target a highly-specific local audience that uses high-intent search terms. As a result, you only pay for clicks from searchers located in your area and are most likely to engage the service of a roofing contractor right away.

To increase the number of qualified prospects, expand your service area to cover a larger geographic location. The bigger your market, the more people will see your ad and the more opportunities you can get.

Build a High-Converting Website

What searchers see after they click on your ad can determine if they’d further interact with your business, e.g., by requesting a quote. Your landing page(s) should be optimized so they’re coherent with the ad copy to deliver a consistent user experience that will build trust and increase engagement.

In addition, optimize your entire website for conversion. For example, by making it easy for visitors to get in touch or request a quote. This can help you maximize the ROI for every click and improve your profitability.

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There are many moving parts when it comes to building a high-converting website but the good news is that you don’t have to do it all on your own. Many reputable Google Ads services include a conversion-optimized website as part of their packages to help you get the most out of your ad dollars.

Optimize Your Site For Inbound Leads

Consumers don’t want to get calls from pushy salespeople. Instead, they prefer companies that are helpful, listen to their needs, and solve their problems. They also want to have control over how they interact with a business – some of them prefer to call while others want to fill out a web form or send an email.

As such, your website should provide visitors with multiple ways to interact with your business. For instance, by making it easy for visitors to find your contact information, fill out a web form to request a quote, or get in touch using the tap-to-call features on mobile devices.

Work With a PPC Agency

Working with a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) agency can help you get results fast because it has the expertise to quickly optimize your ad campaigns while helping you shorten the learning curve. Not to mention, Google updates its algorithm often and an agency has the resources to continuously adjust your campaigns to achieve the best results.

Look for a PPC agency that understands the roofing industry and has a track record working with roofing contractors. It should also be transparent about your ad spend and how the agency fee structure works – if an agency that doesn’t tell you what its “cut” is, you’d very likely be overpaying.

Achieve Fast Results With Google Ads

To quickly achieve substantial results with Google Ads, you should be ready to spend at least $1,000 every month. You can start lower, but the resulting lead flow will be slower and less consistent.

Also, you need to be willing and ready to maximize the channel by increasing your ad spend as the lead volume increases and the lead costs decrease.

How many new roofing leads do you want in a day? Whether your answer is one, two, five, ten, or twenty, the right Google Ads strategy can make it happen.

Do keep in mind that it may take a few months to gain traction, fine-tune your tactics, and hit your target level – but with a large enough target market, Google Ads can get you as many leads as you can handle and in a fairly short amount of time.

With 86% of consumers using the internet to find a local business, there’s no question that you need to appear on relevant search engine results. It’s the key to getting your local service business found by more potential clients.

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To dominate the first page of Google search results, you need to implement a combination of SEO and PPC tactics so you can increase visibility and capture prospects’ attention.

If you’re like most local business owners, you have probably considered running Google Ads. However, what’s the best way to go about it?

Should you go the DIY route or hire a PPC agency?

This article will look at the pros and cons of each option, show you the tools for managing Google Ads yourself, discuss a few pointers for hiring a PPC agency, and share our unique, from-the-trenches perspective on how you should decide if the DIY route is right for you.

Should You Manage Google Ads Yourself?

Many local service professionals wear many hats but should you take on managing Google Ads yourself?

Pros of Managing Google Ads In-House

• Without ad management overhead costs, you can dedicate 100% of your advertising budget to ads.
  
• You have complete control over your campaigns, including copy, keywords, and bidding strategy.
  
• You can learn about the platform as you run the campaigns and gain more insights into your audience.

Cons of Managing Google Ads In-House

• Running Google Ads successfully takes a lot of time, diverting your attention from servicing your customers.
  
• You or your team may get spread too thin, which can cause issues in other areas of the business.
  
• There’s a steep learning curve so if you haven’t used Google Ads before, you’d likely be spending a good amount of your budget on trial-and-error.
  
• Technical ability required for maximum results

Tools You Need To Manage Google Ads Yourself

Using the right tools can help you manage Google Ads cost-effectively and here are a few essentials:

• Google Ads’ built-in “Ad Rotation” feature and “Responsive Ads” to help you understand what ad copy and combinations of ad copy components works and what doesn’t.

  

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• A/B testing tools (e.g. Optimizely, Unbounce, etc.) to help you fine-tune landing pages and increase conversion.
  
• Google Keyword Planner to help you identify the best keywords for your bidding strategy.
  
• Competitive research tools (e.g., iSpionage) that allow you to “spy” on your competitors to see what keywords are working for them.
  
• Google Analytics to help you track traffic and landing pages performance after searchers come to your website. You can use the information to improve conversion and increase ROI.

Should You Hire a PPC Agency?

Hiring an agency can relieve your workload but what are the downsides?

Pros of Hiring an Agency To Manage Google Ads

• Google Ads is a complex platform that requires in-depth knowledge to achieve a good ROI. Hiring an agency gives you access to experts who are up-to-date with the latest algorithms and strategies.
  
• You don’t have to spend hours managing your ads so you can focus on servicing your customers and generating revenue.
  
• Agencies have access to a variety of tools for tracking the effectiveness of your ads and optimizing their ROI.
  
• Many agencies get “agency perks,” such as early access to beta programs and faster support from Google, to help you get the most out of the platform.

Cons of Hiring an Agency To Manage Google Ads

• The process may lack the transparency you desire to keep track of your marketing effort and understand what works for your market.
  
• You may not have instant control of your ad campaigns.
  
• You have to pay the agency’s fee on top of the costs of running the ads.

What To Look For When Hiring a PPC Agency

If you decide to work with an agency, here’s how to find one that’s right for your business:

• Seek out an agency with experience working with local service professionals in your industry.
  
• Ask about the KPIs they use for tracking the campaigns’ effectiveness. These metrics should focus on driving conversion and increasing profitability.
  
• Get the “A-team” by asking about the specific experience of your account manager and interviewing those who will be managing your ads.
  
• Inquire about the pricing structure to see if the cost makes sense for your budget and avoid unpleasant surprises.

• Do some research about the agency, look for third-party reviews from clients similar to you, and talk to a few clients to ensure its service is a good fit for your needs.

Are You Cut Out To Manage Your Own Google Ads Campaigns?

Even after weighing all the pros and cons, you may still be on the fence. Here’s our honest opinion after years in the trenches on whether you should go the DIY route:

Running successful Google Ads campaigns requires a balanced combination of knowledge, experience, effort, and marketing savvy.

You need to know what to do and how to do it. You need to invest the time, patience, and resources to implement the strategy while having the ability to create, analyze, and experiment so you can optimize results.

Also, managing Google Ads is an on-going effort. You need to be constantly monitoring and tweaking your campaigns to respond to market conditions. As such, you should only run Google Ads yourself if you truly enjoy the process and have what it takes to succeed: time, effort, money, creativity, and luck.

Time and Effort

It can easily take a year to get the hang of running Google Ads. Even though it’s easy to pass the Google Ads certification exam, studying for it doesn’t teach you the ins and outs of marketing effectively to your target audience.

For example, while it’s relatively easy to find out what keywords to target, you won’t know which negative keywords to include in your campaigns – so you don’t have to pay for clicks that don’t convert – until you have run the ads and analyzed the results from the campaigns.

The only way to learn what works and what doesn’t for your market is trial-and-error, which requires substantial investment in time and effort.

Money

Trial-and-error also means that you will make mistakes, which costs money. Every click that doesn’t yield new business is wasted ad spend and it takes time to dial in your strategy so you can get the most from your ad budget.

For example, to maximize your ROI, you need to figure out what keywords get you the highest quality leads and what keywords are attracting clicks that don’t turn into customers. This information often comes from analyzing your results over time before you can refine the campaigns with a list of effective negative keywords.

Creativity

For any ad campaigns to yield the best results, you need to write good copy that gets the right people to click the ad. But that’s just the beginning!

When prospects click on your ad, they go to your website. You’ll need a landing page with relevant copy and design optimized to drive conversion (e.g., filling out a form to request a quote or making a phone call). You also need a high-quality website that projects a professional image to foster trust and build credibility.

Getting all these set up requires experience and knowledge in web design and copywriting, not to mention the right mix of creativity to create an on-brand experience that’ll attract the right leads to your business.

Luck

When you’re getting started with Google Ads, it can be expensive (i.e. high cost per lead). Trying to figure out what works can feel like rolling the dice and the cost of bad clicks can add up fast.

If you’re lucky, you may hit the right target audience and keywords on your first try… clicks convert into business. Otherwise, you may not see much other than a click charge.

You have to be ready to roll with the punches. You also need to be patient because success is measured over a month or more so you can collect enough data to fine-tune your tactics.

Getting Started With Running Your Own Google Ads

If you have what it takes to run your own campaigns but you’re just getting started, you may not have a conversion-optimized website ready. However, don’t wait! The sooner you start running campaigns, the sooner you can learn about the platform and your market.

You can use Google’s Call-Only ads. They only work on smartphones but clickers usually become callers. This often results in a high conversion rate, which is key to maximizing your ROI.

While the amount of traffic produced by Call-Only ads is small, it’s one of the best ways to get started with Google Ads. It keeps your burn rate low and ROI high.

Once you are successful with Call-Only ads and want to generate more business, you’ll need to create a website. Start with a single page that’s highly relevant to and consistent with your ad content, to which you can send the ad traffic.

When you start collecting data, you can make improvements based on the analytics. Keep in mind that optimizing your landing page will take some time and effort so don’t give up too soon. A/B testing is the best way to find out what really works for your business – some tweaks you think would work may not while others may surprise you!

And the Verdict is…

There are pros and cons associated with running your own Google Ads vs. hiring a PPC agency. You should evaluate your budget and requirements to find a solution that works best for your local service business.

While going the DIY route may be tempting thanks to the initial savings, you should only do so if you have a creative and marketing knack. Otherwise, you could be spending a lot of time and money on trial-and-error and still find yourself at the bottom of the learning curve!

For many business owners, working with a PPC agency can often lead to higher ROI over time since you can yield better results at a lower cost. Not to mention, it can free up your time so you can focus on delivering outstanding service to all the clients you have generated with your ads!

Did you know that 46% of all Google searches are on local information while 88% of people who search for local businesses on a mobile device either call or visit the business within 24 hours?

As a local service business (e.g., painter, plumber, electrician, house cleaning service, landscaper, etc) you can’t afford to ignore the power of local SEO.

While using high-quality content to boost your SEO is the most cost-effective way to improve search engine ranking and drive website traffic in the long-term, it takes time for any content marketing strategy to yield results.

What can you do if you want traffic (and clients!) right now?

Thankfully, you don’t have to look further than Google Ads.

It essentially allows you to cut the line and jump to the top positions on Google search results quickly if you do it right.

Ready to use Google Ads to attract more leads to your local service business? Here’s what you need to know.

Why Use Google Ads For Your Local Service Business

First thing first… why Google Ads? Here are the benefits of using Google Ads to promote your local service business:

Most people search for a local business when the need arises – that means they’re ready to hire a service provider immediately. Google Ads allows you to get found by these prospects at the right time by targeting keywords with high purchase intent.

The last thing you want is to pay for traffic from people who don’t live in your service area! Google Ads allow you to set a target audience based on location so you only pay for clicks from searchers that are living in your area.

In addition, you can leverage ad extensions to show searchers more information about your business (e.g., address, phone number, ratings) while increasing the “real estate” your ads take up at no extra cost to capture the attention of more prospects.

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Google Ads also allows you to retarget visitors and drive them back to your website if they didn’t convert on their first visits. Besides boosting conversion, this can help you increase brand awareness and stay top of mind.

As a local service provider, the next step for prospects to engage with your business is likely to give you a call and make an appointment. With Google Ads, you can target searchers using mobile devices – making it that much more convenient for prospects to take action so you can increase conversion rates.

Furthermore, Google Ads gives you different ways to control your ad budget and how it’s being spent so you can continuously test and refine your tactics without unpleasant surprises.

You can use detailed analytics from Google Ads to measure results and make adjustments. For example, you can track metrics such as traffic to your website, conversion rate, revenue, etc. to make sure that you’re yielding the desired ROI.

Also, Google Ads allow you to import data to see how leads generated online convert offline (e.g., after a phone call) so you can better integrate your digital and brick-and-mortar channels.

Last but not least, paid ads level the playing field by allowing you to become more competitive, especially if you’re relatively new to business and there are more established companies in the area providing similar services.

How Google Ads Works

Google Ads works by “auctioning” keywords – the more demand for a keyword, the higher it costs. When you create an ad, you set a budget and a bid, which indicates how much you’re willing to pay for each click. The higher your bid is, the more likely your ad will get shown to searchers.

Don’t worry, Google won’t run away with your money! If other advertisers are bidding less for the same keywords, Google won’t spend your maximum bid. The algorithm optimizes impressions and bids so you’d likely pay less than the maximum amount, generally only 1¢ more than the next highest bidder, and only when your ad is clicked.

However, it’s not all about the bid. Google also takes the user experience into account and is willing to show ads that are more relevant and of higher quality even if the bid may be lower.

Your bid and whether your ad gets shown is also affected by your account’s quality score, which is a metric that combines several factors to determine how well your offer matches a particular search. Google uses relevancy, click-through-rate, and account history to determine the quality score of your campaigns.

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Besides the budget, you can define a conversion event (e.g., signing up to your email list, requesting a quote) to accurately track your results, adjust the targeting, and fine-tune your bid so you can optimize the ROI.

How To Set Up an Effective Google Ads Campaign

There are many moving parts you need to consider when setting up a Google Ads campaign. Here are some key steps and how you can improve the effectiveness of your ads:

• Set your goal: tailor your ad based on the results you want to achieve. You should first identify an objective for your campaign, such as getting more calls or taking action on your website (e.g., signing up for your mailing list or filling out a form to request a quote.)
  
• Define your audience: for local service businesses, it’s important to target searchers located in your service area (e.g., within a certain radius of your business address). Using location targeting will ensure that your ads are shown to the right people.

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• Choose an ad format: ad extensions allow you to include additional information in your ads. You can use Google’s automated formatting systems to display information from your website or other relevant third-party content alongside the ads based on your objectives.
  
• Select your keywords: to target searchers that are most likely to convert, bid for keywords that are specific to your services and include local terms. Research your competitors and use Google’s Keyword Planner to find the best keywords that balance cost with search volume and competitiveness.
  
• Craft compelling copy: create relevant copy that aligns with the keywords you’re bidding for to deliver a cohesive user experience that’ll increase click-through-rate. Make references to local places or events if appropriate to increase relevancy.
  
• Set a budget cap: this allows you to maintain control of your ad spend. Google Ads will recommend a budget based on businesses similar to yours and provide estimated results to help you make an informed decision.
  
• Create an effective landing page: the quality and relevance of the landing page (i.e., the page to which your ad is linked to) not only affect the quality score but also help deliver a cohesive user experience that will improve conversion. If you’re running multiple ads, you may want to set up a dedicated landing page for each so the content matches the ad copy. Follow these landing page conversion optimization best practices to turn more clicks into customers.
  
• Set up conversion tracking: “what gets measured gets done” so make sure you’re tracking the appropriate conversion action based on the objective for each campaign (e.g., website actions, phone calls, offline conversion, local actions.)

Final Thoughts – Maximize Your Results Without the Stress

Google Ads can be intimidating for many small business owners but don’t fret! Here’s how to keep everything in perspective while handling all the moving parts:

• Start small and set a fixed budget. Test the water and find out what works for you. Even a monthly budget as little as $250 or $500 is sufficient to get the ball rolling. Once you discover what’s effective for your market, you can increase the budget and optimize your results.
  
• Keep it simple and don’t overcomplicate things. Google Ads’ interface is complex – it’s easy to go down the rabbit hole and get lost in tinkering with the different features. Instead, start with the basics – for a local service business, that means including local keywords, using ad extensions, setting up location targeting, and creating an effective landing page.
  
• Be patient! While Google Ads can be highly cost-effective, it’s not a magic bullet. The majority of advertisers lose money on Google Ads just because they quit too soon. Give your campaigns at least a month to gain traction and yield results. Then review your metrics to optimize the ROI.

Some trial-and-error is par for the course but if you want to shorten the learning curve and get quick results, work with experts who have a track record of running PPC ads for local service businesses and understand the unique requirements. This will allow you to make the most of your ad budget while freeing up your time to do what you do best – servicing your clients and generating more revenue!

Of course, 99 Calls provides expert Google Ads service for local service businesses. Having worked with thousands of service businesses we know the keywords that work and those that don’t. We also provide high converting landing pages (our pages convert at an extremely high 20%-40% depending on the industry…meaning maximum bang for your buck) at no extra charge.

When you are ready to really grow your local service business, consider Google Ads and 99 Calls for high volume lead generation.