Google Search Ads

One of the most popular ad platforms in the world is the Google Ads platform.

While it is heavily used by many of the largest companies around the globe, it also plays a very significant role for small businesses who are looking to grow in their local area.

For some, it can mean immediate traffic to get a budding business off the ground—for others, a strategy to expand and scale beyond what organic search is providing.

Google Search Ads for Local Business

When a person is using Google to search locally, you have the opportunity to put your business at the head of the table when an applicable query matches what you offer.

Because we know a vast majority of all users are going to click the top 3 results, it can be extremely lucrative to have your brand be one of the top results.

Let’s say a person is seeking out a housekeeper, a pest control company, or a lawn maintenance service. These hyper local searches, also called queries, mean the user intent is very high and they are ready and willing to learn about, get a quote for, or even purchase a service in the very near future.

With Google Ads, you can pay for an ad to display at the top of Google’s search results page when the user query matches what products or service you want to be shown for.

When the user sees your website populate and clicks the ad, Google sends the user directly to a landing page on your website, and you’ve got the opportunity to turn that prospect into a lead before your competitors do.

How Google Ads Works for Small Businesses

Before you start running ads, you’ll first want to create a landing page for the product or service you’d like to offer. Yes, you can just send traffic to your website homepage, but they likely won’t convert as well as if you sent them to a page which is exactly what they’re looking for.

When ready, Google makes it easy to get started:

1. Start a Google Ads account
2. Choose your target queries you want to show up for
3. Create the ad and direct it your landing page
4. Set a budget
5. Begin the campaign

Now, setting it up isn’t hard, but making it great is the differentiator, of course.

If you’ve never run an ad, you might want to consider there is a high level of expertise involved in crafting something interesting, attention grabbing, educational or resourceful. Really great ads have:

1. Captivating headlines (multiple)
2. Optimized description copy (multiple)
3. Included keywords
4. Excluded keywords

But this is just the start. You’ll also have to adhere to guidelines of what NOT to do, such as using certain words, phrasing, capitalization or otherwise in titles or descriptions.

Let Us Focus on the Ad Platform

While we may ask you questions to get the initial campaigns up and going, the repetitive process of getting the campaign dialed in over a longer period of time is where the real heavy lifting occurs.

As a part of our ROI Tracking service, we can make data driven decisions from insights we get from looking at total clicks, total conversions, cost of acquiring a new prospect or lead, and more.

On your end, you’ll need to keep us in the loop on:

• How many of the leads are legitimate (spam can happen)
• How many leads are high quality, not just window shopping
• Which leads are ideal, so we can scale up
• Which leads are aren’t working out, so we can reduce them

The more collaboration we can get, especially early on, the more profitable and sustainable the campaign can be run.

Consider Trends, Seasonality and Promotional Offers

You don’t have to constantly run ads, either. While it might be best for some, others opt for a big push during certain trends, the ups and downs with different seasonal business changes, and even just for short term promos.

These can be:

• Annual
• Sporadic
• One -time

Looking at lawn care, a huge spike of new service agreements are signed in the Spring. These campaigns can be run every year, and continuously improved upon each time.

When it comes to roofing, siding or gutters, big spikes can happen after inclement weather. These align somewhat with seasons when weather becomes more chaotic, but ad campaigns might only be critical for just a few days after making them very sporadic in nature.

Last, some businesses can run promotions for a limited time, offering limited products or services, and just use these ads to get the product sold, or new program off the ground.

Google Search ads can help you in search engines or within Google Maps, and become a flexible way to grow your business fast, and expand its reach digitally.