Google AdWords search campaigns are the top way to get in front of potential clients who need weekly pool service. Building up your organic SEO results on Google can take years, and this essentially lets you buy your way to the top of Google (if it’s done correctly). In this post, we’ll explore the basics of Google and how to maximize your investment here.
Keyword Research
A big part of being successful with Google is understanding keyword research. Google’s Keyword Planner tool allows you to forecast and see what people are searching for on Google regarding the services that you offer.
One of the biggest components of a successful Google campaign is keyword research. You always need to dig into which keywords will apply to your campaign.
Check out these videos to learn more about how to conduct keyword research:
- GVIDEO] Local Keyword Research
- BVIDEO] Local SEO Keyword Research with Semrush
- LVIDEO] 6 Ways To Use Google Keyword Planner for Keyword Research
Ad Copy
Google ads copywriting is extremely important for ensuring that your ad gets clicked. Your copywriting needs to be clear, concise, and straightforward so your prospective customer understands your offer.
Additionally, you should always create multiple variations for your Google ads. Each one should have different messaging and phrasing so you can test what really works– try highlighting the different services you offer, different guarantees, or playing around with language and tone. For example, you can run one ad highlighting a “no-green guarantee” and another saying you’ve been in business for 10+ years.
Google Ads Campaign Types
There are many different types of Google campaigns, but the most popular are “Search” campaigns and “Smart” campaigns.
Custom search campaigns
A custom search campaign is a type of advertising program where businesses pay to display ads on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). The model primarily operates on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis, meaning advertisers are charged only when a user clicks on their ad.
How it works:
- Advertisers place bids on keywords relevant to their products or services. When users search for these keywords, the ads appear at the top or bottom of the search results, depending on how much they are willing to pay for each click.
- The appeal of these campaigns is that they are highly targeted based on factors like location, language, device, and user demographics and provide detailed performance metrics to optimize campaigns.
- The only downside to these campaigns is that making them successful requires a lot of time, effort, and expertise. These types of campaigns can prove difficult for business owners to manage in-house with a smaller team. But when done right, it can be one of the most profitable ways to attract new business.
Smart Campaigns
A Google Smart Campaign is an automated advertising solution designed for small businesses and advertisers who want a simple way to manage their online advertising.
It uses machine learning to automate the creation, targeting, and optimization of ads across Google Search, Google Maps, YouTube, and other Google properties.
Advertisers input their business information, budget, and ad goals, and Google automatically generates ads and places them in relevant locations. The idea is to drive results based on the advertiser’s objectives, such as website visits, phone calls, or store visits, with minimal manual intervention.
The benefit of these types of campaigns is that they are much easier to manage because all of the ads and placements are controlled from one place, meaning that advertisers don’t have to spend as much time making updates to their advertising.
Google Local Services Ads (LSA)
Local Services Ads are paid Google ads that will show up specifically for customers in your area. When a potential customer Googles “pool care near me” (or any similar term), your ad will pop up with a Google Guaranteed check mark and an option to book, message, or call your business. Unlike pay-per-click (PPC) ads, where you pay every time someone clicks on your ad, Local Service Ads are pay-per-lead, meaning you only pay when someone actually gets in touch with your business.
The catch is that it’s not easy to set up. You may be asked questions about your business license and insurance or even provide pictures of local street signs to verify your location.
The other thing to consider when setting up Local Service Ads is that you must answer your phone. If your whole team is out working on pools and no one is around to answer calls, you’re throwing money down the drain.
If you’re interested in setting up Local Service Ads, check out this helpful article:
https://www. semrush.com/blog/google-local-services-ads
BONUS TIPS: Use your Google Business Profile to boost organic results
Google Map Pack
The most actionable item in the realm of SEO that anyone can take advantage of is to start climbing up the ranks on your local map pack. The map pack is a set of Google Maps-based results that come up when a prospect does a search for local businesses– this includes reviews, overall star rating, plus your business summary, address, hours, pricing and featured photos. The vast majority of this is tied to “Google My Business” optimization.
Here are 5 tips to improve your ranking here:
- Get a large volume of 5-star reviews: Prospects will absolutely look at your reviews, and the more 5-star ones you have, the better. A higher proportion of 5-star reviews also helps to balance out any poor reviews you may receive.
- Respond to all reviews: Responding to reviews shows that you’re actively engaged as a business and keen to take all customer feedback seriously. Addressing the specific issue at hand can also help mitigate the impact of negative reviews.
- Encourage clients to include pictures: Pictures are powerful in pool service. Have clients who are pleased with their sparkling clean pool? Get them to snap a picture and attach it to their review!
- Add your services: You can add a list of services so potential clients can see your offerings right on the Google listing. This can help create more educated prospects.
- Link your social media accounts to your My Business Profile: The more information you can provide on your Google My Business page, the better– and this includes social media profiles. The catch here is that you can’t just post a link to social profiles where the last post was a year ago. These profiles need to be active to help.
BONUS TIPS: Maximizing your Google investment with landing pages and testing
Landing pages
Landing pages are condensed versions of your website. They are usually one page with a lot less content and are primarily focused on educating your prospect with the intent to sell. They are highly targeted towards the keyword that the prospect typed into Google, which makes the content very relevant – when the prospect clicks on the landing page, they get served exactly what they were originally looking for.
Conversion tracking
Google Conversion Tracking is essential for understanding the effectiveness of your online advertising campaigns. It allows you to see which ads and keywords are driving valuable customer actions such as purchases, sign-ups, or leads. It’s also a key mechanism to pass data back to Google so that the algorithms can work in your favor. By tracking these conversions, you can optimize your ad spend, improve ROI, and make data-driven decisions to enhance your marketing strategy.
Split Testing (A/B testing) & conversion rate optimization (CRO)
When starting out on Google ads from scratch, it’s important to split-test different landing pages with different messaging, images, and structure to see which one performs better with your audience.
This testing is all in service of conversion rate optimization (CRO). The conversion rate– the number of people who visit your landing page and, out of those, how many convert into leads, whether that’s from a form or a phone call– is extremely important when running Google ads, as it is ultimately your sign of success on this platform.
Our final post in this series will focus on Facebook and Instagram ads. And, if you have any questions or learnings you can share about using Google Ads, please add them to the thread below to keep the conversation going.