Local Service Business - Google ads

[Tigris]

Hi there,

does anyone have any feedback on using google ads for a local service based business?

Currently on my account they are offering £400 free credit once you have spent £400.

A lot of people who provide local services I speak to near me don't really advertise online and say word of mouth is best/few local magazines.

Thanks

 

[fisicx]

Have you got a google business profile with reviews?

If so then Google ads can make a big difference. Someone searching for your service will see the advert, the business profile and your website all on page one. Triple wins!

 

[estwig]

They always say all their work comes from word of mouth, recommendations, it sounds impressive.

fisicx is quite right

I haven't done adwords for a few years now, I'm more interested in playing tennis than making money these days. The usual applies, good landing pages are a must and be careful of google burning through your money.

The problem for me are the adwords experts, get a man in to do this, all he does is generate loads of useless enquiries, citing the need for data to work with, what's the point of bad data!

My problem are tyre kickers and people fishing for info, I need serious genuine enquiries, these do not create any volume of meaningful data for the adwords guys to work with. I do my own adwords, based on what I know works and on what I want, not on the normal reteric of adwords guys.

Done right and combined with a great GMB listing, which I have, it generates loads of work.

 

[UKSBD]

Service ads are different to normal Adwords, they are more designed for someone instantly looking for someone to ring, rather than visiting your website.

You have a lot less control and effectively pay at least £10 for each call made

Time consuming or expensive if you don't know what you are doing.

The key is only have them showing when you are available to answer the phone within a few rings, available to do the job within a few days and for a service where it is worth paying for a lead

Leave them switched on when you aren't near a phone, get enquiries for jobs you can't do within 48 hours and you are paying a lot for calls that are no good.

 

[estwig]

Service ads are different to normal Adwords, they are more designed for someone instantly looking for someone to ring, rather than visiting your website.

You have a lot less control and effectively pay at least £10 for each call made

Time consuming or expensive if you don't know what you are doing.

The key is only have them showing when you are available to answer the phone within a few rings, available to do the job within a few days and for a service where it is worth paying for a lead

Leave them switched on when you aren't near a phone, get enquiries for jobs you can't do within 48 hours and you are paying a lot for calls that are no good.

Good points I'd forgotten about.

In the past I've used a calling answering service when I'm running adwords. When you're paying a tenner every time the phone rings, you need someone to answer it!

 

[leadspilot]

All good points, we use tracking numbers with call answering, forwarding and recording to make sure calls are not missed.

Also we only use tried and tested landing pages designed to convert at much higher rates.

Happy to have a chat if you have any more questions on running Adwords

 

[WeddingsInWales]

Just browsing and saw your query re Adwords. I have a site promoting a wedding venue and for years half the traffic was organic, half Adwords. My spend on Adwords about £12,000 a year I suppose, with the main spend in Jan and Feb which is when more people are looking for venues (having got engaged over Xmas), New Year new start etc. Problem was even with separate landing pages with their own enquiry forms, people move off the landing page and around the site, so by the time someone books a viewing, I had no idea whether they were Adwords sourced or Organic sourced. I tried Adwords for special offers with the Adwords visitors landing on a hidden page not visible to organic traffic, but saw no viewings from the Adwords landing page. I wondered if Adwords even worked at all. So early this year I diverted all the Adwords on to a separate website which had no organic traffic to speak of but was similar to the main site. I removed all the links between the two websites, so an Adwords visitor to the separate website could not link to the main site. And guess what, NO enquiries came from the separate site. So after years of using Adwords, I realised Adwords does not worked. OK so I saved myself £12k a year, and now only rely on organic traffic and referrals from facebook etc. But I would love it if Adwords actually worked, as I could then get a nice measurable return on investment and grow my business just by advertising more. Yes I used a specialist Adwords firm also to get the key words right. I now know Adwords is a marketing illusion. Most people do not 'get' that Adwords does not work (at least not for our service). You see lots of visitors to yourwebsite, but the ones buying are the organic visitors not the paid for visitors. I do still use Adwords for a 'last minute wedding' offer, but spend just £5 a day or so on that campaign. Why is this so? I suppose organic traffic is just better optimised than Adwords traffic where you are trawling for clicks from the wrong people.

 

[Fagin2021]

Just browsing and saw your query re Adwords. I have a site promoting a wedding venue and for years half the traffic was organic, half Adwords. My spend on Adwords about £12,000 a year I suppose, with the main spend in Jan and Feb which is when more people are looking for venues (having got engaged over Xmas), New Year new start etc. Problem was even with separate landing pages with their own enquiry forms, people move off the landing page and around the site, so by the time someone books a viewing, I had no idea whether they were Adwords sourced or Organic sourced. I tried Adwords for special offers with the Adwords visitors landing on a hidden page not visible to organic traffic, but saw no viewings from the Adwords landing page. I wondered if Adwords even worked at all. So early this year I diverted all the Adwords on to a separate website which had no organic traffic to speak of but was similar to the main site. I removed all the links between the two websites, so an Adwords visitor to the separate website could not link to the main site. And guess what, NO enquiries came from the separate site. So after years of using Adwords, I realised Adwords does not worked. OK so I saved myself £12k a year, and now only rely on organic traffic and referrals from facebook etc. But I would love it if Adwords actually worked, as I could then get a nice measurable return on investment and grow my business just by advertising more. Yes I used a specialist Adwords firm also to get the key words right. I now know Adwords is a marketing illusion. Most people do not 'get' that Adwords does not work (at least not for our service). You see lots of visitors to yourwebsite, but the ones buying are the organic visitors not the paid for visitors. I do still use Adwords for a 'last minute wedding' offer, but spend just £5 a day or so on that campaign. Why is this so? I suppose organic traffic is just better optimised than Adwords traffic where you are trawling for clicks from the wrong people.

I'm afraid the fact that you couldn't tell an Adwords (now Ads) conversion from an organic conversion just means that you never set up your conversion tracking correctly. In short, if someone comes to your site via Google Ads and converts from any page, (even many days later), you you should see that in your account report.

That's such a simple thing to do it implies that your whole Adwords account was badly set up. Sounds like most of that wasted £12,000 was down to you (or your 'specialist Adwords firm'), rather than Google.

Having said that, it's perfectly true that Google Ads works for some people and not others, though many of the people it doesn't work for aren't using it properly.

 

[Peak District SEO]

Good points I'd forgotten about.

In the past I've used a calling answering service when I'm running adwords. When you're paying a tenner every time the phone rings, you need someone to answer it!

Yes, good point I'd use a pay-as-you-go telephone answering service, so you don't pay through the nose. We use Paperclip, a little company from Dronfield in Derbyshire, speak to Anne, she's very helpful.

 

[Benjones]

Hi there,

does anyone have any feedback on using google ads for a local service based business?

Currently on my account they are offering £400 free credit once you have spent £400.

A lot of people who provide local services I speak to near me don't really advertise online and say word of mouth is best/few local magazines.

Thanks

Hi Tigris,

Success of Google Ads will depend on the search volume of the keywords you've chosen plus the size of your locality. If it is a relatively small area where everyone knows each other then word of mouth will do you well.

 

[aweuk]

For a niche product where search volume for narrow keywords will be rare could we target more markets/countries/cities to get better search volume for the chosen narrow keywords?

 

[WeddingsInWales]

I'm afraid the fact that you couldn't tell an Adwords (now Ads) conversion from an organic conversion just means that you never set up your conversion tracking correctly. In short, if someone comes to your site via Google Ads and converts from any page, (even many days later), you you should see that in your account report.

That's such a simple thing to do it implies that your whole Adwords account was badly set up. Sounds like most of that wasted £12,000 was down to you (or your 'specialist Adwords firm'), rather than Google.

Having said that, it's perfectly true that Google Ads works for some people and not others, though many of the people it doesn't work for aren't using it properly.

yes we eventually got around to setting Adwords up so it could be monitored / tracked better, made no difference - no sales from the Adwords, the viewing requests are all organic visitors. We only spend about £10 a day just to keep it ticking over and bring the site some traffic. Maybe it helps with SEO the fact people are visiting the site a lot. As for our organic traffic, half of it now is people looking not for weddings, but wedding planning, as we have so much content on wedding planning. The Wedding Toasts page is the most visited page on the site. Does not help us with getting new weddings though, all the people looking up how to plan/ order/ write/ 'do' their 'wedding toasts'.

 

[fisicx]

The Wedding Toasts page is the most visited page on the site. Does not help us with getting new weddings though, all the people looking up how to plan/ order/ write/ 'do' their 'wedding toasts'.

Bin the page. They are never going to convert so they are of zero value to you.

Focus on getting those AdWords working. If you are getting clicks but not leads it means the keywords, adverts or more likely the landing page is wrong.

 

[Fagin2021]

yes we eventually got around to setting Adwords up so it could be monitored / tracked better, made no difference - no sales from the Adwords, the viewing requests are all organic visitors. We only spend about £10 a day just to keep it ticking over and bring the site some traffic. Maybe it helps with SEO the fact people are visiting the site a lot. As for our organic traffic, half of it now is people looking not for weddings, but wedding planning, as we have so much content on wedding planning. The Wedding Toasts page is the most visited page on the site. Does not help us with getting new weddings though, all the people looking up how to plan/ order/ write/ 'do' their 'wedding toasts'.

You have a beautiful venue, an upmarket clientele and an appalling amateurish website! Sorry. There's a serious mismatch between what you are and what you appear to be. It's not surprising visitors don't convert.

You need to spend some time and money with a decent marketing consultant, then a website designer before committing any more to Adwords.