How Many Google Ad Keywords Do You Target in a Contractor Campaign?
There are only 3 words that matter in a Google Ads campaign – Relevance, Relevance, and Relevance.
And if the word ‘relevance’ starts to sound like an out of context piece of advice when we keep chanting it to you, we get it. So here’s what it means in practical terms…
Your ad position/rank will increase and cost-per-click will decrease if your ads are relevant to what your potential customer types in and the pages you have on your contractor website.
If you can target keywords with relevant ads and relevant landing pages, your rankings go up and your costs go down. Read on to discover how we apply this strategy to a contractor Google Ads campaign.
Before considering how many keywords you should target, you should be figuring out how many services you offer and how many pages you have on your website.
This is because the keywords you target will entirely depend on:
- The number of products and services you provide
- The number of pages on your website
- Your ad budget
Before we explain why these 3 factors will influence the number of keywords you chase, let’s quickly recap how Google Ads works.
Here’s how Google Ads work for contractors
There’s 4 elements to every campaign.
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The top 3 elements (keywords, ads, landing page) make up your relevance. And the lower element (budget) will depend on your business goals.
The most important factor in EVERY ad campaign whether you’re on the tools or managing a team, is RELEVANCE.
The more landing pages and ads you have related to each keyword you target, the more RELEVANT your campaign is.
“Why does relevance matter for contractor Google Ads?”
Google makes decisions on your rankings and how much you pay per click based on relevance.
They want to see ads that help search engine users (because the more ad clicks there are, the more money goes into Google’s pockets). So the more relevant your landing pages/ads are, the better your ad rankings and the LESS you have to pay Google per click.
TRADIE DIGITAL TIP: If you don’t have a landing page for the keyword you’re thinking about bidding on, you probably shouldn’t be bidding on that keyword in the first place. You won’t be ticking Google’s ‘relevance’ boxes if there’s no specific page to connect to your ads.
Often this involves building extra website pages and/or landing pages and sometimes a complete restructure of your website (if your website is not conversion friendly. This can be a problem too. Understanding your customer psychology is the most important factor in any marketing campaign. You can read more about our philosophy which places customer psychology first.
“How do keywords work for contractor Google Ads?”
Your Google Ads campaign will be made up of one or more ad groups. Inside each ad group you’ll have a list of keywords you want to target, and a number of unique ads that match those keywords.
So when someone searches for “Sydney deck installation” you’ll have an ad ready, with images and copy that matches up to what someone is looking for – in this case info about deck installation.
You might have another ad group with unique ads that match searches relating to “Sydney deck sealing”. People using this keyword don’t want a deck installed, they’ve already got a deck and they’re keen to protect it against rotting and harmful UV rays. In this example, a different set of ads will appear – relating to deck sealing.
Each of your ad groups will have more than one keyword associated with it. That helps you generate qualified leads from multiple keywords covering the same broad topic. Sticking with the example of a deck installation business, your keywords might relate to each service you offer:
- Deck installation
- Deck sealing
- Deck repair
- Deck sanding
- Timber decking
- Composite decking
These are your main services, as well as your ad groups. With multiple keywords in each ad you’ve got the potential to put your ads in front of people using a range of different keywords to look for all sorts of decking help.
The goal is to group similar keywords and keep your leads targeted. You don’t want to use the wrong keywords in each ad group and bring customers who want a new deck to an ad for deck repair. They’ll only be confused at how wrong your ad is and go with another business.
Since keywords attract clicks, it’s easy to assume you’ll be better off by targeting every keyword under the sun. But that’s not our approach…
Switch Your Marketing Spend to Us, and We’ll Increase Your Return On Investment or We’ll Give You $300
“How is your approach to keywords going to help me make money?”
At Tradie Digital we focus on increasing your return on investment (ROI), not your costs.
If you only focus on how much you’re spending, you’ll find ways to reduce that spend until you’re barely cracking $5 or $10 a day on ads – because saving money always makes business sense on the surface. This looks great when you go over your costs in and out at the end of the week, but it’s doing jack all to bring in new leads.
TRADIE DIGITAL TIP: If your Google ads are working right. You have an unlimited budget. Your biggest problem will be how to find the people to complete all the new jobs you’re generating.
Our keywords for contractor Google Ads are used to generate revenue
Our focus is on how much revenue you can generate through your Google Ads. That’s why it’s no good to cram 600 keywords in each ad group. With that many keywords your daily budget will get eaten in a few hours across unqualified leads, and you’ll end up with no new bookings or work in the calendar.
Our approach is to create highly relevant ads and landing pages that target keywords with a high intent to purchase.
The more likely someone is to become a paying customer, the more interested we are in that keyword.
A core part of this strategy though is started before the campaign begins. In the creation of your messaging by understanding your customer psychology. Because sending traffic to a website or landing pages costs money and your competitors are only a click away. That’s why we invented the P-C-D framework. You can read more about it here.
“How many keywords should I use in contractor Google Ads?
Successful Google Ad campaigns aren’t about how many keywords you target, but how valuable they are to your contractor, trade or home improvement business.
For example, long tail keywords are phrases made up of 3 or more words, like “Tile Roof Replacement in Florida”.
Long tail keywords add more value to your Google Ad campaigns because they bring qualified traffic. Someone searching for the phrase knows what their problem is, and is looking for a solution. In this case they live in Florida and their tiles have been scratched to pieces by pigeons.
Compare the above example to a short keyword like “Tile Replacement” which is so broad it could apply to tons of customers. Do they mean bathroom tiles? Kitchen tiles? Laundry tiles?
Targeting a keyword like that isn’t going to bring qualified traffic. You’re more likely to get clicks from curious people who quickly realise you don’t offer the service they need, which sends them back to Google to keep searching, and burns up your daily budget.
Switch Your Marketing Spend to Us, and We’ll Increase Your Return On Investment or We’ll Give You $300
Contractor Google Ads keywords: 30 Second Recap
It’s not how many keywords you target that matters, but how many RELEVANT keywords you can target effectively and within your budget (and within the amount of pages you can afford to build upfront).
The size of your budget AND the amount of products and services you provide (and the pages of those specific services). will determine how many keywords you can target effectively. You want to be chasing keywords that are going to drive clicks and help you get customers.
We understand not every contractor, trade or home improvement business owner has a monster marketing budget just lying around for a rainy day, so we work with your monthly budget to target keywords most likely to drive paying customers.
Finally, once you have the targeted traffic to the targeted pages – then you MUST make sure the messaging is correct and this all happens at set up. Or you’ll be losing money hand over foot.
Whether that’s aligning your ads with your most profitable services, getting creative with negative keywords, or tweaking the images/copy of your ads to make them more enticing for people to click on – we’ve got a strategy to help your contractor, trade or home improvement business grow.
Ready to get more customers through Google?
