Is Google Ads Really Effective For Home Services Businesses?

Once you finish your website design, it’s now time to start looking for ways to get more traffic to it.

There are two main ways you can do this:

• Get organic traffic with SEO

• Get paid traffic from Google Ads

In our previous blog post, we covered the basics of SEO, why it’s important, and how you can start optimising your website.

In this post, we’ll show you how to get traffic through a quicker process with Google Ads.

So let’s first start with what Google Ads is and how it’s different from SEO…

When I search for ‘Electrician in London’, here’s what comes up on the search results page:

As you can see, the top two results are ‘Sponsored’, which means these are ads.

These businesses are paying Google to appear on the search results page when people search for the keyword ‘Electrician in London’.

And unlike SEO, these businesses didn’t have to work and wait for months to rank for this keyword.

With ads, you’ll show up on the search results page as soon as you start your campaign, which is a huge benefit timewise when you compare it to SEO.

Now, that doesn’t mean we’re comparing these two so we only choose one of them.

Each one has its pros and cons.

Google Ads will get you on the search results page quicker, but SEO will be more valuable in the long run.

That’s why we recommend you focus on both of them. This way, you can massively boost your website traffic and attract more customers to your business.

Is Google Ads Really Effective For Home Services Businesses?

To answer that question, I want you to imagine yourself in your audience's shoes.

Imagine you’re in London for example, and you need to find a plumber online. How would you do it?

Now I can’t guess EXACTLY what your answer is, but the majority of people use Google and search for something like ‘Plumber in London’ or ‘Plumber near me’.

Then they visit the top websites and contact the one(s) they like.

So to benefit from this, you should make sure that…

1. Your website design is great.

2. You optimise your website for SEO to get organic traffic.

3. Use Google Ads to boost your traffic and growth further. The reasons why Google Ads is effective are…

• It takes some time for your SEO efforts to kick in. In the meantime, you can run Google Ads to generate leads.

• You can target your ideal customers and choose who sees your ads including their age range, location, interests, etc.

  You can also choose what keywords you want to show up for on the search results page.

  For example, if you offer luxury interior design services, you can choose NOT to show up on the search results page when people look for cheap design services.

  This way, you won’t waste your budget on people who are not your ideal customers.

• After running ads for a while, Google gives you an estimate of your Cost Per Conversion which shows how much it costs on average to get a lead.

  This will be useful for your business because once you have that info, you’ll know approximately how many leads you can expect every month based on your budget.

For these benefits, we can confidently say that if you have the budget and you know what you’re doing, Google Ads can be really valuable for your home services business.

How Much Does It Cost?

When it comes to your ad budget, you should have real and logical expectations.

Now that you know how many benefits you can get with Google Ads, you can’t expect to spend £200 a month and get a customer who will spend +£5,000.

It’s not how this or any other marketing channel works.

Also, I can’t tell you EXACTLY how much you should spend, because it depends on your industry and profit margins.

But in general, you should not really consider anything below £500 a month for a home services business.

You're not selling a product or service that costs £20, so it makes sense that your ad budget has to be at least £500.

How Long Will It Take To See Results?

When you start a new campaign, it usually takes a month for the campaign to ‘mature’.

Google’s algorithm tests different things and audiences in this period to see who responds best to your ads.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you won’t see any results in the first month. It just means that your campaign might underperform for 3-4 weeks.

But after that, you’ll start to see the results improving and get more leads coming in.

How Can I Start?

If you have the time, you can learn to do it yourself. You might make some mistakes first, but if you keep going, you’ll eventually find out how to do it properly.

If you want to take this path, make sure you read our 3-Step Guide To Generating More Leads For Home Services Businesses. In this guide, you’ll learn the most important parts of creating a successful Google Ads campaign.

If you have the money, you can save yourself the headache and outsource it to professionals who have experience and know what they’re doing.

If you’d like us to take a look at your business and see how we could help you attract more customers online, feel free to click here and get in touch with us.

Talk soon,

Leo Dousti