Identifying the Online Gaps for Long Term Adwords Strategies.

We have all done it. Googling ourselves to see where our ads are: As a plumber you might type in “Brisbane Plumbers” or “Emergency Plumbers Brisbane” and yes, this is the bread and butter of any advertising campaign. These keywords are obvious, and as such highly competitive which effectively means every plumber in Brisbane is competing to have their ad at the top position, leading to huge cost per clicks and a budget quickly spent. This blog is not about disregarding these, but rather finding a way to stretch your budget a little further- while allowing yourself to show up for more specific, less competitive queries.

For the example above, if you type in “Plumbers Brisbane” you will see that the ads carry through several pages of search results; and prior experience has shown me that to be in the top position, even with excellent quality scores, it’s going to cost you between $15 and $20 per click depending on the time of day. This is where we ask ourselves a few questions… “What areas do I service in Brisbane?” and “What sort of plumbing do I want to do?”

Let’s look at the first question. At the time of writing, I have just done a search for “plumbers holland park” (for interstate readers, this is a suburb just a skip away from Brisbane’s CBD) and shockingly, there is only half a page of ads! So here we have identified a far cheaper place to advertise which, with a well written ad group specific to Holland Park, will get us ironically more exposure and website traffic than the generic “Brisbane plumbers” when looked at on a dollar for dollar basis. This will also be reinforcing to your potential customers that you are local, can get there quickly and therefore drastically increases your chance of getting them to pick up their phone and call YOU! This paragraph won’t apply to non-service industries, but I am sure you see where I am heading with this.

The Second question… “What sort of plumbing so I do?” applies to every industry, service and product. It’s all about being specific. If you sell toys, is it transformers you want to move? If so, subcategorise if you can. Those chocolates on your site- are they handmade, Belgian, macadamia centres or what? Be specific with your keywords; reflect this in your ad and have the ad take traffic through to that page on your site. Not only will this greatly increase your chance of converting, but will also greatly assist in the old upsell! Going back to the plumber example- you would be amazed at how many leaking toilets, busted sewerage pipes and broken taps there are on any given day. All I can say here is that there is an opportunity to write up ad groups that are segmented by keywords and ad text that are specific- so you will really know where your advertising dollar is spent!

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