Joe’s Roofing and Google AdWords Campaign

Sometimes I wish I had owned a local business where I can concentrate my advertising dollars within a certain community instead of having to take pot-shots at finding my customers who are spread across the country. For those plumbers, roofers, siding contractors, electricians and the like, you need to have a corporate web site and you need to place ads on Google using Google AdWords service.

First, if you don’t have a web site I highly recommend you get one. It’s 2009. Customers go to Google or their favorite search engine and type in “Tampa plumbers” or “Los Angeles electricians” and if your company is not there, you lose the job, it’s that simple.

Let’s think about this for a minute. Say you are a roofing contractor. You own Joe’s Roofing in Flint Michigan. What’s an average job run? I know here in Tampa roofing contractors wanted between $8,000 and $14,000 to completely replace my old worn roof. Let’s call it $10,000 on average for a roof job. That’s a lot of money! Since you are local you do not have to spend a fortune advertising your site on Google if you pick your keywords correctly. Let’s face it, if you’re in Flint Michigan no one is calling you from New Orleans to do a roofing job. You don’t need to spend big bucks on broad keywords in order to be found. Remember, you are trying to find YOUR customers who are going to end up being a source of revenue for you.

When you start your Google campaign, think like your customer. What is your customer going to type into his web browser to find your company? If it were me, I would be typing terms like “Flint roofers”, “Flint Michigan roofers”, “Flint roofing contractors”, “new roof Flint, MI”. These are going to be your precious keywords that actually drive paying customers to pick up the phone. Since you are not competing with ALL of Michigan or the entire US for those keywords, they won’t be bid nearly as high as broader keywords would if you owned a national roofing company.

Think about profit and think about costs per click. How many folks are sitting at home thinking about roofing companies unless their roof is leaking? None probably. Why would they search your keywords if they are not looking for a roofing contractor? If no one searches your keywords and clicks your ad, you are charged nothing. If someone’s roof just caved in and they hop on Google and do a “Flint MI roofing contractors” search, you can bet your bottom dollar that the $0.65 cents it cost you for their click has a good chance of paying off with a $10,000 new roof.

Of course my example takes things to the extreme. In reality not everyone clicks ads to immediately do business but as an entrepreneur and business owner myself, I have to imagine you have enough profit in that $10,000 new roof to pay Google $200 a week to drive qualified traffic directly to your door. $800 a month on a small Google AdWords campaign and I’ll bet you pick up 2 or 3 new jobs per month that you wouldn’t have gotten without the ads.

Starting a Google campaign is easier than you think. If you care about your business you’ll take the time to explore the vast literature that’s available online for step by step instructions. Additionally, I advise you handle your online marketing yourself as the owner. Sure there are plenty of companies out there that advertise these type of services but unless you are an active participant, you won’t get the full result, in my opinion. If you are smart enough to run a business you are certainly smart enough to employ an ad campaign. It can really pay off and since the ads are fired up as soon as you drop your credit card, you can start receiving qualified leads by tomorrow. Why not give it a try?