What Do You Need to Get Started?

All you need to get started with your Google Ads account is an ad budget and a clear understanding of your ideal customer. Well, that and a little bit of patience for monitoring and iteratively testing your ads until they’re performing where you’d like them to be.

From there, you can create a Google Ads account and get started!

Opening a Google Adwords Account

The first step to getting your business on the top of Google search results with this pay-per-click model is setting up an account on Google Ads.

If you have a Google Business Profile that enables your business to show up in the map results, chances are, you have some ad credits floating around. Google gives these credits to you as a way of enticing you to join Google ads and try out their ad placement service.

Go ahead and open a Google Adwords account by going to ads.google.com and clicking the “Get Started” button.

From here, Google will take you through a guided set-up based on their recommended strategies. You can choose your primary goal and define parameters based on which users you want to click the ad.

Setting Up an Electrician Google Ads Campaign

A successful electrician google ads campaign comes down to the set-up phase and the research that goes into it. In this section, you’ll learn about the different campaign goals and types, and what it means to do keyword research – including selecting negative keywords, which isn’t as bad as it sounds.

We’ll also cover campaign name and networks, location settings, and budgeting your ad to make sure you don’t overstretch your investment.

After all, you don’t want to spend all your ad budget in one go. Ideally, you’ll be able to iteratively adjust your ad setup and content based on the type of clicks you are getting, and how many of those clicks convert to real-life sales.

Remember, with the PPC, or Pay-Per-Click model, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, but that means that you need to adjust your ad to capture the right leads every time!

Campaign Goal and Type

When you start your first ad, you’ll find there are many campaign types to select from which can be a little overwhelming. Most electricians choose a local campaign type, which allows you to select which users will see your ads based on whether they are searching within a certain geographical area.

The most effective campaign type for electricians is a local campaign with a conversion goal. This helps you set limitations to who can see your ad based on their location and your service area, as well as providing you with the data necessary to start fine-tuning your conversions.

A conversion goal for the campaign can help you measure the campaign’s success in real-time, allowing you to drive relevant traffic, maximize your return on investment, and ensure – with the proper analysis and consistent ad adjustments – that you are getting quality leads and high-performing ads.

Benefits of Google Local Service Ads

Google Local Services Ads (LSAs) are pay-per-lead ads displayed at the top of Google search results, aimed at local service businesses. Unlike PPC ads, LSAs don’t require keyword bidding and costs vary based on location and industry. To optimize LSAs, electrical contractors should focus on profile completeness, responsiveness, and gathering positive reviews​​.

These local service provider ads will show up at the very top of Google searches, giving you more real estate on the page and putting you in front of even more people with a broader reach, without having to diversify across multiple platforms.

That’s a lot of advertising space that you get to influence and control, with real-time click and conversion data to give you peace of mind about your investment.

Campaign Name and Networks

Naming your campaign is an important part of organizing your adsets, which is a group or set of different ads based on your services. For example, if you provide residential and commercial electrician services, you might name your campaigns based on those specific subsets of services.

This allows you to see how your ads are performing as a group, and where your top leads are coming from as you continue tracking your ad performance. Alternatively, you may also find that naming your ads based on a specific region or locality helps you organize your different ads, especially if you service multiple regions, or an expansive region.

You may also be asked to set up a network when setting up your first campaign or creating an adset.

For electricians, the Search Network is most often recommended as it targets searchers who are actively looking for your services. Display Network tends to work for broader-interest advertising or brand awareness, which might not be a good fit for most of your localized ads.

Location and Language

When first setting up your campaign, you’ll come across location and language settings. As an electrician, this might seem straightforward, as you are likely offering services to a specific location, such as within a zip code, region, or municipality.

This is important to set up because it limits the geographical areas that Google will show you ad to. In other words, only searchers within that radius will see your ad, but no one searching outside that radius will. This prevents you from losing precious clicks on customers outside your target service area.

Likewise, you’ll find that the language settings are important. In most cases, English is set to the default, but you can change this setting if you are trying to reach a more diverse local demographic.

Setting up ads in multiple languages is beneficial for businesses that can serve customers in multiple languages, or if they cater to a specific demographic within the region that prefers to speak that language.

Budgeting and Bidding

It’s important to keep in mind that PPC ads is a lot of work that needs constant attention to be successful. It’s not enough to set up one or two ads and call it a day; you also need to review your cost-per-click and overall spending to ensure you are getting a good return on investment.

The goal in optimizing the budgeting is to stop overspending on ads that under-perform and don’t yield a lot of conversions, while ensuring you adjust your best-performing ads to perform even better.

By analyzing and optimizing your budgeting and bidding strategies, you are trying to lower your total cost per click, while raising your conversion rate. You can also think of it like working to lower your labor or material costs, while raising the number of jobs you receive.

Keyword Research and Negative Keywords

Keyword research is essential to have in your ad campaign toolbelt. Google ads can help you find your ideal keywords, giving you access to what is known as Google’s Keyword Planner. This tool helps you find relevant keywords for your business.

The more specific you can be about a service, the more highly-targeted your ad becomes. In other words, you’ll benefit more from the users that click on your ad from a specific search than a broad one.

For example, users searching for “electrician” could be looking for any range of services and might not be ready to book a service yet even if they click on your ad.

Someone searching for a longer, more specific phrase – called a long-tail keyword – is more likely to yield better results. If you offer parking lot lighting, for example, you’re more likely to get a qualified lead calling your business by targeting someone who is searching “parking lot lighting repair” or “commercial parking light electrician.”

Negative keywords are another factor. These are terms that your business doesn’t want to show up for.

For example, you may find that your ads are showing for irrelevant keywords that you don’t want to pay for, especially if many of the clicks are quickly returning to the search results. In many cases, businesses tend to add their business name to this list, especially if their website already shows up as the top result in organic searches.

Working with our Google Ads Management Team

At WebSURGE, our Google Ads management team are experienced in Google Ads monitoring, tracking, and creation. We will help you set up your Google account and monitor your ads so you can focus on doing the work that you do best.

Our team works closely with you as a strategic partner, creating specific keyword sets and ad groups that perform well for your business, while continuously monitoring and adjusting your campaigns to improve your conversion rate, while always working to lower your cost per click.

Leave it up to the experts, and we’ll get you connected with local customers that convert so you can do a job well done. Get in touch today and learn more about what we do.