Digital Marketing for Tradies and Contractors

Google Ads can get quite tricky specially for small to medium size businesses. In this podcast, I am joined by Ilana Wechsler as she discusses her vast experience with Adwords and how exactly can businesses take advantage of cost-per-click campaigns.

To enlighten our listeners out there, cost-per-click marketing for tradies is a strategy within Google that allows businesses to bid on high-traffic keywords. Google makes their earning by charging any website who bids on that keyword everytime the paid ad gets a click.

In this podcast, we use the keyword ‘plumber sydney’. We discuss how the bid for this particular keyword exploded into $50 per click which just absolutely makes no sense for start-up businesses to invest on.

“You need to nurture those existing customers because they’re the ones who are most likely to come back and refer you to people.”

Despite being an expert in Google Adwords, Ilana emphasizes the true value of repeat customers. It is no secret that paid ads can increase the outpour of leads into your business.

However, being able to take care of your existing pool of customers might just take things to the next level.

As we wrapped off this insightful episode, Ilana mentions the importance of efficient location targeting when it comes to paid ads. According to her, it pays to create that extra layer of a filter by specifically excluding locations you would not want to get reached by your ads.

Are you excited to learn more about this? Listen to this podcast today and scroll down to the bottom part of this page for a transcription guide.

TRANSCRIPTION PREVIEW

Matt Jones: [00:00:02] Ilana Wechsler from Green Arrow Digital. Welcome to The Site Shed.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:00:07] Thank you for having me. It’s wonderful to be here.

Matt Jones: [00:00:10] It’s good to have you finally I know we’ve spoken in the past about getting you on the show it never eventuated but thank you for sparing some time for our eager to learn audience.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:00:20] It’s my absolute pleasure any any opportunity to talk about Ads I grab it.

Matt Jones: [00:00:26] Any opportunity to talk. I grab it.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:00:28] It’s nice.

Matt Jones: [00:00:31] So for the listeners out there Ilana and I met through a networking group oh years and years ago. Ilana is a Google Ads specialist. However before you switch off Ilana did does run an agency. However they’re not actually taking on clients they’re more interested in training and workshops so I think that’s a good point a difference airliner. You’re not here trying to pitch your services towards this is out there you’re more interested in teaching people and how they can learn the fundamentals and the basics to take a bit of control back which is kind of what we preach with pretty much all of our solutions actually which is great.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:01:08] Yeah nice. Awesome. Thanks.

Matt Jones: [00:01:10] We always have that belief where I am. We invest in it. We invest in quite a lot you know if we can help people understand the basics and the fundamentals then they don’t necessarily have to feel so dependent on people like us unless of course they don’t have the resource and then they know that’s when they fall back. But I feel like there’s a lot of I mean you would know probably more than anybody dealing with Ads. You know there’s so much so much fluff out there in the marketplace and what this feel like if people across the board have a better understanding of the basics at least there they know enough to be dangerous when it comes to either doing it themselves or outsourcing the task knowing that it’s going to be done correctly.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:01:56] Yeah yeah and I think you know Ads is is a beast of an application and there is so much you can do with it and so versatile but for many local kind the businesses and your kind of listeners you know like getting a big agency to do their Ads is kind of like a key to you know buying a Ferrari to TVs to go down a local shop buy some milk you know what I mean

Matt Jones: [00:02:19] Right.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:02:20] So it’s often overkill because then you know what they’re going to do on Ads is not that complicated and there’s no sort of funky re-marketing campaigns going on and

Matt Jones: [00:02:32] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:02:32] Complex funnels it’s pretty vanilla. So that’s kind of what we try and teach people how to create some really simple classic and vanilla campaigns that they can totally run themselves. Or one of their staff members you know with a couple of skills up their sleeve because there is a lot of noise in the market. But for most local businesses all that noise doesn’t apply.

Matt Jones: [00:02:54] Yeah that’s right. And I know you know we’ve we’ve certainly covered you know many many episodes in the past on digital marketing for tradies and different types of marketing avenues and mediums and you know we’ve come Ads in the past as well and it’s always seems like there’s no know we’re giving this a lot more but it’s such a highly competitive space for a lot of our listeners mainly those guys who are listening in you know the emergency service area so you know you’re at your maintenance or emergency plumbers and you have maintenance emergency electricians and all that kind of thing. And they find themselves over and over again coming up against these conglomerates of organizations that have just you know spending and I know for a fact they’re spending 200000 dollars a month on Ads on budget alone with different management

Ilana Wechsler: [00:03:47] Yeah

Matt Jones: [00:03:47] And it’s it’s kind of numbing and disheartening when you know there are small you know small five person company or less and they’re trying to you know generate traffic and they’re coming up against these magnates. So I’ll mention here some of your strategies and ideas around how these smaller guys can get a bit of traction in that space and don’t necessarily without necessarily having to compete with the big dogs so to say.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:04:15] Yeah and I think it’s about going about it in a little bit of a creative way like I was telling you before you hit record all of my previous clients used to be a plumber many years ago and you know when I started we started bidding on Plumber Sydney and I’m in Sydney and it’s like 50 dollars a click like it’s insane. Now I’d never even even bother bidding

Matt Jones: [00:04:35] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:04:36] On Plumber Sydney. Like I’m just not even going to engage in that in that crazy auction for that key word. We just got left field with a significantly less competition

Matt Jones: [00:04:48] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:04:48] And therefore lower cost per clicks.

Matt Jones: [00:04:51] I think as well though for the listeners out there if you’re a little bit confused that we’re talking about. So just a quick overview on Google Ads what we’re talking about there was Search Engine Marketing is you basically you run an ad and you pay every time somebody clicks on it. So what I was talking about there is in this instance where you might be trying to compete on Google for Plumber Sydney as a search term so when somebody types that in you know you can get charged up to 50 dollars for that person or even click on your ad that’s not say that’s not a sale that’s not somebody who’s gone ahead and bought from you but that’s to click on the ads alone. And when you take into consideration the fact that you know your web site may only facilitate say you might need 10 people to click on the ad for you to get one qualified lead that turns into a sale or something like that. You know you’re out of pocket 500 bucks. So you’ve got to understand how that whole process works and you know we get a lot of people come to us and they say oh yeah we want to we just want to dominate Sydney and we want to do this and that. But the funny thing is a lot of you probably would probably able to shed a lot more light on this than myself but I found that a lot of these guys maybe even the midsize companies that want to compete on these really really highly competitive keywords. The reality is even if you could if they had the budget to compete on it they probably dropped the ball on the delivery. Because when you’re talking about like you know these massive key words you’ve got to make sure you can back it up. You’ve got to have the staff you have the resource you’ve got to have all that kind of stuff the systems in place that you get your technicians to do the job. And a lot of times people just don’t consider

Ilana Wechsler: [00:06:27] That’s right exactly. I mean you’ve paid a fortune to acquire these leads. If you can’t service them then that’s the ultimate in waste. And my apologies before for using jargon. I’m sorry my industry is littered with jargon so I will try and not try and minimize these but don’t even realise I do

Matt Jones: [00:06:47] No I get caught up in it too which is why I going to have little note you

Ilana Wechsler: [00:06:51] Yes

Matt Jones: [00:06:51] Pull myself up when I get carried away with it. But yeah but I mean that is a reality and I think one of the things that we’ve seen lately Ilana is a lot of people and this may be sort of counterintuitive I suppose you know your product and what you guys teach but we find so many of our clients come to us and they’ve got these significant databases of customers that they’ve been servicing over the years and they come to us with this churn and burn mentality of I need more leads I need more leads I need more leads which is fine and a lot of businesses do need fresh leads but we just feel and we see if we can we can actually apply a strategy towards these guys. Businesses that help them re-engage with their you know their past customers and present customers and their conversions and the costs to get to apply a strategy like that as opposed to you know run our Google Ads campaign or something like that. It’s like chalk and cheese like it so the conversion is so much higher from reengaging with past customers. So

Ilana Wechsler: [00:07:53] Cause

Matt Jones: [00:07:54] I think there’s a bit of a paradigm shift there as well with this with that whole churn and burn mentality. I don’t know. I mean I only deal with the trade so you probably would have a more of a macro experience across different verticals as to how that correlates but I see it on what in the industry and and it’s it’s a comical comical at first but then after a while you’re like hey guys this is like seriously costing you money.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:08:18] I know and I had a meeting with a longstanding dental client and a dentist and they were sort of you know didn’t Ads for dentist is also quite expensive so

Matt Jones: [00:08:29] Yeah

Ilana Wechsler: [00:08:29] There was not much I can do about the cost per click price you know. And

Matt Jones: [00:08:34] Not

Ilana Wechsler: [00:08:34] Yeah

Matt Jones: [00:08:34] Much

Ilana Wechsler: [00:08:35] We start

Matt Jones: [00:08:35] Or nothing.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:08:36] Nothing I could do about it and go yeah and I just started like yes they will always need fresh new patients. But the concept of your best customers are the ones that have come to you before and purchase from you before was new to these people you know like a sort of fundamental marketing to really nurture your existing customers. Yes you need nay new ones but you need to nurture those existing ones because they’re the ones who are likely to come back more likely and more likely to refer you to people

Matt Jones: [00:09:10] Right. And I suppose as well while we’re on it it kind of ties into. I mean this is out there probably sick and tired of hearing me bang on about what I call the digital ecosystem and how you know how your web site ties into Google Ads into SEO and how you’re SEO’s highs into you know you content creation strategy and how all this ties into the logo on the side of the door and the truck and all that kind of stuff right. There’s a whole thing to consider there when you’re talking about a conversion but I see as well a lot of people wasting clicks if you want to call that from a from an Ads perspective when it comes to. Capturing and like capturing those those details once they get to whatever page it is you’ve sent them to and nurturing them.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:10:03] Yeah yeah I’d agree with that.

Matt Jones: [00:10:06] So a lot of guys spend a lot of money on clicks and we find that you know okay it’s great that you’ve got them to their page and if they don’t like what they see then what are you doing about it. You know there is a you know is there a way they can opt in for something is there a picture or you can place can you remarket like all this kind of stuff so pretty keen to hear your experience and I’m sure the listeners are certainly as well you know how how they can probably get the most out of you know like a paid marketing campaign for a small to medium sized trade business.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:10:38] Yeah cool. All right. So I guess the first tip I have for people is is a biggie and one that I see people not doing all the time because I’ve probably audited thousands of Ads accounts in my lifetime.

Matt Jones: [00:10:51] Sorry to hear that

Ilana Wechsler: [00:10:53] I know exactly condolences. And the one thing I see people don’t do it it just like makes me shed a little here every time I see it is that they’re not tracking all forms of lead so they might be have implemented conversion tracking. So for those of you listeners who don’t know what conversion tracking is it’s the ability to track your leads or whatever is success to you. So somebody filling in the contact form is what would be the conversion or somebody sign up to the newsletter etc. but you could also do phone call tracking with Google which is free actually. So a dedicated Google number is swapped on your and that’s redirected by Google to your actual number leaving you the ability to track phone calls. So we often have multiple forms of conversion tracking for any one account so we can see you know who’s called versus who’s in the online form and we’re capturing the whole all the possibilities of that lead generation

Matt Jones: [00:11:55] So

Ilana Wechsler: [00:11:55] Going on.

Matt Jones: [00:11:55] While we’re on that Ilana, I know over over the years we’ve worked with companies that I won’t mention on air and a place we have a business built around call tracking. Are you saying that

Ilana Wechsler: [00:12:09] Yeah. There are. Yeah.

Matt Jones: [00:12:10] Now it’s free.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:12:12] So there are paid call tracking companies out there. They I believe the difference is they will they charge a monthly fee how much I don’t know. I don’t think it’s huge. It’s like 50 bucks a month but they record the calls for you and there’s sort of an extra level of analysis you can do.

Matt Jones: [00:12:28] Right.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:12:29] But Google. Yeah I guess I would you know you wouldn’t want to have a whole tracking company because a few years ago probably three or four years ago Google rolled out the ability to do that for free but it doesn’t have the ability to record the calls. But you do get some level of stats about it. You do know if the call was received or it was a missed call. You do know how long the duration of the call and the area code. But other than that that’s all you know.

Matt Jones: [00:13:00] Okay. So typically the advantage in the past of running a tracking number on a website and for the listeners out there what we’re talking about is the phone number where you would normally have you know your business phone number and hopefully not your mobile but probably your mobile and your web site that we get swapped out with a number which is responsive to search. Is that right?

Ilana Wechsler: [00:13:26] Yeah. So what Google have done is they’ve said that for only for the people who click on an Ads and so say so if I use an example just because it’s easy to visualize with an example if I have if I’m bidding on Plumber Sydney let’s continue with that example and someone types that in they click on the ad they go to my website that number is different purely because they have clicked on an Ads ad

Matt Jones: [00:13:51] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:13:51] Had they clicked on an organic listing the number would not be that number it

Matt Jones: [00:13:55] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:13:55] Would be that their business number but because they have clicked on the ads ad that number is swapped for their Google number. And that’s a dedicated number assigned to them like no one else is going to have that number.

Matt Jones: [00:14:07] Okay.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:14:08] And when you set it up in the back end of in Ads you basically say you don’t actually know that Google doesn’t tell you that you could click on your ad and find out which I have

Matt Jones: [00:14:19] (Laughs)

Ilana Wechsler: [00:14:19] Done before to find out. But basically you tell Google here’s my actual phone number where you be redirecting that number to

Matt Jones: [00:14:28] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:14:29] And. Yes. So that number is different. And that way you have the ability to track those phone calls and we find this a lot actually because we have a few clients that are lawyers actually. And what we find is, it’s very much like a desktop type of search someone searching for a lawyer it’s not really what someone does on a mobile. So they’re on their desktop at home and they search for Lawyer Sydney and they click on an Ads and they go to the Web site and they have a look around the website and they think we get these like these guys or good I’m going to call them. They then pick up the phone and call. So there’s a change of device going on and gone from their desktop to their phone.

Matt Jones: [00:15:06] Right.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:15:07] Historically you weren’t able to attract those people but now they can because of that dedicated Ads No.

Matt Jones: [00:15:13] Ok. Gotcha. Yeah. So and we end with that the purpose I suppose of employing such a strategy with a number or the call tracking number would be so that you can see what pages are converting better or what campaigns are working.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:15:30] That’s exactly right like some people we sort of have discussions with clients about this about we want to do this. Well I’m getting the calls anyway. What’s the point of like setting this up

Matt Jones: [00:15:39] Mhmm..

Ilana Wechsler: [00:15:40] And the point is as you say who’s to say what campaigns are working to see what keywords are working to see what search term they used what they actually typed into Google that triggered them to pick up the phone and call what ad copy is working. I could get additional insights from an Ads point of view of what’s working and what’s not working which is invaluable.

Matt Jones: [00:16:00] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:16:01] So yes according to the customer they’re still getting the lead but the level of information they’re getting within Ads is valuable.

Matt Jones: [00:16:13] So once we’ve gone through that process and we’ve and I suppose she clarifies well for this kind of ties in as well to what we just spoke about for when we talk about ecosystem and I don’t know I know I’ve heard you speak about this in the past but maybe you can just talk to the listeners a little bit about the difference between running a targeted ad campaign towards a specifically designed conversion page as opposed to a generic website

Ilana Wechsler: [00:16:45] Right. So continuing with the plumber example if you know you’d ideally be bidding on specific services. So a blocked drain. For example if you’re building block drain plumber Sydney maybe they go straight to that block drain page as opposed to sending them to the home page where they have to have an extra level of navigation and they’ve got to work out how do they you know they want more information so it’s about really add relevancy and matching what someone’s typed into with where they ultimately want to end up.

Matt Jones: [00:17:21] Yeah. So yeah guys it’s really important if you’re going to be doing that for camp any sort of campaigns really just make that customer journey as easy as you can for the customer because the more steps they’ve got to take less likely they’re going to be to take them. So if you can if you’re doing

Ilana Wechsler: [00:17:38] That’s

Matt Jones: [00:17:38] A hot

Ilana Wechsler: [00:17:38] Like

Matt Jones: [00:17:38] Water heater promotion or if you’re doing LED lighting promotion or whatever it is you want to make sure that instead of driving people to your home page what they’ve got to go searching for the service you’ve spoken about. You want to be driving them to a specific page that correlates exactly to what they’ve seen in the ad. So for now they’re lighting promotion. They get sent to that page and they can opt in through that page there. And I suppose the other advantage of that is as well you can track conversions on that page right so you can see how many hits it’s got and if it’s working

Ilana Wechsler: [00:18:07] That’s exactly right and think of it like if you you order the people to be like the last page that they’re on to every all the information they need is on that page. There’s obviously the information about what your offer is or what is. There’s the phone number in the top right hand corner that they can easily click on or call. There’s also a form on there maybe on the side of every page or wherever it is at the bottom. So to think of it like its own mini website.

Matt Jones: [00:18:36] Yeah yeah and they don’t necessarily have to sit within the navigation and they often won’t will they.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:18:41] You know especially for responsive web sites you know people are on all these different devices and iPad’s it’s you know. But yeah like you want to make it frictionless for people to

Matt Jones: [00:18:52] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:18:52] Make it so seamless that it’s so obvious and easy for them to contact you.

Matt Jones: [00:18:57] Yeah. I go on record so we’ve got some we know we’ve we’ve run out we’ve got people to a landing page and then we’re in a position I suppose where the customers or the potential customers I should say they can either engage our services which may be calling a number which may or may not be responsive but hopefully is tracked as tracking number. Or they could complete a web form in which case we get notified and we can follow up with them or maybe they don’t go ahead with the sale and they navigate away from the Web site. What can we do in that instance.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:19:27] Right. So what you’re referring to is the technical term of called remarketing. Many people don’t know the name of it. But they experience it nonetheless where they’ve gone to a website and they’ve left and then suddenly you start seeing ads for that particular business. Like when you’re reading a news article or on other people’s websites. So that’s making sure that you’ve got certain code on your website that gives you the ability to do that. And, think of it like a second bite of the cherry. You know

Matt Jones: [00:20:00] Yeah

Ilana Wechsler: [00:20:00] It gives the ability to continue that potential conversation with a potential customer.

Matt Jones: [00:20:06] They’ll soon. In the past it work a lot better for different. Ah how I say I won’t say verticals but maybe different businesses have different solutions. For example you know I’ve found well and you would certainly know better but you can enlighten me for an emergency service. We found a lot of people they would come to that to that Web do that and they would click on it. They’d call the person because they suit was overflowing. They haven’t got time to worry about you know shopping around whereas you know where we found remarketing can be quite effective in the space of people that don’t necessarily offer an emergency service it might be like a landscape care or it could be a builder who does renovations and extensions and things like that. And there’s a bit more of a lead time in that sales cycle.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:20:55] Absolutely. Yeah. I think you’re spot on. Yeah. We find that you know we don’t really bother remarketing to the emergency type work as you say it’s very instant very immediate and you know they’re unlikely to want char they’re broken sewer that’s overflowing they’re likely to wait a week

Matt Jones: [00:21:13] Mhmm..

Ilana Wechsler: [00:21:13] If they ever found someone they’ve moved on to someone else. So yeah longer lead time type services are better suited for remarketing.

Matt Jones: [00:21:25] And there’s um there’s certainly pros and cons and there’s no right right ways and best practice to how to go about remarketing. I mean I know I and I to this day I still am amazed ways I come for what I get I get pixelate on a site and I get retargeted to for months and months and months until the point. Yeah pretty much got to resettle your browser history and your categories. It’s just insane. So I feel like there’s a bit of a fine line between being useful and being a straight up pain in the arse.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:21:54] Yes. So remarketing is done badly by many many people. There’s lots of no no’s when it comes to remarketing. And one of the biggest ones is I think you know like bombarding people for months on end you know like

Matt Jones: [00:22:09] Yeah

Ilana Wechsler: [00:22:10] When you create what’s called remarketing lists which is sort of how you get access to those past visitors. You can set a time duration so you can say anyone who has come to my page in the last will for the last year or the last six months or something. Personally I like to do like 14 days if they don’t come back in 14 days I take the hint.

Matt Jones: [00:22:35] Yeah yeah

Ilana Wechsler: [00:22:36] If found someone else so that’s fine you know. No love lost. Let’s move on

Matt Jones: [00:22:42] Yeah. So for the out there that is you and your running. You know you’ve got a business that does have a slightly longer sales cycle or something it’s not necessarily what you would consider critical or an emergency then you might want to look at some remarketing because effectively what it could mean for you if you had a, say you’re a builder and you did do you know first floor additions or renovations or you know bathroom renovations or something like that and what it would mean is you would you know obviously that person that’s coming to you come into your website they’re looking for a certain service or a certain offering and chances are they’re probably going to be looking around. So it sort of ties into the ecosystem as well in the sense that you know you’ve got to make sure that you made your first impression good when they get to your website but you know more importantly then I suppose following up from that you know how proactive you been in putting your message in front of where they’re heading after after they visit your website. Yes it is a little bit creepy but the statistics speak for themselves and it does work doesn’t it.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:23:46] Oh it works ridiculously well and all those like amazing screenshots of ads where they’ve spent five cents and made X dollars are already marketing campaigns so that’s what they don’t tell you.

Matt Jones: [00:23:57] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:23:58] But I think it doesn’t have to be creepy. And I think this is where you just kind of got to give it a little bit of thought to people and like really have to think about how like if someone doesn’t come back in a certain period of time, when do you want to turn those ads off?

Matt Jones: [00:24:14] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:24:14] You can also do what’s called, frequency capping which is restricting the number of times you show someone that ad so you can say I only want to show someone an ad potentially one a day. Because if we don’t do that it. Could be like up to 10 times a day which gets really annoying. And you can also show them different banners so they don’t see the same ad over and over again. So there’s this sort of elegant ways of doing it versus just throwing it against the wall and

Matt Jones: [00:24:45] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:24:45] You know

Matt Jones: [00:24:46] Yeah. And for listeners out there as well. Ilana actually has a free training on that on our website which you can get for a very short period of time is about pull it down but

Ilana Wechsler: [00:24:55] It’s true. It’s telling you off line.

Matt Jones: [00:24:58] If you get across the green arrow digital dot com you can see that training there and you can get hold of it and I’ll put a link to that in the show and it’s well in case you want to go get it. Okay cool. So that’s sort of cut it off a bit on are re-targeting. What about, local search against the old

Ilana Wechsler: [00:25:18] Yeah.

Matt Jones: [00:25:18] Shotgun mass. Mass cities sort of style.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:25:22] So this is what I do advise local businesses is to really use local type keywords like suburbs you know dentist Bondi Beach dentist Manly Beach etc. something which dictates they’re after someone very very local, you will pay significantly less for that as well as kind of mobile type keywords like you know plumber near me for example with very very tight location targeting so anything that kind of dictates. And that’s a big tip because that nearly works really really well

Matt Jones: [00:26:02] Yeah

Ilana Wechsler: [00:26:02] Out here. So that’s what people type in these days you know because it’s very much a mobile type query often for many kind of trades. It is a mobile inquiry versus someone on their desktop. And yeah incorporating that into your keyword you you will pay a fraction verses like a plumber Sidney.

Matt Jones: [00:26:26] So I know there’s been a lot of talk lately around optimizing keywords for speech. So when people are now starting to hate Google, hey Siri like all this kind of stuff. As my phone goes off.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:26:49] So let’s see

Matt Jones: [00:26:52] So that. Yeah. So I was I was wondering how that might look. You know from I mean that is hugely relevant but I suppose I’m just. Just trying to answer this my own curiosity at this point you know how you would run to set up a campaign when you’re really effectively targeting a spoken word

Ilana Wechsler: [00:27:12] Yeah. Look and this is where it’s a constant changing space voice search is really really new and it is growing rapidly. But that’s where that kind of mobile type queries of the near me what insert whatever

Matt Jones: [00:27:26] Right.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:27:26] Type of service or business you have is a very you know voice kind of query but it isn’t it is very new space and people like me are still kind of determining what people speak rather than type because it is there’s a massive area of growth in it. You know

Matt Jones: [00:27:46] I remember not too long ago maybe a month or a half ago I was driving down the south coast for a camping weekend with some mates and I was heading down through a place called Nowra which is a big city just maybe three hours south of Seoul two hours south of Sydney for the Lister’s from there. And oh it was dinnertime and I said I won’t say it again because my phone took off but I said hey you know are there any or whatever Indian restaurants in Nowra and this Olvey search just came up and I was like this is so good at it and

Ilana Wechsler: [00:28:22] Yeah

Matt Jones: [00:28:22] Then yeah I couldn’t believe it I was like this is crazy. I’d never done that before but you know when you’ve got like a tool like that that can run through the microphone on your car and it connects to the screen on your dashboard and you’ll like what this say and just push one button and bang you’re at this restaurant this is amazing.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:28:39] Since we live in a crazy world now.

Matt Jones: [00:28:41] I know

Ilana Wechsler: [00:28:42] It’s crazy.

Matt Jones: [00:28:42] It‘s bizarre. So

Ilana Wechsler: [00:28:45] Yet another kind of extension of that is I would also use those local kind of keywords in your ad copy. So when you’re bidding on Plumber Manly for example in your ad copy you say you’re a Plumber in Manly because you think about it someone who’s searching for a plumber in Manly doesn’t want someone on the other side of Sydney. Even though that plumber might be prepared to travel that distance

Matt Jones: [00:29:08] Right.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:29:09] You want to kind of get in the mind of that person who’s searching for that plumber in that suburb and say that you are there you know.

Matt Jones: [00:29:18] One of the things that I’ve seen so we’ve got like we do quite a bit of space in the spirit of work in the copyrighting space both internally for clients and we try and teach our clients where we build them websites we show them how to create a SEO friendly content for their websites and all that kind of stuff. And one of the things we do do is and I know you want to talk about this a little bit but jumping into basically the keywords and then associated keywords and then negative keywords. So a lot of people aren’t familiar with negative keywords but I actually had firsthand experience of this when I was running a pipe lining supplies company and one of the products that we used to sell was we used to call patch lighning but we used to call it patch repair and I ran ads for patch repair and I was just getting hits for all these people that were looking at a patch

Ilana Wechsler: [00:30:12] Selling

Matt Jones: [00:30:13] Up but note that the holes in the knees in their pants always got to stop.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:30:17] Various.

Matt Jones: [00:30:18] So I had to apply that as a negative keyword so that it wouldn’t actually

Ilana Wechsler: [00:30:22] (Laughs)

Matt Jones: [00:30:22] Up for those lead.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:30:25] That’s funny yeah say it like typical negative keywords that we usually recommend for a tradie kind of business would be someone who’s looking for a job you know. So they’re looking for a plumber job or they want the salary that a plumber makes a year at a job or resit may or intern or cadetship internship or whatever it is apprenticeship salary as negative keywords because you know most of them aren’t looking to hire more people they just want more customers.

Matt Jones: [00:30:52] Right. Yeah. And in terms of the keywords themselves I mean Google I mean I suppose this is probably a little bit more applicable to on page content. You know Google sort of nipped in the bud years ago that whole strategy where people were just cramming their web pages full of the one word so that it would show

Ilana Wechsler: [00:31:11] This

Matt Jones: [00:31:11] Up in a search search.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:31:13] Keyword stuffing

Matt Jones: [00:31:14] Keyword stuffing, right. However it is still relevant you still do have to display you care on your page and you still should display words that are associated with that keyword. So the search engine understands what it is you’re looking for and it can give it a better credibility and search crews and that kind stuff. Does that play into an Google Ads strategy for tradies?

Ilana Wechsler: [00:31:39] Or in terms of what keyword stuffing

Matt Jones: [00:31:41] Well no no. I mean obviously you’ve got a focus keyword which you’re targeting for. But then within that you know that ad set which you tie in you know other keywords that are not necessarily that focused keyword but other key words that are assimilated to it

Ilana Wechsler: [00:31:57] Yeah I mean look it’s especially in the beginning it’s very much a testing phase of understanding the language that your target customer uses so you might have an idea in your head of what they’re typing and what they actually type in a vastly different. So you have to kind of go through what’s called a search term report or what someone typed into Google which triggered your ad and then possibly add those keywords

Matt Jones: [00:32:23] Right.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:32:23] As well you know

Matt Jones: [00:32:24] So that’s so that information is available.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:32:27] Absolutely and that’s where the

Matt Jones: [00:32:28] Yeah

Ilana Wechsler: [00:32:28] Nuggets of gold lie

Matt Jones: [00:32:30] Of course they’re great.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:32:32] Because they are converting keywords actually.

Matt Jones: [00:32:34] Right.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:32:34] So this whole thing like with SEO is people say I’m doing they do SEO before Ads which is fine like I’m not a I’m not going criticising SEO by any means I think it definitely has its place in the world. But how do you know what to opt what keyword optimize. The only really guessing like you don’t really know what keywords work and what keywords don’t. So

Matt Jones: [00:32:55] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:32:55] Often we suggest is to run Ads first find out what people actually typed into Google which led them to call you and their the keywords to optimize for because that’s like actually what’s called your converting keywords. You know that’s generated a lead and then often those keywords are quite easy to write for because they’re not your high traffic ones.

Matt Jones: [00:33:16] Do you find that there’s a bit of a difference in what people are looking for organically as opposed to you know through a paid ad for example I know years ago I was doing a bit of research and we found that you know people were clicking on things like blocked drain manually blocked drain Mossman blocked drain secured. However they weren’t necessarily going to click on the longer tailed educational pieces that people might put together. So you know how to how to you know five tips on how to repair or prolong the life of your deck in coming into winter with that kind of thing that they performed quite well organically.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:33:58] But yeah I guess it’s just it’s so individual for the industry

Matt Jones: [00:34:04] Yeah

Ilana Wechsler: [00:34:04] You know but I think anyone who clicks on an ad is very very focused on just finding a solution to their problem.

Matt Jones: [00:34:11] Yeah

Ilana Wechsler: [00:34:11] They’re very much like it’s got to scratch. They’ve got to scratch the itch you know

Matt Jones: [00:34:15] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:34:15] And that’s why you’ve got to have kind of very tight from an Ads point of view you got to send them as we spoke about before to exactly where they want to go because they’re very solution focused. They’ve literally just typed into Google what they want and this is your ability to slide your business card under the nose of them at the instant that they’re looking for it

Matt Jones: [00:34:36] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:34:36] But they have a three second attention span. So you know you’ve got to get it very quickly so that you know you send them to the right place and there’s all the elements on the page that are solving their problem straight away. Otherwise if they don’t find what they’re looking for they will leave like

Matt Jones: [00:34:52] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:34:53] The back button is there and waiting for them.

Matt Jones: [00:34:56] Yeah yeah the back buttons next to the refresh button for a reason.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:35:00] That’s right. Exactly.

Matt Jones: [00:35:03] So we’re cycling we limit our local keywords but I’d like to talk maybe if you can a little bit about some more local search in the space of the changes we’ve seen lately with Google Maps. Google my business for those people that aren’t familiar which would be a lot.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:35:24] Yeah. So Google my business are most, I think businesses do have which is where you kind of register your business your local business with Google and you show up in. The places listing. Which is completely separate to Ads. But what we recommend people is to link your google my business to Ads For two reasons. The first reason is, in Ads you can have what’s called Ad extensions which are as they sound their extensions to your ad. So in addition to your text, that you have you get extra lines. And so one of the look, ad extensions are location extensions where you can have your address below your ad. So it’s an extra line of real estate that you can take up. Which we always advise people if you can take and it doesn’t cost any extra. You can occupy more real estate in your ad then it’s a win. But the second reason is, a relatively new reason which is Google have recently rolled out. It came out of beta recently is they’re having Ads in the Google Maps but you need to have link to your Google my business account with Ads to be able to do that.

Matt Jones: [00:36:41] Okay

Ilana Wechsler: [00:36:42] So it’s a relatively new thing at this point I’ve only ever seen maximum three ads in there. Usually it’s only one hour but it’s a great opportunity because it’s so local focused. And yeah it’s

Matt Jones: [00:36:58] So excuse my ignorance here if you’re a builder in say Chrome, and you have a Google my business page. You need to connect that with your Google Ads account?

Ilana Wechsler: [00:37:11] Correct

Matt Jones: [00:37:12] And then that your business will then show up in a map search so if somebody goes to Google Maps

Ilana Wechsler: [00:37:19] Yes

Matt Jones: [00:37:19] And types in builder Chrome

Ilana Wechsler: [00:37:23] Yep

Matt Jones: [00:37:23] Or do something then it will come up with an actual ad on the map.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:37:28] Correct but you do have to take that extra step of enabling the location extensions as an add extension. If so let’s say you’ve linked to Google my business to Ads but you don’t go to add extensions and enable location and extensions. It won’t show

Matt Jones: [00:37:45] Okay gotcha.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:37:46] So you’ve got these two steps

Matt Jones: [00:37:48] Like

Ilana Wechsler: [00:37:48] First step is the linking to Ads and then the second step is creating the ad extension of the location and extension and then it will show. Now we’ve had instances before where we’ve done all that and it still hasn’t shown and it’s we could because we hadn’t been high enough I think at this point it’s still really really new at this point it’s only add in the number one spot is showing in the maps

Matt Jones: [00:38:15] Right.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:38:16] So what we did do is we increased the bids for mobile because we really wanted it from mobile rather than desktop. So

Matt Jones: [00:38:23] Gotcha.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:38:23] That’s the that’s the new what’s that we did

Matt Jones: [00:38:26] I was thinking that would have looked terrible on a map if you go to pull up a Google map and there’s 50000 ads all over it for people that are all competing.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:38:34] That’s right. That’s why look, Google is a inherently a testing company. There are a data company and they are always testing new things so this is new. And so you know at the time of the recording there is I’ve only really seen most nine times out of ten one ad there

Matt Jones: [00:38:51] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:38:52] But you know

Matt Jones: [00:38:53] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:38:53] No doubt Google change as they do and it probably will be different if I listen to this in a few months time. So yeah it’s it’s changing but as of now there’s only one.

Matt Jones: [00:39:05] And interestingly and a slight segue I found out in the wake of this whole Facebook fiasco with all the data hoo ha that’s been carrying on lately. All of the information that Google keeps on us individuals is actually publicly available.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:39:24] Right. Where?

Matt Jones: [00:39:25] I did not I did not know that. You know what. I can’t even back that up with the answer to your question where but I do know that that is what I have recently learned. So that’s kind of interesting

Ilana Wechsler: [00:39:36] That is interesting I did hear this story. I have to say off topic but if you read this article and it is true but years ago that someone contacted Facebook trying to delete their account and of course they couldn’t and then asked Facebook to send them all the information that they had on them and Facebook had to do it they were legally bound to do that and they got this stack of A4 pages on all the information they had about this space like

Matt Jones: [00:40:02] Really

Ilana Wechsler: [00:40:02] Like a thick stack.

Matt Jones: [00:40:05] Wow.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:40:06] Insane. I know I was like shocked. (Laughs)

Matt Jones: [00:40:11] Well especially now I mean I know that Zuck, shot it down in flames when he was asked by one of those what I call the council or whatever they were that were putting him through that

Ilana Wechsler: [00:40:24] Yes

Matt Jones: [00:40:24] Inquisition recently which was laughable in its own right. But one of them did ask them about the Facebook policy on recording and listening to conversations. And you know what. He shot it down in flames saying we you know periodically do not do that. That is just a straight up violation of privacy. However I just cannot get over how often and I don’t know if it’s because I’ve got a radar up but I’m looking for it. But then I’ll have a conversation with my wife or with friends or something we’re at a party and the next minute these are and we’ve got to the point now where we actually screenshot these things or we’ll have stupid conversations about stupid things just so that we can see if ads pop up. And a couple of occasions they have

Ilana Wechsler: [00:41:12] I happened to be totally listening. I like to just say I was talking with a friend on Skype and he was telling me that he was going to the book of Mormon. And then half an hour later in my Facebook newsfeed was it at the bookmobile

Matt Jones: [00:41:26] You’re joking.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:41:26] I laughed and I said that screenshot and I like check this out. I think that’s saint

Matt Jones: [00:41:35] So you were listening so you were talking on a microphone. Microsoft program and you’ve got remarketed too on Facebook. Well

Ilana Wechsler: [00:41:45] Crazy. On Skype.

Matt Jones: [00:41:48] That‘s nuts.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:41:51] Anyway we’re digressing here.

Matt Jones: [00:41:52] Yeah totally. So where are we heading to next?

Ilana Wechsler: [00:41:57] Okay so Google my business. We have pretty much done. I guess I don’t wanna bombard people

Matt Jones: [00:42:05] No.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:42:05] With information and I think we kind of covered lots of actual horrible stuff. So yeah just to recap make sure you’re doing all the tracking. Oh yeah one thing I didn’t mention is make sure you have a very tight location targeting. So that means restricting your ads for only showing in a geographical area and we like to add an extra layer of protection by excluding some locations. There is a little sneaky setting in there by Google that so going on the plumber Sydney’s up all right. Let’s say I’m in Melbourne and I’m searching for a plumber Sydney. Theoretically your ad can still show so we like to turn that sneaky little setting by Google off because we don’t want people in Melbourne and there’s other locations that the same suburb exists. So yes we like to have an extra layer of protection by excluding locations

Matt Jones: [00:43:03] Gotcha. Okay. And so as a starting point what would you recommend to the listeners?

Ilana Wechsler: [00:43:11] As a starting point for what?

Matt Jones: [00:43:13] For paid marketing

Ilana Wechsler: [00:43:18] Oh right okay fair

Matt Jones: [00:43:19] Speak to an expert?

Ilana Wechsler: [00:43:20] No. I would. I think it’s totally doable to do yourself or to get someone in your team to do it. I would definitely say educate yourself a little bit first like don’t go in completely cold thinking oh yeah how hard can it be. You know I’ll just wing it because I do see those accounts that are people. There’s so many little settings that people don’t realise that are designed intentionally by Google to

Matt Jones: [00:43:49] Stump yet

Ilana Wechsler: [00:43:49] Make just up well not to stump you to fool you into doing you know reach more people by doing this setting and it’s just honestly designed to make Google more money

Matt Jones: [00:43:59] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:43:59] And you spend money like it’s really for no. So yes you can absolutely do it yourself but you’ve got to get yourself a little bit of education first to know what those are called and the Google landmines are so that you can avoid those landmines.

Matt Jones: [00:44:14] It’s interesting because I know in the past I’ve run Ads campaigns and I just found it was it was such a full time job. Like I I mean I know you and you do it yourself but I just got to the point where I was so happy to pay someone to do it because

Ilana Wechsler: [00:44:28] (Laughs)

Matt Jones: [00:44:28] It was just, I just didn’t have the time to do it. It just felt like I was always in there trying to improve and optimize but maybe that’s not the case in.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:44:37] Look at it is it is a bit of a base of a platform I’m not going to lie and there is some learning involved but once you learn the basics and you know as I said like often for these local type businesses you’re only going to run two campaigns like one targeting certain suburbs and one very general type stuff with very tight location targeting like it’s not going to be complicated stuff. So look at its individual like it’s not set and forget. I’m not going to lie that you set it up and you create and you walk away you never have to log in again and the leads just come rolling in.

Matt Jones: [00:45:13] Yeah.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:45:13] No absolutely not. I’m not going to paint that illusion either. But you know for small accounts that are a spending you know a thousand dollars a month on ads you know it’s not a lot of work to keep it in tune and humming nicely.

Matt Jones: [00:45:31] Yeah. All right well look I think that pretty much draws to a close and misses anything else you wanted to cover?

Ilana Wechsler: [00:45:39] Ah no I think at the risk of overloading people with too much information which I know is can be

Matt Jones: [00:45:45] Yeah

Ilana Wechsler: [00:45:45] A disservice for some people. I think we’ve covered the important things.

Matt Jones: [00:45:51] So for the listeners out there. Green Arrow Digital dot com is Ilana’s website you’ve got to get to or you’ll be able to get to these links within the show notes also by the way you are at Green Arrow Digit across social media offer your Twitter Twitter or anyway that’s digit not digital at Green Arrow Digit and Facebook dot com forward slash Green Arrow Digital is the Facebook page. Again there is a well depending on when you hear this podcast you may still be able to access to the remarketing goes and if you missed it then still shit so. Otherwise it is available. So I head across and get it while you can and of course there are a plethora of courses that you can also partake in

Ilana Wechsler: [00:46:46] Yeah

Matt Jones: [00:46:46] Through the website

Ilana Wechsler: [00:46:46] We’ve got training courses obviously, as well as we talk about a lot of free stuff as well on our podcast which are you

Matt Jones: [00:46:54] Of course

Ilana Wechsler: [00:46:54] You’ll be coming on as well

Matt Jones: [00:46:56] Yes. Which is?

Ilana Wechsler: [00:46:58] Talking web marketing it’s called

Matt Jones: [00:47:00] Talking web marketing okay and that’s I’m guessing available through all of your typical podcasts listening mediums. iTunes SoundCloud blah blah blah

Ilana Wechsler: [00:47:10] Only in iTunes at this point, we’re in the process of rolling it out so hopefully by the time of this recording it’s all those other platforms.

Matt Jones: [00:47:18] Yes it will be, won’t it?

Ilana Wechsler: [00:47:20] It will be

Matt Jones: [00:47:20] As simple (inaudible) your host. It’s done anyway.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:47:24] Pretty much yeah yeah.

Matt Jones: [00:47:26] Alright well thank you very much for your time. For the listeners out there if you do have any follow up questions of course you can post them wherever you see the link to this podcast which may be in social media or you can reply to the weekly e-mail which you can also subscribe to at The Site Shed dot com, that’s Toolbox Talks. And if there’s anything pressing that we need to get a lot of back on the show for I’m sure she’ll be willing to come back on and put those queries to rest.

Ilana Wechsler: [00:47:57] Yeah sure happy to.

Matt Jones: [00:47:59] Alright well thank you once again and for listeners out there. That is a wrap.