Marketing a tree service business requires a completely different plan than another type of business, except for one factor — Google. The number one search engine is the largest source of website traffic and leads regardless of the business type.
If a consumer is looking to make dinner reservations where do they turn when they want to look for options? Google. If a consumer needs to hire a local contractor where are they looking for options? Google. When someone in your local area is in need of tree service, where are they going to begin their search? Yes; Google.
Google offers several marketing tools and platforms that need to be part of your tree service marketing plan. From SEO and PPC to data and research tools, Google gives your business a wide variety of marketing options to help your business thrive.
In this article we are going to focus on the top five Google marketing tools that your tree service business should focus on. They provide the biggest opportunity to exponentially grow your business online and they are the fundamental Google tools we include in all of our managed campaigns we run for tree service businesses.
There are additional advanced tools that Google offers, and we use many of them for our client campaigns — the five that we are going to dive into below are the must-use Google tools that help create a solid online marketing foundation to build on.
1. Google Ads (Formerly AdWords) PPC
Google Ads are the fastest way to get your tree service marketing campaign delivering a solid ROI, and there are several different components of Google’s tree service PPC platform that you can take advantage of — each serving a different purpose.
Local Service Ads
This is a PPC format that is designed specifically for local service businesses, giving the potential customer two options — submitting a lead form or being connected to your business via a phone call. You manage the leads and phone calls from a dedicated Google Local Service Ads app, allowing you to be completely mobile — even answering calls and responding to leads while out on a job site.
As added incentive, Google Guaranteed is offered, which gives customers extra confidence. Their guarantee protects the customer for the full cost of the tree service they hire your business to perform.
GDN (Google Display Network)
Display ads are a great way to re-target previous website visitors that did not contact your tree service business or opt-in to one of your website offers the first time they visited your website. This is a compliment to your existing PPC effort, as running display ads without any other ads would be highly ineffective.
When you are paying for every click and website visitor you want to maximize your conversion rates, and this strategy allows you to follow potential leads that previously visited your website, placing an attractive offer in front of them, in an attempt to turn them into a lead.
The best re-targeting campaigns typically feature an irresistible offer, like a deep discount, additional bonus service or a free estimate.
Traditional PPC
The most common form of pay-per-click is traditional Google Ads, which was previously called AdWords. This is where you bid on keywords and drive traffic to landing pages. This is often the first contact you will have with a potential customer, so it’s important to send traffic to an offer that is highly relevant to the keyword they searched and paired with an offer that will solve their need.
When we create tree service PPC campaigns we make sure each ad set features keyword(s) that are matched with relevant ad copy and destination landing pages and offers. It takes a great deal of split testing and optimization to run PPC campaigns that generate leads at an effective acquisition cost, resulting in a positive ROI.
2. Google Search Console
When it comes to marketing tree service businesses, SEO is a major component, but many don’t take the technical side of search engine marketing into consideration. Most people think about content marketing, link building and onsite optimization — not broken URL errors, mobile usability issues, etc.
Google Search Console provides you with in-depth information about your website’s health as it relates to its visibility in the search results. If there are broken URLs and 404 errors you will see them listed here.
You can also see what search terms are causing your tree service website to receive impressions in the organic search results. This can help you better understand the search habits of your potential customers and discover keywords that are worth pursuing in both your SEO and PPC efforts. We constantly monitor the data available in Google Search Console and find opportunities to increase both organic and paid traffic.
3. Google Ads Keyword Planner
Anytime we design a tree service PPC campaign we know ahead of time what the target lead acquisition cost is, and Google Ads Keyword Planner is a tool that helps us not only estimate what our cost-per-click (CPC) will be for specific keywords, but also what kind of competition each term has.
You can’t base your tree service pay-per-click campaign around keyword volume only — that’s a recipe for failure. Just because a keyword has a lot of searches and traffic potential, it doesn’t mean that it will attract the right kind of traffic or convert into a high quality lead.
While we use this marketing tool mainly for tree service PPC research, it can also be used for keyword research for our SEO needs as well. It’s a free tool that gives you access to data directly from Google.
4. Google My Business
Every single local business needs to have a fully optimized Google My Business profile. This is the most important online directory listing your for your tree service business, as the information in your profile is what Google’s algorithm pulls from for its organic results.
When you search for any local service, like a landscape company or a plumber, the results in the Google Maps section are curated from Google My Business profile data. If you don’t have a profile you will never be shown in the results, but it takes a fully optimized profile for maximum visibility, especially in competitive industries. This is also where you will direct previous customers to leave tree service Google reviews, which also contribute to your ranking in the local map results.
One of the very first steps when creating a local SEO plan is to build out a Google My Business profile that is 100 percent complete and features images, complete contact information and a description that will help push the listing to the top of the local Google Maps search results.
5. Google Analytics
Search engine marketing is designed to drive traffic to your tree service website and convert that traffic into leads — and eventually customers. It’s important that you know where your website traffic comes from, what it does when it’s on your website, and what sources are responsible for converting the most leads.
Using this data, we are able to optimize the SEO efforts to focus on the sources that not only drive the most traffic, but the highest quality traffic in terms of leads. Google Analytics provides in-depth data that can be used to really shift the performance of an SEO campaign.
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