Google’s Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising platform – AdWords – is a performance marketing tool that can greatly help to get your business in front of local prospects that are searching for the services that your business provides.

A subset of Google AdWords is called “Local Services Ads” or, “LSA’s” as it is more commonly referred to. LSA’s are only shown in Google searches when the user enters a term that is determined as a “high intention” search – this means that the user is searching for a local service provider and wants to book a job NOW.

“PPC & LSA’s are a perfect compliment and important components in any successful online marketing strategy.”

While both platforms provide instant, high visibility for internet searches that are very relevant to the services your business provides, they can also be used as a vehicle to help brand your business. In this article, the expert PPC team at Riley Summers Marketing group will help to explore some of the options available to help you decide if PPC &/or LSA’s are the right choice for your business marketing strategy.

Is Paid Search Important For My Jupiter Business?

Both PPC and LSA’s are fantastic advertising methods that can bring specific, relevant audiences to your business quickly. At Riley Summers, PPC campaigns can be up and running in less than 48 hours, while LSA’s can be running in even less time if we can obtain profile access credentials. We can even help you build profiles on either or both platforms from the very beginning if required.

Benefits of Pay Per Click

PPC advertising provides businesses with a customizable approach – where account managers can create custom ad copy and bid in a live auction for visibility at the very top of the Google Search results. For context, PPC ads appear ABOVE Google Organic listings in almost all instances. There are also many targeting options including:

• Demographics (age range)
• Geographics (zip code)
• Device types (mobile, desktop, tablet)
• Specific keywords
• Variable combinations of search terms
• Interests

… there are also options for targeting by language, to advertising using languages other than English, remarketing to users that have visited your website and more.

You can also create campaigns that bid on the name of your COMPETITION. While we do not necessarily encourage this, it can be a cost-effective option for smaller business to leverage some of the brand recognition of larger businesses that may be currently advertising in the same industry.

Benefits of Local Services Ads

LSA’s cater specifically to local businesses that are looking to advertise to highly local customers within a defined geographic area. While the platform does not have as much customization compared to Pay Per Click, leads from LSA ads are usually very good quality and well worth the investment if you are paying attention to your advertising return on investment (ROI).

What is PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Advertising?

PPC is an effective advertising platform that was created by Google. It allows advertisers to use targeting options that are available in the platform to enable ads to be shown to users that are searching Google for services that your business offers. Essentially, it is a method to buy visits to your website compared to relying solely on web traffic from organic search.

Pay Per Click ads are usually shown at the top of the Google search results, which means that your business can pay to be placed at the very top of searches in Google that are highly relevant to your business.

How Pay Per Click Advertising Works

Advertisers create text-based ads, a list of search terms they want Google to show those ads for and, pay for each time a user clicks on your ad(s) – hence the term, “Pay Per Click”. It’s important to note that if a user is shown your ad but they do NOT click on it, you do NOT pay anything – even though the user was able to see your ad in their search result.

With the targeting that is available on the platform, the ads can be served very precisely, while the platform is capable of providing mass visibility at scale. From the reporting side, there are measurable metrics that enable detailed return on investment calculations to be made – which can help to inform future campaign strategy and targeting.

At Riley Summers, we believe PPC is a staple component of any robust online marketing strategy.

What are Local Services Ads (LSA)?

Local Services Ads is a powerful advertising tool that was originally created to help tradespeople to generate leads for their businesses while not having to be a marketing-type person.

They are featured at the very top of the Google search results for keyword searches that have proven to have a very high intent – this means, the person searching is ready to book a job for a service that your business offers.

How The LSA Platform Works

The platform uses a pay-per-lead model, where advertisers only pay for calls or messages sent from the ad (the latter are sent in email format). There is no charge if a prospect clicks on your ad and does not call &/or, if the call lasts for only a few seconds.

The platform enables service-based businesses like law firms and home services businesses to have their ads shown in the premium positions in the Google search results. In most cases when LSA’s are shown, they will be for high intention searches (ie: when the customer is ready to hire NOW) and the ads are located ABOVE the PPC ads.

Google also adds the “Google Screened” badge to businesses that are willing to be verified by Google. This is important as this badge adds an additional layer of trust for the prospective client and can help you stand out from your competitors.

At Riley Summers, we have helped dozens of businesses obtain the “Google Screened” / “Google Guaranteed” accreditation and we can help your business to begin obtaining that status, today.

What Are The Differences Between PPC and LSA Ads?

The primary difference between the PPC platform and LSA platform is the pricing model. In Pay Per Click, as the name suggests – advertisers pay every time someone clicks on your ad. To be clear, there are fraud protection options (to prevent competitors from clicking on your ad repeatedly) however, every ad-click does not necessarily turn into a lead (with a “lead” being defined as a prospect that calls you, fills out a contact form on your website &/or engages in a live-chat session (provided that you have the option of live chat on your website).

Pay Per Click also enables advertisers to target specific search terms, to also DISALLOW search terms and, the platform shows ads to many more search terms compared to the LSA platform.

Conversely, in the Local Services Ads – you only pay for every LEAD that is generated. While ad accounts have the option to provide text messages, phone calls are still the most common way for prospects to call your business from an LSA ad. In order for a lead to be considered a “charged” lead by Google, the call must last for approximately 30 seconds. If it does, your Google Ads account will be billed for the lead.

Additionally, as the name suggests, “LOCAL” is another important, underlying factor – this means, how close your business is physically located from the user is crucial. There are three “R’s” that factor highly into your ad obtaining visibility in Local Services Ads:

1. Radius – how far your business is located compared to the location of the user. NOTE – most users access Google on a cell phone. Provided that their “location” setting is turned on (most are by default), Google uses this information to provide more useful/accurate results based on the whereabouts of the user.
2. Response Time – Google monitors how quickly your business picks up the phone when someone clicks from an LSA ad. You need to be sure to pick up the phone in less than three rings. IT MATTERS!
3. Reviews – Having as many, 5 star customer reviews that you can obtain is very important to the Local Services Ads algorithm. Even better is when you reply to those reviews in less than a day after it is posted and ideally, the reviewer mentions the city you are located and, the type of service you provided in the review itself.

At Riley Summers Marketing Group, we are experts at PPC management. We are based in Jupiter, FL and focus our efforts in the tri-county area – we know the zip codes, income brackets of neighborhoods, peak service times and more that are specific to this area. We handle budgets of all sizes and can help you today.

How Riley Summers Can Elevate Your PPC Advertising

When a new PPC campaign is created or, if we are taking over an existing account that has campaigns in it, we begin by researching a large list of search terms that we believe a relevant to the type of business we are providing our services to.

For example, if you own a pressure washing business the terms we use may align with:

• pressure washing services
• power washing services
• affordable pressure washing near me
• commercial pressure washing company
• residential pressure washing services

… we may also include a geographic reference in the search term:

• jupiter pressure washing
• best pressure washing service in Jupiter
• power washing jupiter fl
• siding pressure washing company jupiter
• same day pressure washing in jupiter

We determine which terms have the highest, historical number of searches and then bid for visibility in those searches.

It’s also important to add “negative keywords” to a campaign – these are search terms that we do NOT want to bid for – some examples include:

• jobs at a pressure washing company
• pressure washing rental equipment
• power washer spare parts
• Harbor Freight pressure washer

…. and similar terms. This negative keyword list is uploaded into the PPC account and applied to the applicable campaign(s).

Campaign Setup and Structure

We then review (or create) the structure of the campaign – this involves setting up groups of ads (known as “ad groups”) and assigning them to specific campaigns – it’s from these campaigns where we can then set the prices we are willing to bid for visibility for those search terms, determine geographic and other targeting, perform split testing and so on.

Pay Per Click Ad Copy Writing

Ad copy is a critical component of any strong-performing PPC campaign. At our agency, we have years of experience writing ad copy that generate interest and drive clicks – we may also use links to a client’s website (known as site links) and other callouts to further increase ad visibility in the search results.

Landing Page Optimization

While some agencies prefer to send users to service pages on a website, our data have proven that landing pages produce a greater volume of leads from the same ad groups using the same advertising budget.

Our landing pages are designed to convert – which means, to convince prospects that your business is BEST equipped to handle the job the prospect is looking to have performed. Our landing pages have been developed over many years after having been put through many user testing and heatmapping experiments.

The end result is a frictionless experience for the user, where everything they need to contact you is instantly available. We like to simply make things EASY.

Remarketing To Prospects

In the event that a user visits your website, we are able to track those users and advertise to them specifically. This is known as “remarketing” in digital marketing parlance and, it is an extremely cost effective method of generating new business opportunities.

NOTE – Google prevents some industries from using remarketing due to concerns over sensitive information &/or user privacy. Some of these industries and topics include:

• Mental Health Services
• Credit Repair Services
• Personal Injury Law
• Addiction Treatment Services
• Personalized Healthcare
• Adult Products
• Online Gambling
• Alcohol and Tobacco
• … and more.

At Riley Summers Marketing Group, we are your local experts at Pay Per Click advertising and have the know-how and desire, to build/manage/maintain high performing PPC ad campaigns.

Riley Summers Can Generate More LSA Leads

Whether you need help setting up an LSA profile from the very beginning or, are searching for ways to generate more leads from an existing account, we can help.

Our founder – Mark Riley – learned the platform from the people at Google that designed it. He – and now, the Riley Summers team – have a deep understanding of LSA profile optimization, bid strategies, geo targeting, lead management and more.

Should you need help obtaining your Google Screened / Google Guarantee badge, we can assist with the screening process along with helping to explain the specific types of documentation needed to gain this accreditation.

We also provide on-going campaign performance management and, can provide weekly ad reports of the LSA leads that were generated at the conclusion of each working week (usually, each Friday at 3 pm is when our weekly LSA reports are delivered to our clients). This helps to ensure budgets are being spent responsibly and, are an easy way to check your booked appointments and trace those calls back to the LSA ads – this process is known as “lead attribution” and, we have a proven process to ensure accuracy of this FREE service that we offer to our clients.

What Are The Benefits of Combining PPC and LSA’s?

The combination of both PPC and LSA’s can be a great option for many service-based businesses. PPC begins driving targeted traffic almost immediately and on a large scale (budget permitting). While LSA’s deliver highly local leads to your business. Both can be very cost-effective when the campaigns are setup and managed correctly.

Effective campaign management can also result to lower lead-acquisition costs and increased lead volume for flat budgets.

By leveraging both platforms and, attentive campaign management, your business can benefit from quick, relevant visibility and provide you with an opportunity to convert online visitors into customers.

Like Us To Handle Your PPC &/or LSA Ads?

Great! We’d love you hear from you.

Let us help you reach your ideal audience with strategic, results-driven PPC campaigns. At Riley Summers Marketing Group, we design tailored pay-per-click solutions that maximize your ad spend and deliver measurable results. From Google Ads to LSA’s, our team has the expertise to make every click count. Reach out today for a free PPC consultation and learn how we can help your business grow faster with powerful, precision-targeted ads.

Riley Summers Marketing Group – turning clicks into customers!