• Advertising a construction or trade business isn't as easy as other industries such as retail with a wider social media reach and interest.
• If you want to advertise your construction or trades business, Google Ads and Google Business Listings are good starting points for leads, while Facebook Ads are great for creating awareness of your business.
• Your website should be your number one priority when advertising online. It should include crucial information to make it easier for people to find you and your services in your desired location.
• Read on to learn the best ways to advertise your construction or trades business online including SEO for the trades industry.

Working with tradies, we often get asked what’s the best way to advertise a construction or trades business.

We know being a tradie can be tough; the hours are long and the competition is fierce, but if you get it right, the rewards are good.

Across Australia, the ability to find the right trades has never been easier. A customer no longer needs to spend time and effort looking at bulletin boards or going through the local paper or Yellow Pages to find a plumber or sparkie.

It’s never been quicker to jump on Google, type in the exact issue that needs to be sorted and instantly check out a tradie’s credentials and reviews. That being said...

• If you’re not in the online world, you’re missing out.
• If your website isn’t clean, clear and optimised for mobile, you’re missing out.
• If you’re not collecting reviews or testimonials online... you guessed it, you’re missing out.

For this reason, we believe the best way to promote your construction business and gain potential customers is online.

Before we get started on how to advertise your trade business online, you can also find a variety of resources and professionals on SavvySME to help you promote your business including:

• Digital marketing
• Graphic design
• Social media
• Offline and direct marketing
• Video production

How Do I Advertise My Trade Business Online?

Sadly with Google, unlike Yellow Pages, you can’t just change your name to ‘AAAA Plumber’ to be first on the list. It takes a combination of things to get it right and to be found online. You should start at the point of purchase for many customers looking for a tradie - your website. When building websites you should ensure their pages are 100% optimised for browsers and mobile with a solid collection of keywords for all core products and services.

What is SEO for Tradies?

It’s a competitive marketplace, and organic search engine optimisation (SEO) is the best foundation on which to build an online marketing campaign. SEO helps you make your website more visible on Google and is important for ensuring your website is shown for specific keyword searches, e.g. "bricklayers near me".

Clear call to actions, e.g. a prompt to schedule a call-back and an easy ability to make contact/request quotes are a must. If you’re building your own site then make sure you have plenty of these to prompt people to take action.

Where Can I Advertise My Trade Business for Free?

There are many ways you can advertise your business for free. If you’re on a restricted budget, we see SEO as a must for tradies and construction businesses. If you’re doing it yourself, a good tactic to create better SEO will be to get your free Google Business listing to ensure locational search and reviews to be found.

How to Set up a Google My Business Listing for Your Trade Business 

Setting up a Google My Business listing is a fast, easy and free way to get noticed online. It’s simple to do - just enter your details and verify your address, and the business is up and running.

To help with organic link building, we’ll also recommend listing your business on directories such as Yelp!, HotFrog, Yellow Pages and more. Once these items are aligned, you’re ready to set up your online ads using Google Networks.

Be clear about the areas you work in and provide services for.

There are over 4,500 searches Australia-wide for builders, and you really do not want to be fielding inquiries from all over Australia if you only work in Sydney. There is no point in getting business across the country if you are not able to service it, be very clear about the geographic areas and boundaries you work within. A Google Maps location on your business listing will help keep you tied to a local audience.

How Much Should Trade and Construction Businesses Spend on Advertising?

If you are looking to spend on advertising, we recommend going to a place where people make their decisions. Investing in Google Search will ensure you’re top of mind and search rankings are high when people need you most. Do your research and know how much keywords are likely to cost before going ahead with a paid campaign on Google Ads.

What Is the Cost of Google Ads for Tradies?

The average cost for plumbing services keywords can be in excess of $30 per click, so be sure to factor this in when considering a paid advertising campaign. Google’s Keyword Planner Tools can help guide and structure your ads and budgets.

To budget your campaigns, you need to determine the value of a sale. $30 per click may sound expensive but if the average remuneration for a plumbing job nets you four to five hundred dollars then it’s money well spent.

How Much Do Facebook Ads Cost for Tradies?

If it’s general awareness you’re after, then you cannot go past Facebook advertising for value and reach. Using Facebook’s audience targeting tools is a great way to hone in on a specific audience with exact behaviour and instincts.

A Facebook advertising campaign can be implemented with as little as $5 per day and provide a great way to grow leads, advertise a specific offer or product and boost awareness of your brand. Consider spending $200 - $300 over a number of weeks to build momentum and generate leads.

The beauty of both platforms as a means to advertise is they provide instant feedback on what is working and what’s not. Both sites take a day or two to gather momentum but the signals are similar for each.

In both instances, it’s vital to ensure ‘Relevancy’ for your ads and the pages they point to. Using plumbers as an example, if your landing page isn’t correctly set up and optimised for plumbing terms & locality, then your ads will score badly.

Be specific about the types of plumbing services you offer, the locations your service and mention both of these items on your online landing pages and your advertisements.

Which Online Marketing Metrics Should Trade and Construction Businesses Track?

Click-through rate (CTR) is your number indicator of success as a trade or construction businesses. Between 1%-4% click-through is a good starting point for each channel but look to increase these as you learn and test creative executions, keywords and landing pages.

Facebook has an easily identifiable relevance score that is visible in the reporting metrics. This looks at audiences targeted and the way they engage with your ad and your site after they’ve clicked.

The greater the relevancy score the greater your click through is likely to be and the cheaper the clicks will cost.

We usually aim to achieve a click-through rate of less than 30c for our clients and an average click-through rate of 6% for Facebook advertising to new leads. Utilising retargeting ads to those people who’ve already engaged with your ads will amplify these results even further.

Google provides a Quality Score for your ads which rates the keywords you bid for against the keywords on your website. If these match up, then your score goes up and your ads continue to get served.

The 3 biggest mistakes we see service businesses make with their advertising are:

1. A me focus, not a customer focus 
   Too often the heading and focus of the ad/website/leaflet is on the services provided, not on the benefits for the prospects.  Eg:   “Your local plumbing experts”.  Seriously – if you are a plumber, you should be an expert at plumbing.  It’s a given.  You need to be showing how you are different, and more caring and customer focused than all the other local plumbers.  You need to build trust as fast as you can.  eg:  “the plumbers who turn up on time, clean up our mess, and guarantee you don’t pay a cent unless your problem is fixed”. 
    
2. Confusion
    Many websites make it confusing or difficult for the prospect to contact them. The phone number and contact form is buried on the contact page instead of being on every page.  The call to action is vague - like Contact us.  A  better strategy is to tell people why they should contact you – like  “Get a Fixed Price Quote”
    
3. No testing or measurement
   Sometimes just changing one thing like a headline or special offer or image can have a dramatic impact on conversions (enquiries). But most small businesses don’t try this. It’s very easy to split test website landing pages, Google Ads, Facebook Ads – even print runs of flyers to see what people respond to.  The split testing must be measured to see which version gave the better Return on Investment, and Google Analytics and other programs make it easy to do this.  We’ve seen conversions change from 1% up to 26% , just by split testing one element at a time.

Annette Welsford
Founder: Commonsense Marketing

Conclusion

Watch and learn these scores and adapt to them with each and every advertising campaign. Start small with budgets and slowly increase your ad spend as you refine your ads and you'll see the conversions come through.

With a little patience, a bit of research and a sharp eye for reporting you’ll soon be able to secure regular leads and sale opportunities for your trades business online. Advertising is a good way to beat the competition and allow your business to succeed online and in real life.

Editor's Update 06/07/20:

Thanks for reading our article by Ben Adams at Marzipan Media. We hope it has helped you gain a better understanding of how to advertise your trades business. Members at SavvySME have additional questions on the subject, so we have answered some of these FAQs below.