Have you heard of the “list”? Yes, the list. The ultimate list that will help you beat your competitors when it comes to using Google Ads. Let’s talk more about that.
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For those of you guys who don’t know me, my name is Mats Moy. I am the owner and founder of Moy Consulting, a company which I created, simply to help roofing companies generate more roofing leads online.
The “list”
So, by the end of this video I’m going to share with you one of the most powerful tools, when it comes to using Google Ads to generate roofing leads for your business. This is what I call, the list, right?
A roofing company owner reached out to me the other day and he essentially just wanted to get “the list.” There was so much emphasis on this list. And if you don’t know already by now, the list that I’m talking about here is a negative keyword list and I’ll explain to you throughout this video why this is so important, but this list is worth, hundreds of thousands of dollars for your business because it will save you, that much money, right?
This list is what this roofing company owner called me about, and was emphasizing. I want the list. The list is what’s gonna make everything. And, there’s some truth to what he was saying because this list is extremely important.
This has taken me about six years to accumulate this list, across many of my clients. And so it is very very useful in the sense that it eliminates any tire kickers, right? Any wasted ad spend, this is where that list comes in.
Negative keywords
So, negative keyword list, right? For some of you guys who have tried Google Ads in the past, you’ve noticed that your campaigns have just start to rack up money, accrued of cost over time, to a point where you’re spending so much and you’re getting very little. Now, here’s what’s expected guys.
When you start to use Google Ads, expect to lose money. Expect it. Because you are brand new, you are brand new to the game, even if you’re hiring an expert. An expert will expect to lose money at the start. That is part of the process. Simply because they’re so many unknowns when it comes to advertising on Google, you don’t necessarily know some of the common search terms that people are typing in to find whatever it is that they’re looking for, but as a result is triggering your ads.
Build a database
And so, once you start to run a campaign, over time you start to build a database. A database of words that you can then add to the list and essentially eliminate your ads from showing up for some of those terms that people are typing in to trigger your ads. So for example, if someone wants to Google and types in, what is modified bitumen? What is a modified bitumen roof, right? If someone is just curious, they wanna educate themselves.
For some of you guys who don’t have, let’s say, “modified” or “bitumen” or I personally like to add “what” in there as negative keywords, then your ads could be triggered for that, especially if you’re going after a very broad keyword which I highly, do not recommend you go after, but a broad keyword such as “roofing,” right?
I’ve seen so many contractors go after a keyword like “roofing” when it has no intent whatsoever. It just shows that somebody is interested in roofing, what about it? No clue, right? And so, if you’re going after a keyword like just “roofing,” then you’ve got bigger issues here and I would highly recommend you do your due diligence when it comes to, trying to set up a campaign.
Okay so, if you don’t have “modified,” “bitumen,” or “what” as negative keywords, your ads will trigger for that keyword. If somebody goes to Google and types in, “what is a modified bitumen roof?” Then, what’s the sense of your ad showing up for that?
You’re essentially running ads for people to contact you to come out and give them an estimate. And so, by having that keyword in there, you’re wasting money. Is that clear?
Be patient
Patience, patience, patience is absolutely key. You need to understand that before you start to generate any form of leads using Google Ads, you need, you absolutely need to subscribe to my channel because it’s the right thing to do, and I provide really good content just like this one, each and every single Wednesday.
But on a serious note, if you wanna start generating leads through Google Ads, you need to be patient, okay? Understand going into this at the very beginning, you will probably lose money. And that’s all part of the process. Going with the mindset that yes, I’m going to lose some money and that’s okay. But ultimately, you’re going to be using the data that you’re collecting over time to make your campaigns better, and then yield better results from it.
Do preventative maintenance
So, the list. The negative keyword list. How do we start to build this list? Before you even run a campaign, before you start running the campaign we wanna do what I call preventative maintenance. We wanna have a preemptive approach to setting this list up.
And so, what I like to do is head over to Google, and do a search for just generic, roofing-related terms. So roofing companies, in whatever your area is. So let’s use Toronto.
“Roofing companies in Toronto.” If I type that into Google, I’m going to look for all of the roofing companies that show up and take their business name, minus any added extra so I wouldn’t necessarily add roofing or LLC, Ltd. or any of those acronyms or anything like that.
I will just take, let’s use, “Onyx Roofing,” I just made that up. I will take “onyx,” and put that as a negative keyword on my list. And I would continue and add all of those roofing companies that I can find in the search on-page, maybe one through five.
Comb through your competitors
If you wanna be like extremely thorough, add the first five pages. And then go to the map section to do the same thing. Go through the first five pages and add all of those companies, as negative keywords.
This will save you hundreds of thousands of dollars. You need to be able to eliminate your ads from showing up. If somebody has gone to the internet and search for a competitor of yours, understand that that’s who they’re looking for, right? And that’s okay. That’s not your client. They’re looking for them. Let them go for them, right?
You don’t wanna show up for anything related to a competitor. And so, eliminate those keywords by adding those to your negative keywords list.
Add neighboring areas
Another pre-emptive approach is adding states, adding other neighboring states, maybe all the other states, cities that you don’t wanna go after, right? The names of those cities. Names of specific neighborhoods, maybe you don’t wanna start to target. The names of other services that you don’t wanna go after, right?
Let’s say you do roofing only, and you don’t wanna get any like, repair jobs, right? Maybe you wanna add “repair” as a negative keyword so that you don’t show up for anybody looking for repairs.
Let’s say you do roofing normally, you don’t wanna do siding, you don’t wanna do gutters, east shafts, right? Fencing, decks, flooring, maybe you don’t wanna do any of that stuff. And so, put those as negative keywords so that you don’t ever show up for any of that.
That’s gonna save you in the long run. Maybe somebody is, looking for, roofing and siding, right? But you don’t wanna deal with the siding aspect of things. Just eliminate total because they’ve shown you what they’re looking for, right?
Pay attention to your list
So, all this stuff is done at the beginning. That way you’re able to eliminate any wasted spend from the jump, from the get-go. This is all part of the planning process, right? Failure to plan is planning to fail. And so, by you doing this, you’re putting on the right, you’re getting on the right track, as far as succeeding with your Google Ads campaign.
So I’ve already mentioned this by adding those neighboring states and acronyms. Google is very funny, right? Sometimes they might match, an area from one state to another area in another state. Google is very funny. Just add neighboring states and acronyms as negative keywords.
Be careful about some of those acronyms though, like in, like Indiana, right, “IN.” Maybe you wanna leave that one out of your negative keywords list. “ME,” right? You might wanna leave that out of your negative keywords list because those are keywords such as “roofing companies near me.” If you added M-E as a negative keyword then you could be missing out on potential keywords.
So, do your due diligence, take your time with this list. It will save you a lot of money but it can also restrict, a lot of the keywords that you would show up for. So pay attention when you’re creating this list.
Why is it so important?
So this list, why? Why is it important for you to do it? Well, besides saving money, this will also help your overall account to be in good standings with Google. Your quality score, which is something that I’m gonna talk about in a future video. Your quality score essentially dictates the quality of your campaign, and where it stands with Google.
Ultimately, we wanna have a high-quality campaign that, Google sends us high-quality traffic, gives us lots of impressions, more clicks, as a result, more leads, right? More conversions more revenue for you. And so, if you have a campaign in really good standing, then you wanna make sure that you keep adding more negative keywords to your list because that will in turn affect one of the biggest quality score factors, which is your click-through rate.
Let me give you an example, right? Let’s say we’re going after a keyword like “roofing companies in Toronto.” They’re so many words that we can kinda throw in there that are not relevant in the search query. So, let me give you an example. What is, or who is the cheapest roofing company in Toronto?
Boost your Quality Score
Now, if you’re like most of my clients. We don’t like to go after some of them, the person who’s looking for the cheapest guy. And so, we might add cheap as a negative keyword, right? But if we didn’t add that as a negative keyword, then you would show up for that. And, it would count as an impression, right?
So let’s say it showed up 100 times, but nobody clicked on your ad because you say that you’re, maybe a little bit expensive. Maybe you say that in your ad to qualify that, you’re an expensive roofing contractor and you don’t want the cheap people to come to contact you. And so you put that in your ad, and the cheap person sees it, they scroll right past it, right? So let’s say, it did it 100 times. So, your click-through rate would be, zero percent, right?
If somebody clicked on it once, it would be 1%. Whereas, if you added cheap as a negative keyword, your ad would no longer show up for anybody who searches for anything cheap, the word cheap in it, right? And therefore, that’s 100 impressions that went from 100 to zero. So, that increases your overall click-through rate, because it’s only showing up for terms that are more relevant to what you’re looking to go after. I hope I made that clear.
Check the search terms report routinely
So all in all, your negative keyword list, will give you an overall better campaign performance. So, it’s extremely important that you invest the time in the list, typically once a week. Take a look at the search terms report in your Google Ads to double-check to see hey, what are people typing in to trigger my ads?
You’ll be surprised as to what you find in there. Again, Google is a funny, funny platform where if somebody goes to Google and says “garage door estimates,” that could potentially trigger your ads because the garage is connected to the roof so maybe you know. But you know that that’s not what you were looking to go after.
Pay attention to your Google Ads campaign. It’s so you’re able to determine, you can see it gives you a report of what words triggered your ads. Pay attention. This negative keyword list is something that I put together in this training program to help roofing companies generate more roofing leads online. So it’s essentially a shortcut for you to get a Google Ads campaign that’s up and running and is performing really well, right out the gate.
Book a call with me
And so, if you are interested in working with myself, Moy Consulting and my team, then be sure to click the link in the description down below where I’ll give you a little bit more information about the training program itself.
Also, if you wanna join a community of roofers just like yourself who are learning about this forever changing space, be sure to join my free Facebook group, Mastermind where we share strategies, tips, everyday things that you guys can do to start generating more roofing leads for your company. The link for that is also in the description down below.
Lastly, if you like this video, smash that thumbs up, give me a like, subscribe to my channel, hit the notification bell so that you get notified every single time I release a new video just like this one. But until then, I’ll see you next week. Peace.
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