Starting With The Basics
Frank, our Director of Inbound Marketing, likes to tell the following joke: Where is the best place to hide a body? (Answer: The second page of Google.)
You may roll your eyes at that – our team certainly did the first time that joke debuted at a meeting – but the principle behind it is absolutely true.
According to click through data from Advanced Web Ranking, the first organic result on a Google search engine results page (SERP) receives, on average, 28% of the clicks for that search. The second result receives 18%, the third receives 11%, and the fourth receives 8%.
The top result on page number two? Less than 1%. And that’s just for searches without ads at the top.
In an industry like pest control, where local search visibility can make or break your success, you can’t afford not to be on page one. But ranking organically takes time, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can help businesses break out of those deep pages and into prime time.
Spoiler Alert
This is not a neutral blog post. It's a behind-the-scenes look at the power of our Digital Marketing Starter package, a streamlined version of our more robust Digital Marketing platform. Starter delivers qualified leads through aggressive and intelligent PPC advertising, putting sites with low organic reach on the front page - and in front of their target customers.
More Visibility = More Qualified Leads
Leslie Wyman, third-generation pest control operator and owner of Ohio-based Epcon Lane, was struggling with a third-page organic ranking for her ideal keywords. She needed a boost to get her through the busy season, so her peer group suggested using PPC ads.
Leslie came to us, and after a thorough review of her goals, budget, and market, we suggested she ease into the world of PPC with a Starter package. We split 10 landing pages across her top 5 markets, and within two weeks their ads were appearing on the first page of local searches for pest control services - doubling their web presence almost instantly.
In fact, their listing appeared directly above or below their greatest competitors at the top of the SERP, and above about 50% of the paid market share in her area.
Maintaining an average of $36 per lead, our Starter package helped Leslie generate an additional 425 leads in one year - leads who would have gone to her competitors if she’d stayed hanging out on that third page.
Clear ROI, Better Business Decisions
Leads are the lifeblood of any business, but many don’t - or sometimes can’t - drill down on which marketing efforts are getting them the most bang for their buck. Epcon Lane was relying on direct mail and word of mouth to bring in traffic and drive conversions -- methods that, while important, can’t be accurately measured in the way PPC traffic can.
Our Starter package offered Leslie a dedicated marketing expert who would deliver research on her market, testing and tracking of offers and keywords, and monthly reporting on which efforts were delivering the most traffic and conversions in her market.
Even better, armed with data from Google AdWords that segmented performance by market location, Leslie was quickly able to see which services in which markets were giving her the best ROI. In other words, not only was she enjoying quality leads at a price that worked with her growing business’s budget, she was able to use those marketing reports to make crucial decisions about the services she offered.
The Smart Way To Grow
It's a myth that growing quickly and profitably can't be done at the same time. Trust us, we wrote a whole book on the subject.
We worked with Leslie to set realistic goals for her business's growth -- how many leads could her technicians handle? What budget made the most sense for her company? -- and over the course of a year, we were able to deliver qualified pest control leads at a pace and cost that worked for her.
In fact, by the end of that year, she was able to move up the digital marketing ladder into a custom website. Using the keyword data we gathered from her time as a Starter client, we've been able to keep her at the top of the paid pack while improving her organic ranking through on-site optimization.
Our Digital Marketing Starter package is the smart way for smaller business to get into the game, and for larger businesses to capitalize on their busy season. Feel like you've been looking for leads in all the wrong places? Let's chat.