Need some help from the family

Jeff Horton

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The Heart of Dixie
OK, I am working on doing some ads on Google for my Business. I won't bore you with details but whether my ad shows depends on the "key words" I chose. Meaning I get to say when you search for "THIS" my ad will show up.

So I need some input from you. Two questions.

  1. If you go to search Google for a someone to inspect your new house your buying what words would you use?
  2. If you were moving to a new city you didn't know, what words would you use?

Thanks. This will help me to see how someone else would search. I know what I would use, but I am betting that others will use different terms than I would. ;)
 
Jeff,

I Googled "house inspector 31757" and got a list of local inspectors.

If I were creating a keyword list, it could be something like: "house home inspection inspector inspect thomasville ga georgia 31792 31757"
 
Somewhere deep in the dark bowels of Google, they actually give a list of the best working key words. I found it once, lost it and never found again. But, if you can find it, Google actually hands you a road map for the best web site intro possible.
 
When you sign up Frank they help you with suggestions and a they offer a couple of tools to help pick words. You can see words used, how often and broken down by time. Lots of info there.

But I want to see how real people search as well. I have some ideas and some words picked out. I am avoiding saying them here. I want to see what real people would search for without my influence on them. Then I will see how many I picked were used and I expect find some I didn't think of.

I will say I never thought about using ZIP Codes. So I already picked up one idea right there.
 
The others have already hit on the ones I would have used. Might consider using additional zips for all the areas you work as well as names. Googles rankings also work from how many 'Other' sites link to yours and visa versa. So try to get other folks you work with to do some cross site linking with you.
 
Sacramento Home Inspector

But ... i wouldn't probably do that right off. I would more than likely check ServiceMagic.com for my area first. That's where I found the inspector for my house last year. :)
 
How do you know we're real people? I could be a cyberbot just wondering if you have the option of using home inspector in addition to house inspector.

Well, Doug, now that you mention it, how do I know you're not an upgraded version of Eliza? ;)

Maybe we're all just programmed chatterbots, bouncing around the web? How would we prove that we're not? ;)

Thanks,

Bill
 
Jeff

for me - House inspection, house inspector, home inspection, home inspector in that order.

With adwords though, bear in mind that volume isn't everything. I could chase the search "garden furniture" which has a high volume and a high cost per click rating but I know that most of the people looking for it are not after what I sell. So i target a more focussed keyword with much smaller volumes but where the searchers are more likely to be my customers. So maybe "independent home inspector" or "experienced home inspector" would be better if they are true. I think that some geographic info is also important. I assume that Alaskan googlers are unlikely to be interested in your services so finding local may be important.

The good thing about adwords is that it costs nothing to run a bad keyword group. If it were me, I would probably start with a list of 20 or so representing "Home inspector NNNNNN" with NNNNNN being the 20 zip codes that I had done the most inspections for in the last 2 years.

As a caveat - I never had much success with adwords. I stuck to working hard on SEO and have better results from doing well in the main listing, As a seracher I very rarely use the adword links

Hope that whatever you do brings you some results.
 
I'd add "Building Inspector/Inspection" as where I come from, the guy who inspects a building, be it a home or commercial is called a "Building Inspector" AFAIK :wave:
 
city name, house inspector
or
home inspection

This. :thumb:

I will say I never thought about using ZIP Codes. So I already picked up one idea right there.

Hmm, I would check with Google on this. What I mean is, I doubt that YOU need to worry about the zip codes, I think that the Google search will deal with that. For instance, on google maps, when I punch up an address, it then gives me an option to do a search for businesses near that address. I have to believe, then, that Google is somehow handling the geographical closeness in the search. But I don't know how, hence my first sentence. :wave:
 
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