In this weeks episode:
In Episode 1 of the Trades Secret Podcast hosts Devon Hayes and Amanda Joyce discuss Google’s continuous scroll and how that will affect ad placement, SEO and so much more. Gone are the days of “getting your business to page 1.” We’ll help you navigate the new landscape and give you some tips & tricks to help your business take advantage of the new system.
Ready for more? Subscribe today so you don’t miss a single trade secret reveal. Also be sure and connect with us on social: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & TikTok.
Send us your questions, comments, feedback, praise! We can’t wait to hear from you!
Episode Transcript:
Amanda Joyce:
Hi guys. I’m Amanda Joyce.
Devin Hayes:
And I’m Devin Hayes. Welcome to Trade Secrets.
Amanda Joyce:
Where we reveal what you can be doing today to improve your business through marketing.
Devin Hayes:
Welcome to Trade Secrets, where we demystify digital marketing to help contractors get the most bang for their marketing bucks.
Amanda Joyce:
This is for you if you’re a contractor looking for actionable marketing insights.
Devin Hayes:
Learn from home services industry experts to elevate your business through simplified marketing strategies.
Amanda Joyce:
Let’s dive into today’s trade secret.
Devin Hayes:
Today we are going to be talking about continuous scroll on Google. They just rolled it out for desktop, let’s see here, just last month, December.
Amanda Joyce:
December, yeah. And it originally rolled out in October of 2021 on mobile, but now they introduced it in desktop. So it’s a total game changer across the board from an SEO and paid media standpoint, honestly.
Devin Hayes:
Yeah, so previously we’re all familiar with a Google results page, and there’s 10 results on page one and depending on what you’re searching, there’s some ads, maybe images, videos that kind of pop up at the top, local search results, maps results. But with continuous scroll, instead of just being limited to those 10 organic results, it actually goes down for about six pages. And so with that, now you can say you’re on page one, but position 60, but you’re still on page one with SEO. And then Amanda, you’re our paid media guru. You’re Google certified. You have been doing this for, I don’t know.
Amanda Joyce:
Longer than I care to admit.
Devin Hayes:
Okay. So I mean, we know especially in the home services space that Google ads was getting really expensive with no guarantees, and a lot of agencies, including us, kind of push people toward Google local service ads, right? So now that there is so much more ad space on desktop for Google, what do you think the implications are now rolling into 2023? And how should contractors look at Google Ads now?
Amanda Joyce:
Yeah, how they spend. It’s difficult because there’s so many different things to keep in mind. One of the things I’ve been noticing and I’ve been reading about a lot is that based on quality scores, a lot of times is you’re scrolling down, you’re going to see the same advertiser repeated. So if Google really likes you, if you’ve got a high quality score, if you’re leaning a whole lot on their AI, meaning you’re allowing them to do a lot of your optimization for you, it’s where they’re pushing all of us, they’re going to favor your ads and show you more. So it’s just really important to keep in mind that, like it always has been with your ads and your texts and everything, and then that you’re really, really strategic with every last word you put in that. You want to make sure that you are standing out across the board, that your call to action is really clear and that what you’re offering is that much better than everybody else that’s out there in the space. Wait, sorry, go ahead.
Devin Hayes:
Sorry. So I was going to say, so when you talk about call to action, CTA, our little industry jargon here, what do you think… I would love for you to give an example of what’s a really bad call to action and then versus something that’s good and decent, and obviously each market is different, but I mean there are, in your experience, I know we’ve had some laughs over some questionable
Amanda Joyce:
The classic click here. Who the hell? Hello, 1990. Who types click here on anything? If you see that on ad as a consumer, you’re not going to… The hell you’re going to click on? But if you say, we work with a lot of roofers, free inspections are across the board. Everyone offers them. You might want to come up with a different spin on it. Maybe it’s a free roofing audit, things like that, but you definitely want to let the searcher understand what you’re offering them. It’s not just a mat. It’s not all about yourself. You need to talk about what the benefit is to them. What are you offering them? Why should they click on your ad? What are you going to give them? Free, complimentary, that kind of language can really resonate with people, but at the end of the day, you just want to make sure that you’re helping them understand how you want them to move down the funnel, what you want them to do when they come to your landing page, and ideally entice them to take that action once they get there.
Once they’re on the landing page, you just want to continue to reiterate that same language, but it all starts with the ad. You’ve got to attract them to the site and then move them down the funnel. Another thing to keep in mind while you’re thinking about this is depending on the space, you can be paying $60 for that click. So you have to be so strategic, not only with the experience that they’re having in the search results, but I mean, this’ll be a whole nother podcast, but if you’re spending that money, you’ve just got to be really careful with it and you can’t just throw something out there. Google… Oh, sorry, go ahead.
Devin Hayes:
No, no, no, no. Sorry. No, go ahead. Well, I was thinking, listening to everything you’re saying and talking about the importance of the language that’s used in the ad, and just kind of tying it back to this continuous scroll. So we’re moving from, what? We had three GLSA at the top, the Google local service ads, or Google guaranteed is how a lot of contractors know them as. Then we had your traditional Google ads. So there was maybe, what, two to three spaces at the top?
Amanda Joyce:
Yeah. Depending.
Devin Hayes:
And then two to three at the bottom. So before December, 2022, Google ads and Google guaranteed ads, we’ll call them for brevity’s sake, they had, what, maybe five to seven spaces on page one?
Amanda Joyce:
Yeah.
Devin Hayes:
And so now when you were going through and looking at it, how many spaces are on this continuous scroll?
Amanda Joyce:
Yeah.
Devin Hayes:
Just trying to give the audience an idea of how much more opportunity is now there versus what we were looking at. Whereas we know nobody clicked to page two. Who cares if we got an ad on page two?
Amanda Joyce:
Exactly. So honestly, what I was seeing is that in most cases, right around what we would consider the top of each page, I was seeing two to three ads right there next to the Google local service ads. Then it would just repeat down towards the bottom. The thing that’s different, like you were saying, is previously there’d be about three at the top and then two at the bottom. So you’d have about five on page one of Google. That would repeat itself as you went deeper and deeper into the search results, which few people do, except for people in our industry where we’re clicking way back there.
So now instead it’s more like two to three at the top, and then it just repeats. So in some ways you could look at it, there’s actually less ads being served, but because it’s continuous and the way all of us as users anymore are so used to dealing with things even inside of social, you know how we’re just scrollers anymore. We keep going. So even though I would arguably say it’s not that I’m necessarily seeing more ad real estate. It’s just people are going to see more of the ads because they’re going to keep going, if that makes sense.
Devin Hayes:
So yeah, that’s interesting. So you’re saying that even though there’s six pages on this continuous scroll with the ads, there’s still the same quantity of ads?
Amanda Joyce:
Well, not on page, but we’re talking about, I’m saying if you were going to add up all the ads that were formally page one through six, you’re seeing a similar amount of those ads, but it’s a continuous scroll. Like you were saying, you see the ads in the Google local service ads and you see a bunch of organic, and then it repeats itself. So it’s actually not even necessarily that there’s more ads. It’s just those ads are going to get more eyeballs on them because people are actually going to go deeper than they used to go. So you’re going to see. Does that make sense?
Devin Hayes:
I think so. Well, yeah, so I see what you’re saying. It’s the same amount of ads, except for if you clicked to page two, you would see the same quantity. I think the way I was looking at it was, all right, well now page one, the new page one has 60 results. So instead of just five to seven ads, now page one has, is it 16 or 20 ads?
Amanda Joyce:
Yes. So yeah, if we are calling it page one now, because I know it’s kind of difficult now because it’s not what we traditionally call page one on Google.
Devin Hayes:
I know. We have to change our whole verbiage, our whole lingo. Hey, here’s a pro tip. Look out for your agency. If they tell you you’re on page one now. You could be in position 60 on page one, but technically still page one.
Amanda Joyce:
Exactly. Another pro tip to just keep in mind, they have all kinds of different settings inside of app, inside of Google ads, but one of the things you can do is set your bidding strategy so that you can say absolute top of results. So if it’s a word you really want to dominate, especially the way they’re shuffling the deck right now, you can go in there and set it that way. So I mean, you’re going to pay a pretty penny for it, but if you want to be up there, it’s a great way to play the game and make sure that you’re getting that visibility that otherwise there’s a lot of competition for it. Like you said, there’s a lot of ads. You keep scrolling, but if you want to be right there towards the top, you can.
Devin Hayes:
Yeah. I know we haven’t talked about this yet, but just as we’re talking through this, I know when we looked at it, we saw a lot of those Google local service ads, GLSA. I keep saying the full acronym because I don’t want to lose anyone with this industry jargon, but when we looked through it, we saw it was the same three companies over and over and over again. We were doing a search outside of either of our markets. Amanda sits in Phoenix, I sit in Denver, and we were looking at a contractor in San Antonio. So when we were looking, we weren’t being served three different GLSA ads on that continuous scroll. It seemed to be the same three companies in different orders, which is unique. It’s kind of different. You’d expect to see maybe three different companies, or at least, or sorry, not three different companies, but way more than just the same three companies over and over again.
Amanda Joyce:
Exactly, exactly. From a user perspective, I would prefer to see a wider cross-section of the different service providers in my market, but it seems like that’s what Google’s doing right now. They’ve always done a lot of favoritism. They favor the advertisers that hit all their quality scores and have the deep pockets and spend the money. So it’s just interesting to keep in mind that the GLSA game in anyone’s given market could change a little bit as a result of this. And if you are seeing that your calls are really reducing, that could be the result of it. You can always go in and make tweaks to your profile and do things to improve it, but at the end of the day, Google kind of sets the rules of the game and we all play it.
Devin Hayes:
Yeah, and it’s only, but today is exactly what, 30 days I think, since they rolled it out. So I guess we’re going to learn more over time. And so we only have 30 days of data for people to look at their GLSA in December, no less. So it’s like the data there is probably not… Yeah. So I guess it’s just something. I love picking your brain on this because I am so…
Amanda Joyce:
Out of your wheelhouse.
Devin Hayes:
Yeah, it’s not my wheelhouse.
Amanda Joyce:
I want to talk about your wheelhouse. Let’s talk about
Devin Hayes:
We’re going to turn that channel, but just for any contractors listening, and maybe as they’re sitting there, they’re hearing this information, they’re like, oh, this is really good to know and now maybe Google Ads is going to play, be more of a game changer for me. What’s something that you would look at in your experience as a signal, if they’re looking at the backend of GLSA or their Google ads, whichever one they may have been running. Our clients, and I think a lot of contractors are probably in that GLSA or Google guaranteed ads. As you’re analyzing, what would you notice as a trigger to maybe start to maybe make some changes in your paid media mix and where you’re investing in GLSA versus Google Ads?
Amanda Joyce:
Yeah, no, great question. You should be in marketing.
Devin Hayes:
Maybe.
Amanda Joyce:
So if you are someone who’s been investing really heavily in GLSA and you suddenly see the calls start to fall off, which we are speaking to people in a lot of markets that are experiencing this, it’s probably time to revisit traditional Google ads. If you’ve been running Google ads for a long time and you haven’t really tapped your toe in the water of GLSA, test it out. Depending on your market, we do still have some clients that are getting a ton of phone calls from it. So I would say, again, if you haven’t tested it, test it. Take advantage of Google local service ads as long as you can get the volume. But then if you really need to increase that volume, the phone’s not ringing as much as you’d like to see, you feel like there’s opportunity left on the table, maybe your SEO hasn’t really caught up yet, it’s time to revisit those higher cost clicks in Google Ads.
Just a little bit of backstory here, the reason we’ve really encouraged a lot of our clients to go the GLSA route over the last couple years is, in most markets, we’re seeing them get a call for like $56. I mean, an actual client on the phone asking for a roof inspection or wanting to schedule a consultation of one sort or the other, versus we’re paying in some cases $70 for a click in Google ads. That’s just driving someone to your website and certainly doesn’t mean they’re going to convert. A healthy conversion rate would be 10%. So you’re talking $700 right there to get that one person to complete the lead form or call you or do whatever it is you’re trying to get them, whatever action you’re trying to get them to take. Then you still have to close them. It doesn’t mean that every time someone fills out a form on your website that they’re automatically a client.
So there’s a lot to keep in mind here. It can get really expensive, but we also see a lot of times when we’re looking at our reporting from an SEO standpoint or from direct traffic, if we are spending a lot in a local market, we’re running a lot of ads, there’s a lot of impressions out there, people are seeing the brand name, it can have a positive impact across the board with all of their marketing efforts. So you do have to have a little bit of a stomach for it. Sometimes if your cost per acquisition is a little high in your ads, it doesn’t mean that it’s not helping elsewhere. And you have to remember that that brand recognition is valuable in itself.
Sorry, that was a diatribe, guys, but it’s just a really important thing to keep in mind when you’re running ads because we talk to people all the time that their ad budget is a huge part of what’s keeping their… They’re taking it away from other parts of their business, and they want to make sure, if we’re going to reinvest this here, instead of maybe having another admin in the office or something for that amount of money, what are we getting at?
Devin Hayes:
Yeah, it is. No, it’s really important that your ad spend is actually going somewhere. So I think it’s really good to have an expert’s insight in what to look for with this continuous scroll and how it’s really going to impact. It’s really shaking up what we’ve traditionally done on search marketing. So really great info. So yes, we know it is definitely going to shake up what we’re doing for our clients on the search engine marketing front, Google ads, Google local service ads, all those acronyms or all those nicknames. But also, so now kind of changing channels a little bit, but we’re still talking about Google’s new continuous scroll and how that affects now organic positioning and search engine optimization and what we are expecting to see, and again, we’re just 30 days out from this.
So what we’re expecting to see is more of a shift. Content has been important for SEO for a long time and forever. I think a lot of contractors, it’s been beaten into their heads. You have to do SEO. Well, now at this point, what’s kind of cool is I think a lot of us as a user, myself included, if I Google something, I know that there’s just ads and maps results and people also ask. So I’m scrolling until I get to the actual organic results if I’m trying to learn information. If it’s something more transactional, like I need a landscaper or an HVAC guy, I probably am looking at that map pack results, which is gold for contractors, but that falls into the local SEO realm. So what we’re kind of focused on with this continuous scroll is its impact on those organic results which fall beneath the map pack.
So with those results, as a user, I scroll down, I scroll past the ads, and then I get to the meat of it. And so with continuous scroll, now I get to do that and I am looking at stuff that was previously on page two or three. But what’s also interesting here is that especially in the home services niche, what we see a lot for those primary keywords, if you do landscape or Denver or something like that, and it’s tied together, you’re going to see those aggregate results at the top. You’re going to see Yelp. Yelp’s top 10 landscapers in Denver or Angie’s List top 10 landscapers in Denver. Now we’ll be able to scroll past those and get to the actual service providers and look at their actual results on the search engine page.
So what this is all pointing towards is content, again, and content marketing. So now, because a person can continuously scroll and they’re not going to click to page two or refine their search, I think that people are going to stick to their original search. So we have to have what? Catchier headlines, catchier SEO titles, catchier meta descriptions. This is the thing that you’re going to have to, I think, have your SEO company constantly playing with, is just getting that catchier title because you might be getting an impression and being served up, but if you’re not getting that click, the only thing you can control is that title and that meta description. So whatever that might be. In your content, again, you’ve got to be targeting people at the top of the funnel, the bottom of the funnel, because you don’t know what they’re looking for and now that they can just keep scrolling instead of finding their search…
Amanda Joyce:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the stigma’s gone with page two. I love it.
Devin Hayes:
Yeah, yeah, it’s just completely changed. So instead of having one keyword phrase that you’re targeting, and Google’s AI has changed, where you don’t have to have an exact phrase match. Their artificial intelligence understands or thinks it understands the user’s intent. So knowing that, you have to shape your content around now how the user is going to start using Google. So realistically, you should be writing content for the people. Also ask section, because there’s going to be users who don’t scroll past that, PAA is what we call it, it’s the people also ask, right? We’ve seen those little carrots with the dropdown. You get your answer immediately.
But all of this kind of factors into the user’s intent in the search phrase. So it’s so early on that we’re not sure what the impact is quite yet, but we know how we interact with the search engine results page and we know how we operate as users. So I think content becomes more important again. I think video is going to be huge because those, depending on the search phrase, there might be real estate right there at the very top of Google for just video or images only. So that’s going to play a more important role. I think each year we talk about how video is more and more important, and each year it’s one of those things. Some contractors hop on board and we can get tons of footage from them right away. Then others, it’s…
Amanda Joyce:
Yeah.
Devin Hayes:
Then others, it’s pulling teeth but this update is just yet another reason to really focus on how you can differentiate yourself. And if video is the way that you can stick to the top of this long, continuous scroll, great. If you can write content that answers those people also ask queries, great. Then if you can have a really meaty headline within this one, continuous scroll, something that really captures the attention, kind of meets the user’s intent for their search query in an interesting way where they don’t feel like they’re going to get lost in whatever the content is. I never click on those aggregate things because I don’t trust Yelp and I don’t trust Angie’s List. To me, it’s just people paying to be there.
Amanda Joyce:
Absolutely.
Devin Hayes:
Right? Versus someone who took the time to, I don’t know, try to help me solve the problem.
Amanda Joyce:
Yeah, a hundred percent. Even when it comes to that kind of stuff, if it says the top 10 contractors in your local market, I’m going to go look in the three pack. I’m going to expand that and base it on actual user reviews before I’m going to look at something on Angie’s List.
Devin Hayes:
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I mean, it is great. It’s interesting. I mean, we’ve had it on mobile for over a year now, but throwing it out there on desktop where there’s one thing to have a leak and you need a plumber, an emergency plumber, and you’re going to click, you’re going to do that on your phone immediately and you’re going to pull it up. But if you want your kitchen remodeled, you’re going to kind of vet out a contractor a bit more. You’re going to want to look at more pictures. You’re going to want to look at video. You’re going to want to hear proof of their craftsmanship and what their customer service is like, and how long have they been there. You’re going to vet them out a little bit more than like, oh, shoot, I’m at the bottom of the funnel. I need somebody right now to fix this problem. So yeah, shaping your content marketing and your SEO around this new experience is going to be a must do for 2023.
Amanda Joyce:
That also makes me think, will you speak a little bit about what we’ve been noticing recently, where we’re delineating exactly what we want our meta titles to be served as and the descriptions, and then in some cases, even when we think that they’re totally dialed in, Google’s just going rogue and serving something differently?
Devin Hayes:
Yes, yes. Okay. All right. Hopefully we haven’t lost you guys up here. If you’re still listening here, Amanda and I, we are so passionate about what we do that sometimes we feel like we’re giving people an MBA in marketing, but we firmly believe in educating our clients and anyone, any contractor out there, because education is key. If you know what you’re looking at or what you should be looking for, you can grow your business and you don’t get taken advantage of.
So anyways, what Amanda’s referring to is on that search engine result page on the back end of your website, we are able to tell Google this is the title that I want, and this is the description that I want. However, Google in recent years is like, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Nah, I’m going to take this bit right here from this part of the page, and it could be the middle of a paragraph at the bottom of your homepage, and it’s going to decide that that’s the description that they think the user needs to see.
So as an agency, what we do is we’re continuously looking and kind of doing the manual legwork to see what Google is actually serving up for our clients as an SEO title or the title that appears on the Google page and the description that appears on the Google page. If it’s pulling from content versus the meta description, is what it’s called, if it’s pulling from a piece of content on the page versus what we’re telling it we want to pull from, then we refine that piece of copy so that it can be more captivating and really speak to what we hope is the user’s intent in finding our client. Typically, it’s a service plus location kind of phrase that we’d like lumped in there. So it’s just something that your SEO company should be staying on top of. You can manually look at this and say, “Hey, when I search for plumber, Phoenix, my company pops up, but I don’t know, the description isn’t
Amanda Joyce:
I love it. Yeah.
Devin Hayes:
Just not loving it.
Amanda Joyce:
Keep track of it, and knowing that with continuous scroll, it’s more important than ever to stand out. That’s just a really great, easy thing as a business owner that you can keep track of without even needing expensive, fancy tools. Just make sure that you feel like it’s compelling enough that you’re going to capture some of that traffic amongst all the noise and continuous scroll.
Devin Hayes:
Yeah. A great example is we had a roofing client and we had optimized their title, and we had optimized their description to say, “We’re San Antonio’s favorite roofing company, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” But what was showing was Johnny Smith started in construction in 2008. We’re like, “What?” So it was pulling from the about section about the owner from the homepage. We were on top of it, so we were able to kind of update and refine it, but that’s a great example of how that’s not going to align with someone who’s looking for service plus location. Hearing somebody’s history and construction on the homepage isn’t exactly going to garner a click.
So yeah, that’s just a great tool you can take home and look at today. Go ahead and Google yourself and when you Google yourself or you Google a service plus the city you’re in, or the location you want to serve in, and your company pops up, does it say what you want it to say? And is it strong enough to get people to actually click through? We could go on and on. We love search. We love this one, but we won’t. So the takeaway today is continuous scroll, make sure that your company appears the way you want it to appear, that it’s catchy, that you’re packing a punch, telling the customer what they’re going to get if they choose to click through to your site. And ads, Amanda, what’s the ads takeaway for this new Google continuous scroll?
Amanda Joyce:
The ads takeaway is to dig in, look at your current metrics, see if they’ve changed over the last 30 days, and really watch them closely through this first quarter. Because like we were alluding to earlier, it was just the holidays. So things were probably a little weird anyway with your metrics, but really pay attention in the next quarter to see. Compare them year over year and if you feel like you’ve really lost some market share, it’s time to explore one of Google’s other advertising products because, let’s be real, Google loves Google and they’re always giving you a new way to spend money with them, so just keep a close eye so you’re not surprised this time next year that all of your advertising impressions fell off.
Devin Hayes:
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you guys next time.
Amanda Joyce:
That was today’s trade secret. Thanks for listening.
Devin Hayes:
Did you find this helpful? We’re just getting started.
Amanda Joyce:
Subscribe, and don’t miss our next reveal.
Devin Hayes:
Until next time.
Listen Now
Past Episodes
E51 — Light Em’ Up Website Roast
E50 — The Google Leak: Sandboxin’ Son of A
E48 – The Top 5 Episodes of 2023
E47—Why Google As Is Risky Business
E46—Why SEO Proposals Are Apples To Oranges
Live Watch Party!
Tune in to YouTube for our live watch party and comment in real time with Amanda and Devon!