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Choosing Keywords for Your Dog Daycare's Google Ads Campaign

Last Updated: October 15, 2024 • Visit Blog Homepage


When it comes to online advertising using Google Ads (formerly AdWords), keywords play a crucial role in attracting potential customers to your dog daycare business. If you're not using the best possible keywords for your business, you're definitely wasting money on poor clicks. As a business owner, choosing the right keywords can mean the difference between a successful and ineffective advertising campaign. The question is, what are the best keywords to use though? That, my friend, is why you're reading this blog post right now. Let's get to business.

What are Keywords?

Google Ads is a powerful tool that helps you target the right audience and drive traffic to your website. But with so many keywords to choose from, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. First and foremost, what are keywords? Keywords are one of the largest determining factors that comes into play when Google decides which ads to show on the search engine result page (SERP). If you head to Google now and type in "Car insurance in Florida" the main keywords for that search are going to be CAR, INSURANCE and FLORIDA. Google is going to look into its database of available advertisers and see who is "bidding" on these certain keywords. If you're a car insurance company in Florida, you definitely want to show up when someone searches for those three words. However, if you're a car insurance company that can only sell policies in California, you're not going to want to show up in that SERP because, if they click on your ad, you're going to lose money, the cost-per-click, since the person doing the clicking isn't even going to be able to buy insurnance from your business. That's where negative keywords come in. These are the keywords that you tell Google, "If someone types in this word, DO NOT show my ad."

Choosing Relevant Keywords

One of the most important things to consider when selecting keywords is relevance. You want to make sure that the keywords you choose are directly related to your dog daycare business. For example, if you run a dog daycare in San Francisco, you would want to include keywords such as "dog daycare San Francisco" or "dog boarding San Francisco." Seeing as dog daycare and boarding services are generally location-specific, it's almost always a good idea to include your city in your potential keyword. This way, you're going to show up when someone searches for boarding in your area, but you won't show up when they search for boarding in another. You're also going to want to make sure that you're not broadly advertising in the entire country. If someone in Florida searches for dog boarding, your facility in Chicago should NOT be showing up in those results. You can use geographic targeting to make sure that you're only showing up in the correct areas.

How Competitive are Your Keywords?

Another factor to consider is competition. Some keywords may have high search volume, but they may also have high competition, which can make it difficult to rank well in search results. You can use the Google Keyword Planner to determine the competition level of different keywords and choose keywords that have a balance of high search volume and low competition. Luckily, the dog daycare and boarding industry aren't as competitive as the car insurance industry. They have extremely high cost-per-click rates, because the lifetime value of the customer is so high. If you get just one person to buy your car insurance, there's a good chance that they'll be a customer for many years to come (most people don't like changing insurance, it's too much of a headache). With dog boarding, you're going have much more reasonable rates.

Making the Best out of Keyword Intent

Additionally, you should also consider the intent behind each keyword. Are people using this keyword to simply gather information or are they actively searching for a dog daycare? By understanding the intent behind each keyword, you can tailor your ad copy and landing pages to better meet the needs of your target audience. Going back to what I mentioned earlier, you can use negative keywords very effectively here. If someone searches for "free dog daycare in Chicago" you can be pretty certain that this person isn't looking to pay for your services. So, by setting "free" as a negative keyword, you can make sure that your ad will not show up when someone uses the word "free" in their search. Other keywords like "cheap" and "low-cost" might be something to consider blocking as well.

Using Reviews & Feedback in Ad Copy

According to a recent survey, nearly 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business. This highlights the importance of incorporating customer feedback and reviews into your AdWords campaign. By including keywords related to customer feedback, such as "dog daycare reviews" or "dog daycare testimonials," you can attract potential customers who are specifically searching for information on your business. On your website, if you don't already have a page, think about adding a Reviews page, where you embed various Facebook and Google reviews that your business has received. When someone searches for "reviews for Chicago dog daycares" you can show your ad and have it direct to your reviews page. This way, you'll know that the person is searching for reviews and you're providing them with just that...your business's reviews!

By carefully selecting and targeting the right keywords, you can effectively reach your target audience and increase the success of your AdWords campaign. A well-designed Ads campaign can result in increased website traffic, improved search engine rankings, and increased revenue for your dog daycare business. Just remember, Google Ads can get quite expensive. Make sure to set a daily, weekly and monthly budget so that you don't blow through your entire budget within the first day of the month. There are tons of stories of businesses forgetting to set a daily budget (only using a monthly) and then they spend their entire monthly marketing allowance during the first few days of the month.

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