The Google Bomb that Just Rocked Home Improvement

The Google Bomb that Just Rocked Home Improvement
Yup, Google did it again. Last week, they dropped a bomb on small businesses who rely on the Adwords Pay-Per-Click program,  by announcing that they will no longer show ads along the right hand side of the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Ad spots 5-9 that used to show on the right hand side of the page will now show at the bottom, underneath the final organic results.
To cushion the blow, Google SERPs will now feature a fourth ad at the top of the page, above organic results.
There’s really no way to overstate what a massive change this is for everyone in my business.  But it’s going to have a more profound effect on home improvement businesses who had relied on Adwords as a key marketing tool.

Why Google made this change is certainly a subject for debate. However, there’s no denying that there will be a barrelful of losers who directly suffer from this change. Home Improvement companies could certainly fall into that category. With less room at the top, only the best home improvement advertisers, paying the highest Costs Per Click will be able to generate meaningful leads.
Google has been moving in this direction for some time. Over the last 36 months, they have added a number of elements for that have clearly been skewed for advertisers at the top of the SERPs. With the additions of Shopping ads, Adwords, Site Links, Call Extensions, Seller Ratings and a host of other top-friendly options, Google has given advertisers at the top of its SERPs more visual space, more clicks, and ultimately more customers.
Now, Google and Adwords have moved 100% in that direction.  With only four meaningful positions at the top of the page, advertisers have to make a stark choice: effectively drop out of the paid search engine listings, or load up and compete for the top – even at costs that are sure to increase.
Of course, that increase has come at the expense of its organic listings which were pushed lower on the page, and advertisers who appeared lower in the Adwords auctions. SEO has to work even harder to generate the same results.
In some local categories, this will simply narrow the field on search results pages. The local plumber who has a strong Adwords campaign is in no danger of having a big national plumbing company entering the market and pushing them out of the SERP. There are no such big plumbing companies.
Instead, each vertical market will take the next 1-3 months to re-organize around Google’s new 4-ad dynamic. Many, many, many local advertisers will simply abandon Adwords altogether.  In this way, Google will be thinning its own massive herd.
The local plumber mentioned above is going to have to worry about his competitors choosing to instead compete at the top of the page alongside him.  This will force the price of clicks at the top of the pages upwards – which one suspects could be the rationale for Google’s change to begin with.
Recovering and Moving Forward
This change was an unusually well-kept secret inside Google. That this didn’t leak earlier is pretty amazing by itself.  Many Google account reps and managers were completely stunned by this change, and expressed varying levels of disbelief because it had such an immediate impact on the work they do with advertisers.
That said, there is only moving forward.  Home Improvement companies who were already competing at the top of Google’s pay-per-click auction are in good shape, and won’t see much immediate difference. If anything, they will see gains in clicks, conversions and revenue.
But over the next quarter, advertisers across verticals are going to re-examine their budgets and their opportunities. Being at the top of the page may well be a taste more expensive – but it should also still be profitable.