Almost nobody searches for a carpenter. They search for the thing they want built, and the thing they want built is searched six times more often than the trade that builds it.
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Australian search volumes, Semrush.
Three channels, three jobs. A business usually needs all three, staggered rather than launched at once. It is the same model our Brisbane digital marketing agency runs across every industry we work in, only the numbers underneath it change.
META ADS
Carpentry is the most visual trade there is and Meta is a photo feed. A finished pergola in a suburb someone recognises does more work than any amount of copy, and it reaches people who have been thinking about the back yard without searching for anything yet.
GOOGLE ADS
Catches them the moment they start looking, including the ones Meta warmed up. Fastest of the three to produce a quote request, and the only one that works the week someone decides this is the summer they finally do the deck.
SEO
Takes over the same structure searches Google Ads is paying for, permanently and for free. Slowest to arrive, cheapest to keep, and the reason your paid bill should fall over time.
Google Ads tells us within about six weeks which structures actually produce booked jobs, so SEO gets aimed at those rather than guessing for six months. Meta retargeting picks up everyone who looked at your pergola page and did not call, which on a job people plan for months is nearly all of them. And as SEO ranks for a structure, we pull the paid spend off it and move it to the next one.
The work behind each one, so you can tell whether a proposal is describing effort or just naming a platform.
THE SLOW ASSET
A real page for each structure you build rather than a Services list, every one carrying photographs of your own work. Google Business Profile built properly, categories right, and a review process that runs after every job. This is what moves the map pack and the structure terms.
THE FAST LEVER
Campaigns split by structure, not one campaign called Carpentry. Negative keywords so you stop paying for pergola kits, Bunnings, DIY plans, carpentry apprenticeships and the very large number of people searching pergola for inspiration with no budget. Call and form tracking, because carpentry gets quoted both ways.
THE ONE MOST CHIPPIES SKIP
The one most chippies skip, and the one this trade is built for. Photographs of finished work, in the suburbs you service, reaching people who have been thinking about the back yard for a year without ever searching.
We start from which jobs you want more of, not from which service we would like to sell you. A chippie doing small repairs who wants to build decks needs a deck page and Meta Ads, not more general traffic. A new business with no reviews needs Google Ads while the SEO catches up. We will tell you on the call if one of the three is not worth running for you.
Not a strategy document. These are the three pages we would put up first for a Brisbane carpenter, why those three, and the numbers behind each one.
Built around “pergola”
The biggest number in the trade by a distance, and it is a photo-led decision. Timber against aluminium, attached against freestanding, what actually needs council approval and what does not. Write that properly, put your own builds next to it, and you win a customer who is comparing rather than shopping on price.
Built around “carport”
9,900 a month and almost nobody targets it, because it sits awkwardly between carpentry, building and steel fabrication. It usually needs council approval, which most homeowners do not know, and the carpenter who explains that clearly on the page tends to get the job without competing on price.
Built around “carpenter near me”
The smallest number on the list and still worth having, because it is the one search where someone wants a carpenter rather than a picture. Decided in the map box on reviews and proximity. Worth doing properly, worth not spending your whole budget on.
Tell us your suburbs and the jobs you want more of. We will come back with the real search numbers for your patch and the three pages we would start with. Fifteen minutes, no obligation, and you keep the research either way.
Your Google Business Profile, suburb pages, and local listings optimised so customers in your area find you first.
Technical fixes and service-focused SEO that make your site easy for Google to understand and trust.
Build your reputation through reviews, with monthly reports tracking rankings and leads from organic search.
Site speed, crawlability, schema markup, and Core Web Vitals sorted so Google can index and trust your site.
Service pages and suburb landing pages written to rank and convert, not just fill space.
Backlink building and on-page optimisation that compounds month over month.
Worth saying before you enquire, because it saves everyone three months.
Fast answers, clear decisions.
Spend, leads and trends at a glance.
Your data, your accounts.
Budget goes to what converts.
4+ years average client retention.
Specialists across each platform.
Because that is what people type. Pergola does 22,200 searches a month and carpenter near me does 3,600. Add carports at 9,900 and decking at 5,400 and the structures outrank the trade name six to one. Nobody decides they need a carpenter first. They decide they want a pergola and work backwards.
Agency fees usually work one of three ways: a percentage of ad spend, a flat monthly retainer, or a base fee plus a percentage above a threshold. Percentage models get expensive as you scale and quietly reward the agency for spending more of your money. Ask which model an agency uses and why before you ask for a number.
A fair share are, and that is why the negative keyword list matters more here than in most trades. Pergola kits, Bunnings, DIY plans and inspiration searches all need excluding. But the people who want one built sit inside that number and there is no smaller term that reaches them. Pergola builders is only 720 a month, a thirtieth of the bare term.
More than anything else on the page. Carpentry is judged on how the finished thing looks, and half the sites we audit use stock images of timber. If the photographs are not of your own work the page competes on price by default. If you have none, collect them for a fortnight before spending anything on advertising.
9,900 searches a month and almost nobody targets it, because it falls between carpentry, building and steel fabrication so everyone assumes it belongs to someone else. It usually needs council approval, which most homeowners do not know until they ask. Explain that plainly on the page and you tend to win the job without competing on price.
Pergola kits, DIY, Bunnings, plans, carpentry apprenticeships, carpenter salaries, TAFE courses, and anything with the word cheap in it. On broad match an account buys all of it, and inspiration traffic on this trade is enormous.
Only for the areas you genuinely service and will travel to. Carpenter near me is 3,600 a month and decided in the map pack on reviews and proximity, so suburb pages help at the edges rather than winning it outright. The structure pages are the better investment.
Google Ads produces quote requests within days. The structure pages take three to six months to rank. Meta sits in between and tends to produce enquiries in waves, because people see a finished pergola, think about it for weeks, and come back.
Yes. Search behaviour is the same across Australia, only the suburbs and the competitor set change. The volumes quoted on this page are national.
We look at which structures you want to build more of, what those terms do in your suburbs, whether your site has a real page for any of them, and whether the photographs are yours. You get it in writing and you keep it either way.
