If implemented correctly, Google pay-per-click advertising can be a great way to find new customers online. PPC advertising has many advantages such as:
- Immediate Results as changes can take effect in just a couple of hours
- Performance Tracking is easy and quick to access
- There are a number of options when choosing pricing and advertisement parameters
- Good for websites that are difficult to modify or can't be changed for various reasons
- Guaranteed Placement even on high-volume keywords
- Excellent for seasonal sales or other time-dependent promotions
However, pay-per-click advertising is not automatically going to solve all your marketing needs without lots of hard work. As more businesses use PPC, the costs of running a campaign are increasing. This means that, like any form of marketing you need to ensure that your campaign is running at it’s best and therefore is providing your business with a positive ROI.
Create Multiple Ad Groups Instead of having one ad group with a large list of keywords, create a few ad groups with shorter lists. An Adgroup is a group of keywords or phrases and the associated ad that will display when those keywords are searched for on Google. Each campaign can have one or more adgroups. Make sure the associated ad text matches the list of keywords. Google will display the search keywords in bold in your ad text if they are present and this helps your ad to stand out from the rest. When writing ads, try to include a call-to-action statement such as “Call Us Now” or “Try our products” at the end of the description to improve click through rate.
Landing PageDon’t always have your ads pointing to your home page. Choose a landing page for each ad that is relevant to the keywords from the search. When a person conducts a search, they will expect to see relevant results straight away without having to click to another page. Also remember that to have a good conversion rate, you need to have good content and compelling landing pages so try to include strong call-to-action statements on your landing pages.
Monitor your campaign Use Google’s reporting tool to track what actual keywords and phrases are triggering your ads. Use this information to work out which of your keywords or phrases are doing best and what changes you should be making to your campaign. You should also use it to help build a list of negative keywords for each ad group.
Negative keywords Negative keywords are similar to normal keywords except that instead of attracting visitors to your ads, it will not be displayed if the search includes a negative keyword. Your aim is to reach only targeted traffic so you need to filter out unwanted impressions clicks to reduce your costs. Add more negative keywords at regular intervals. As your negative keyword list grows, your ad CTR will increase, saving you money and may also improve your ad's position. This is also important if your website is already ranking well in Google for a search phrase. You don’t want it appearing in the sponsored links beside the natural link as you may be paying for clicks that are not necessary.
Content Network When setting up a campaign, the Content Network option defaults to On. This may not be something you want and you may not realise how much a difference it can make to your campaign. The Content Network option means that your ads are eligible to appear on sites containing content relevant to your ad. We recommend that when you start your campaign, switch it off. After you have a campaign running profitably on the search network then include the content network for a day or two and see if it is working for you.
Set lower bids on exact keyword phrase matches You can set different bid amounts for different adgroups and keyword phrases. Include both phrase and exact matches for a keyword phrase and set the bid lower for an exact match.
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