Making Google Ads work for you
It’s time consuming and takes a lot of effort, which is why you don’t want to waste your time and money by making these common mistakes:
1. Not Using Keywords in Your Ad Copy
So often people spend a lot of time researching and choosing the right keywords yet don’t spend a similar amount of time creating customised ads with those keywords in the copy.
But you end up appearing on the right search pages so that’s okay? Wrong.
Effective AdWords campaigns live and die by the right keywords, and the harsh reality is that people are far more likely to click on ads that match the keywords and search queries they just typed in.
Makes sense, doesn’t it?
So if you want to create ads that get clicks for the right reasons you need to focus on using relevant keywords in them.
2. Not Using Negative Keywords In Your Settings
Identifying negative keywords in your AdWords campaign ensures Google doesn’t show ads for searches with those words.
But isn’t all publicity good publicity? No it isn’t, and here’s why.
Your business sells leather sofas and you are appearing in searches for leather care tips. This is not good news. You may be getting lots of clicks to your website from people who are curious about the lovely sofas you sell, but these are unlikely to be from people who are currently in the market for one. In other words your ad is performing but that isn’t being translated into sales. This may actually be harmful to your business and is certainly a waste of your AdWords budget.
You should also continue be on the lookout for more negative keywords over time. The kind of enquires you receive should give you an idea, as will traffic to the website for unrelated items.
3. Not Using Locations
If you run a location based business, The Colchester Discount Gym for instance, you won’t need us to extol the virtues of local search.
But if you are running an online business, or one that can ship to or trade anywhere, then who needs boundaries? Well you might do.
People in different locations may have different reactions to adverts. Think of our leather sofa business for example. Couples living in city centres may have very different needs and incomes, as well as having more modern tastes, compared to families living in very rural areas where they may favour more traditional furniture. So an advert for your latest designer range would be better focussed where the market has more designer tastes and an ad for your chesterfields are less likely to perform as well.
Creating location-specific ads will bring you more qualified traffic, so create unique ads for each ad or ad group.
4. Sending Traffic To Your Homepage
After all the effort of creating super-targeted ads and finding the right keywords it’s surprising how many people then link their ad to their website’s homepage. But surely that way the visitor gets to see everything you offer, and who knows what else they might also buy?
No. Someone wanting to buy customised balloons for a children’s party wants to land on the balloons page, not the homepage then have to navigate to the balloons themselves. If they also want party bags they can then find them too, which will be helped if your website is designed so it is clear that you stock other lines and navigating to them is simple.
People who click on ads are looking for immediate solutions and, if they don’t find them, you can be sure they will quickly go and look elsewhere.
So don’t leave it up to chance. Your keywords, ad text and landing page must all be relevant to each other. And don’t forget, Google uses the relevance of your landing page to help determine your ad’s quality score which ultimately affects its placement and cost.
5. Not Testing
You know your audience, you’re a first rate copywriter, you’ve researched all your keywords in depth and come up with an eye-catching headline, so let’s get this show on the road.
What could possibly go wrong?
It’s amazing how many people then don’t test their ads, but the only way to know if they are performing at their best is to test various elements and compare to see which version yields more conversions.
You can try different keywords, various headings and body copy, alternative placements, locations and landing pages. The options are almost limitless.
Change just one element per test and measure the changes. You can change minor elements, but you should consider changing larger elements too as these can net you big results. Also, don’t forget to watch results over time as some tests may initially perform extremely well or poorly, but change after a few days or weeks.
Killing a great campaign is easy but careful planning and following these five steps should make the difference that will increase your conversion rates.
If you need help with adwords get in touch or for more information check out our Adwords PPC services.