Advertising using Google Ads or Bing Ads.
As an alternative, or complementary to SEO, Google Ads offers the opportunity to appear on Page One of Google’s search and if done properly in Position One to boot.
Here are just some of the basic concepts for a successful Ads or Bing Ads campaign.
1.Set your Objectives.
What do you want your campaign to achieve? Sales, Leads, Newsletter Sign-ups, Phone Calls. Determining the objective will affect how you set up your campaign. If you have more than one objective design separate campaigns for each.
2. Research.
Keywords. This is the basic foundation of your campaign so requires time and effort to ensure you find the most appropriate keywords searchers are using to find your product, service, or business. There are a variety of tools available for this, including Google’s own Keyword Finder. Additionally, if you are using Google Console the information on searches is a very useful source of search terms and potential Cost per Click costs.
3. Competitors.
Look at competitors already advertising on Ads and appearing at the top of the search results. Review their copy, see where you can improve it, check their websites, and look for ways in which you can design your advert to be more appealing and your website landing page layout that will encourage a positive result
4. Research Your Potential Customers.
Where are they buying and reviewing products/services/businesses like yours online? Read their reviews. What do they say about your competitors? Are they looking for better prices, service, customer care, guarantees? What emotions do you see? While researching them, look for great quotes you can use in your advert or landing page to satisfy their needs.
5. Landing Page.
Do not make the mistake of sending clicks to your Home Page instead of a specific landing page relevant to your advert. Make sure your landing page reflects what your advert offers. Try to make it offer something different or more aligned to what you believe your customers are looking for that your competitors are not providing.
6. Keyword Matching.
There are 4 types of keyword matches available in Ads or Bing Ads. Broad Match, Broad Match Modified, Phrase Match, and Exact Match. A detailed explanation is not really possible here but the type of match to use will, to some extent, be dependent on your keyword knowledge and budget. Using Exact Match, where only searches using the exact keyword phrase will generate your ad, will ensure only really interested customers will see your ad, but it will also limit the numbers. In some cases, a mixture of Exact Match and Modified Match may be appropriate to test results.
Negative keywords should also be included if using anything other than exact match to refine and exclude unwanted clicks.
7. Demarcation.
Search and Display are two different advertising mediums and need to be treated differently with adverts designed specifically for each. Also, mobile traffic is different to desktop or laptops. Tablets are somewhere in between. Geographic audiences are also different. Adverts for the US market can be very different from those designed for the UK. As an example, “vacation” is the US term for what the UK refer to as a “holiday”. Chose the target market most suited to your objectives or if more than one run separate campaigns for each.
8. Ad. Copy
Google changed their search and display advert format in 2018 allowing more characters and a variation of the previous layout. It now consists of 3 Headlines of 30 characters and 2 descriptions consisting of 90 characters as well as extensions. In addition, there are different formats for shopping ads, video, image, call only etc. The first thing you need to decide is which is the most appropriate for your product or service and what you want to achieve. Google is also now offering “Smart” options which allows you to hand over a lot of the options to Google’s AI. The general consensus is “don’t do it”. keeping control over your ads and your costs is more likely to bring you the results you want as long as you are doing it correctly!
(a) Your ad copy needs to be relevant to the keywords to which they relate.
(b) It must stand out from the competition with a different offer, incentive or benefit.
(c) Correspond to the content of your landing page.
(d) Include a call to action. People subconsciously respond to what you ask them to do.
It has been proven that the 2 Headlines, which can be joined together, are the most decisive element of your advert so the wording needs special consideration.
9. Test and Track
You have the option to run more than one version of your advert enabling you to compare which headline or description produces the better click through rate and conversion. You can monitor results in Google Analytics and set up the goals you want to achieve from your ad campaign. By monitoring the results you can refine your advert so that you achieve the best ROI possible. When testing only change one element each time so you know what caused the improvement or decline in the result.
10. Make Use of the Data.
An additional benefit of Ads is an increase in the information provided from search engines in relation to actual search terms used by those searching the web. As you undoubtedly know Google only provides limited information in Analytics relating to searches, although a more in depth idea can be found by combining Google Console details as well as Analytics.
As an Ads advertiser, you do get much more detailed information on actual search terms which you can then use as keywords within your site to improve your organic SEO. In addition, although Google says that advertising does not provide any boost to your organic ranking it has long been shown to have a positive indirect effect. Many of the ranking signals used in organic search are search volume, bounce rate, time on site, pages viewed etc. A quality campaign can improve traffic levels and other ranking factors that can, in turn, improve organic search positions.
11. Costs.
How much your campaign will cost is related to a number of variables but competition for your keywords and the market your business is in are the first considerations. You can limit costs by ensuring a high-quality score for your advert. Make sure it is correctly targeted. Test and refine to improve your conversion rate, rather than click through rate, is as high as possible. In the end, you set the limits on expenditure. You can start and stop a campaign at will as well as editing or adjusting it at any time you desire.
This gives you a very basic outline of some of the advertising opportunities available from Google Adwords or Bing Ads. You can now take advantage of Google’s increasing demographic profiling, limit geographical area, particularly beneficial if you are a local business, set hours of the day for when you believe your customers are more likely to view your ads, as well as which days of the week.
All this may seem daunting if you have never tried this form of advertising but I can assure you done properly it can be very rewarding and successful. If you want to try but are put off by the amount of work this can entail I am here to help.
You may want a full campaign set up and managed or just help with some aspects such as Keyword Research or ad design. Let me know what you need by completing the form below and we can discuss options and terms.