Google AdWords plays an essential role in making your online marketing strategies easier. It’s one of the most productive and quickest methods for bringing huge traffic on the verge of converting. And while using Google AdWords might cost a bit upfront — they use a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) model — the benefits could greatly outweigh the costs.
Google AdWords offers assured and immediate traffic to your website and gives you an opportunity to convert many of the visitors into leads and sales.
It’s quite easy to start an AdWords account; however, there are a few things to keep in mind before diving in.
8 tips for using Google AdWords
- Set a proper budget.
- Find the right keywords.
- Attract more customers.
- Landing pages also bear significance.
- Search and display networks.
- Operate the search term reports.
- Track your results.
- Location targeting.
1. Set a proper budget.
One of the most frequent and common questions that marketers ask is, “How much should we spend on an AdWords campaign?” By properly setting the budget for your AdWords account, you can easily prevent over- and under-spending of budget that could have resulted in low ROI.
Establishing a proper budget is a foundational step that you need to take while creating an AdWords campaign.
When it comes to using Google AdWords, the process is highly adjustable and flexible, allowing you to make budget decisions that best fit to your business requirements. In addition to setting monthly and daily budgets, Google AdWords monitors and adjusts all the fluctuations in your website traffic to make sure you don’t exceed your monthly budget.
By setting up a proper budget, you can create a successful advertising campaign without jeopardizing other business functions.
2. Find the right keywords.
To choose the best keywords for your business, you first need to consider the four different types of keyword matches available:
Broad match type. This is the default match type that displays your ad to a wider audience with respect to searches that have similar phrases and close variations. Example: “Antique Furniture.”
Broad match modified. A broad match, but with slight restriction. The keywords have a “+” sign before them. This option has more control over the broad match type keywords. Example: “+Antique Furniture” or “+Antique +Furniture.”
Phrase match. Your ads will be displayed when your keywords contain the phrase in the search query. It maximizes relevant clicks, which results in improved conversions. Example: “Antique Furniture.”
Exact match. With this match type, your ads will only show if someone types the exact keyword you’ve chosen. Exact match type gives you maximum control over the display of your ads. Example: [Antique Furniture].
Only choose those keywords that describe your business, products or services well.
Strong keywords that are relevant to your business could generate clicks, increase conversion rates, and improve ROI. While conducting keyword research for your website, try to search for keywords from the user’s point of view. And when you start bidding on keywords, keep your campaign budget in mind so you don’t overspend.
Adjust your budget accordingly by investing more on high-performing keywords and less on low-performing keywords.
In addition to the regular keywords, there are also negative keywords to consider. Negative keywords prevent your ads from being displayed in irrelevant search queries. Using them can tighten your audience, reduce unnecessary costs, and improve ROI.
3. Attract more customers.
While other digital marketing platforms might take some time deliver desired results, Google AdWords can provide immediate outcomes if the execution is correct.
In addition to using properly selected keywords, make your advertisements clean and attractive so as to draw in potential customers. Make your headlines catchy, and make the intent clear in your descriptions. Your ads should also contain a clear, simple and strong call-to-action (CTA) to encourage the user to take action.
Don’t make the mistake of creating an ad and simply ignoring it — if your campaigns aren’t optimized and monitored, you run the risk of losing all that you invested.
You can also test different variations of your ads to ascertain which ad has the highest conversion rate. If you find certain phrasing is performing better, capitalize on it. And finally, don’t mislead your customers by offering something you don’t handle. The last thing you want is to create a negative impression.
4. Landing pages also bear significance.
Landing pages are an essential and imperative component of online marketing. All your efforts of creating a profitable AdWords campaign will go in vain if you do not have a high-quality, relevant landing page.
To ensure that you get most of the gains from AdWords, direct all your visitors to an optimized landing page rather than a not-so-appropriate home page.
The landing page provides extra information and details about your offers that convinces the user to participate in the conversion process. Since, landing pages are conversion-oriented, make sure they’re designed in way that it offers customers clarity — and don’t forget a clear CTA.
A great landing page might contain elements like:
- An attractive headline
- Benefits and features of the products
- Compelling images and graphics
- Testimonials social proofs
- A strong and persuasive CTA
To determine the viability of the landing page, conduct A/B testing to be sure it has the ability to convert visitors into leads and sales. A/B testing enables you to gauge and evaluate the effectiveness of different elements on a landing page, like headlines, features, images, CTAs, etc.
Pro tip: Don’t direct all of your ads to a single landing page. Not all ads refer to the same product or service.
Simply put, the more landing pages you create, the more targeted possibilities you have for converting visitors into customers.
5. Search and display networks
Usually, beginners and small business owners struggle with the question of whether to use search networks, display networks or both.
Search networks
When you advertise your ads through a search network, they display in Google search results when someone queries a term that matches your keywords. In general, search network’s traffic is more targeted and conversion-oriented than display network’s traffic. Plus, search networks are great for achieving higher click-through rates (CTRs) and a better quality score.
Display networks
When you advertise your ads through display network, you can show your ads on a variety of sites on the internet. Display networks are more flexible, and they allow you to choose the type of content you want in your ads.
Pro tip: Since these networks perform differently, don’t mix the two in a single campaign.
Initially, advertise through search networks as most of the direct conversions are gained there. If you’re interested in building brand awareness for your business, display networks are more suitable. After considering both options, choose based off your desired end goal.
6. Operate the search term reports.
Search term reports let you know the intent and the language of the user through which you can target more relevant keywords. They even generate ideas for new keywords and exclude the irrelevant keywords.
These reports also prove to be one of the most effective ways to generate long-tail keywords, which are highly targeted and conversion oriented.
Use them to easily identify terms that are relevant to your business and also result in a good number of clicks and impressions.
7. Track your results.
Online campaigns thrive on conversions. To make your work easier, Google AdWords offers a free tool called Conversion Tracking that shows you what happens after your ad gets a click. It also lets you identify how efficient your ad campaigns are performing in terms of generating leads, sales, downloads, sign ups or any other form of conversions.
The data recorded by conversion tracking gives you insight into the performing and nonperforming metrics, allowing you to optimize for better performance. For example, you can concentrate on keywords that lead to efficient conversions and exclude or pause on the non-performing keywords.
All in all, it’s a powerful tool that not only determines the value of your ads, keywords and landing pages, but also helps your AdWords campaigns to get more conversions and improved ROI.
8. Location targeting
Location is one the most overlooked elements of an AdWords campaign. Even with the best ad and resulting landing page, you could still be missing out on leads if only customers in the wrong locations are seeing your ads.
Google AdWords allows you to target audiences by location.
Through location targeting, you choose the particular areas where you want to show your ads, ensuring that the right customers find your business. Plus, Google Adwords provides you with suggested areas you might want to consider targeting. You can also exclude locations that contain customers who are not relevant to your business.
In conclusion
Using Google AdWords can help you drive in qualified and conversion-oriented traffic. Regardless of size, AdWords can help every business — you just have to properly maintain and optimize your campaign to garner the best results. Give it a try to see if you can grow the size and scope of your business with targeted campaigns.
