AdWords is the quickest and most effective way to drive new business to your website – with a well-planned campaign you can almost guarantee that you will gain more visitors, which should lead to more sales. However, London is a highly competitive region, which means that you have to finely tune your AdWords campaigns to provide a good ROI. Our PPC managers are skilled in making your ads work better. Let’s take a look at how it is done.

ADVERTISING COPY

Getting your ad copy right is the first step. AdWords allows you to display both text and image adverts – regardless of which you opt for, the copy needs to be perfect to attract the attention of impatient Google searchers. Your copy needs to be both catchy and informative at the same time.

Each advert should sell a product or service, and ideally, also include a geographic region so that customers know that you are local before they click the advert. To maximise your ROI, your copy must clearly match what you are sell, otherwise you risk a costly, high bounce rate.

CREATING AN APPEALING ADVERT

There are some “tricks” to creating an eye catching text advert. Capitalising one word will make an advert stand out amongst the others. Adding numbers and symbols is also known to be effective, and although Google no longer allows you to place a telephone number, you can include a price or percentage. For example, an ad that says “AdWords and PPC Management” may be informative, but one that says “Boost Sales By 30% for £300” will probably attract far more interest.

Including the registered trademark symbol is a simple way to add something more visually appealing, and while this will not make a dramatic difference, it does help to break the line up a little. Asking a question is another great way to capture somebody’s attention, and the question mark makes the ad stand out more too. For instance, “Want More Sales?” may appeal to people who are not specifically looking for PPC help.

There are many good resources online that go into greater detail on ad copy, so do a little research, or speak to our PPC manager.

Before publishing your advert, triple check your wording. It is very easy to overlook a typo, and while it may seem minor, many people are put off by such things as it is considered sloppy and unprofessional. Ideally, get a few people in the office to take a look before activating your campaign. Make sure you are providing the best first impression possible.

WHERE ARE YOU?

It can be tempting to try to rank first for “London” as your location, but this is not always the best option. Your local town may be the best search term to use – even if your business services all of London, people still like to work with companies that are local. For example, if you are providing IT services from an office in Hackney, bid on this keyword. Also bid on post code keywords in combination with your services.

People do tend to search by town in London, and also sometimes by other geographic features, such as a main road or park. Oxford Street, Regent’s Park and Old Kent Road and Green Lanes are obvious examples, but any major road may be used in a search, so bid on those keywords too.

STUDY YOUR COMPETITION

If your competitors are using AdWords, look at their ads. Put together a document that lists all the headings and sub-text that they use in their text ads, and also make a note of words used in image ads. Run multiple searches for the keywords that you wish to rank for and record all the adverts that appear. First, ask yourself which ads you prefer – there is a good chance that one of your competitors is doing something a little different and this could give them the edge.

When you have enough examples of competitor ads, do a little market research. Print out the ads and ask staff, loyal customers, friends and family which advert they prefer. This will give you a better idea of what people like in an ad. You should then go about replicating the style, wording and message in your own ads.

There are also some good marketing tools that allow you to quickly view all the keywords that a competitor is bidding on. SEMRush is one of our favourites, as the Pro version provides more in-depth information that allows us to monitor and analyse keyword popularity, which means we can create highly advanced SEM campaigns for our clients.

HIGHLIGHT YOUR USP

Every business should have a unique selling point, so make sure that your adverts highlight this. This is the quickest way to attract more business – if you are listed with three other companies that are all offering the same generic service and your ad highlights something specialist, this can attract more clicks, even if you do not have the first position. Also, bid on those specialist keywords to ensure that you are number one for your service.

MENTION EXCLUSIVE DEALS

If you have exclusivity for a product, or are running an exclusive short-term deal, create an AdWords campaign for this – people will search for it and find your business. You should not only chase the most popular keywords, but also less frequent searches that will still allow you to make a profit.

CONSIDER USER INTENT

Remember, customers are not interested in your company – they are only interested in how it will improve their lives. For example, an advert with a headline of “Buy Diphenhydramine” will not be as enticing as one that says “Stop Sneezing!” – people who suffer from hay fever want to stop sneezing, not a lesson in biochemistry.

IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU

Following on from user intent, remember to focus on “you” and not “we”, “us” or “me”. Ad copy that sounds like it addresses an individual will attract more clicks than one that talks about itself – using the first person in adverts can seem more boastful than helpful, so always write ad copy in the second person.

CREATE GREAT LANDING PAGES

Getting customers on your website is just the first step in generating more sales. Without a well optimised landing page and sales funnel, you will not convert visitors into sales. A good landing page will also help improve your AdWords quality score, which will mean you will be able to bid more competitively – a poorly worded page will cost a business more.

It is also important to structure your campaigns to target specific products and services. For example, rather than running one advert for “DIY shop” (at the time of writing there are no adverts for this search term), shops now target individual terms such as “cordless screwdriver” – Tesco Direct, Screwfix, Wickes and Ebuyer are all competing on this term at the moment.

The service industry is no different. For example, a search for “printing services” brings up no AdWords results, but a search for “label printing company” brings up four adverts, all of which are competing for this term. While they may get more traffic if they bid on “printing services”, they will probably find that their ad spend is more than new sales, so it is not viable to pursue such broad keywords. If you add a location, you will also appeal to more local businesses, and may leapfrog above the competitors.

USE AD EXTENSIONS

Google now provides various ad extensions that are designed to provide more immediate information. This includes location information and sitelinks, which can make your ad stand out, provide more detailed information and also help assure your customers that you really are in their local area. Speak to our ad managers to learn more about this rapidly evolving system.

USE SIMPLE URLS

As well as improving the ad copy, also make a better URL. Although people do not tend to look at website URLs these days – they are often not displayed mobile phones – the URL in a PPC advert can impact web traffic in two ways. First, people may be more trustworthy of a URL that is targeted, and second, using a short, memorable URL will make it easier for people to remember your site and find you again – even if they do not click the advert, they may remember the URL if it was only a couple of words following the domain.

REMEMBER THE SEASONS

Many businesses are seasonal in nature – accountants will be busier during the financial year end and tax return deadline, retail is busy in the run up to Christmas, builders are busiest early in the year when people start planning new projects. Keep your campaigns updated to include seasonal terms in the keyword bidding and also in the ad copy.

DON’T STOP OPTIMISING

An AdWords campaign is never finished. Markets change, competitors will work harder to push your ads down, buying trends evolve and AdWords itself introduces new features. Split test ad copy, optimise landing pages and test new products. By constantly monitoring the health of your campaign you will identify opportunities that will allow you to drive more business for less money.

To learn more about how AdWords PPC can help your business grow, call FSE Digital today.