Tag | Google Tips

Google AdWords Tips – Part 1 – Beginners

I want to put a series of tips together for people either looking to use Google AdWords as a genuine internet marketing tool, or those that ARE already using Google PPC. Some of these tips might seem extremely obvious, however you would be surprised how people don’t get the basics right.

Tip 1: When you are setting up your campaign for the first time DO NOT opt into both the search network and the display network.

Why? Because these are completely different audiences, and the display network especially will have a very low click through rate. Still, why does this matter? Because the click through rate of your campaign will be one factor that determines the overall quality score of your AdWords campaign. Why should you care? Because the quality score of your AdWords campaign determines the cost per click you need to pay to get your advert seen in the most optimal position for your business.

If you do want to test both the search network and the display network, then have them as two separate CAMPAIGNS (not Ad Groups) – each with their own budget.

Tip 2: Reflect the type of enquiries you are looking for by the times you want your ads to run.

If you are in your business Monday to Friday, from 8.00am until 6.00pm, and your “referrals” or “enquiries” consist of people expecting a phone call to discuss using your services or products, then get your Google AdWords to REFLECT this. This is particularly important if you are a B2B (business to business) company, or if you are trying to get the most from your budget.

Do enquiries happen outside of these times? Yes, however if you need to make a phone call to “sell” the benefits of your service, then waiting 24/48 hours to do so will often result in the “lead” already going somewhere else. It is very unlikely you were the only person they contacted when they were searching for your product or service.

Tip 3 – Don’t try to aim for the top 2 positions in Google.

There is a common thought that being the “top” of Google (especially in the sponsored links section) is where your business “wants to be”. This is simply not the case. Take the example below:

When we took this client on the general mentality was to be “the top of Google” and although the click through rate was very high, so was the cost. Our strategy was to actually AVOID the top two positions, and get them MORE clicks for LESS cost. As you can see from the graph above, we managed to dramatically reduce their costs AND dramatically increase the number of clicks they received. As a result we were able to see a reduction in the COST PER CONVERSION, which brings me on to tip number 4.

Tip 4: Ensure your Google Analytics account is linked to your Google AdWords account.

Some people think that Google will “automatically” link your Google AdWords to your Google Analytics, after all, they are both the same log in details, right? Wrong! Google needs to be TOLD that you have a Google Analytics account and you need to link the two together FROM your Google AdWords account. You need to ensure the log in details of the two accounts have full Administrative access on both the AdWords account AND the Analytics account. If you have follow the simple instruction in your AdWords account and click the “tools” tab, select Google Analytics, and follow the steps through from there.

So – they are my 4 top tips for people who are just starting out with Google AdWords – look out for parts 2, 3 & 4 over the next few weeks.

What are the new Google Ad Sitelinks improvements

Google recently announced a major enhancement to they way they show sitelinks as part of a Google AdWords advert.

In the past sitelinks would appear like the example below:

These links allowed you to find pages more relevant to your initial search, saving you time to get to pages deeper inside the website and “enhancing” your search experience.

Now Google are testing a “turbo charged” version:

Looking at the example that appeared on the official Google AdWords site

If you had the following AdWords advert

And you also had several other Ads that were triggered by different searches (but within the same campaign), like these:

Then your new Google AdWords advert might look something like this:

This is like getting 5 AdWords listings for the price of 1!!

The cost per click will be the same as it would have been for the “click” your main ad would have been bidding for. Early tests have shown a major increase in the click through rate for the advertisers, therefore this is something that we will certainly be looking to adopt for our clients when required.

For more information on our Google AdWords services including Google AdWords training, please follow the links through to the relevant pages.

Do you think will enhance the Google search results, or are you more concerned with how it might effect the natural search results on the first page of Google?

Google Confirm Tweet Status Can Effect Natural Ranking Position

Way back at the end of 2009, we heard through the grapevine that there were to be some major changes to the Google Algorithm, and how it would decide which websites would be listed on the first page.

We had heard there would be 6 major changes:

• Site Speed
• Bounce Rate
• Time Spent On Site
• Duplicate Content
• Poor Links
• Social Media

We saw massive changes to some of the ranking positions websites with the May Day update, and there have been other updates that have had the online (SEO) community chatting about since then.

An interview with Dan Sullivan from Google confirmed that the status of your tweets can also feed back to the ranking of your website. What this means is that when you tweet, you are hoping for this to get retweeted by people who have found it interesting. And then some of their followers do the same. This gives your tweet great exposure, however it also gives your tweet some “credibility”.

What Google appear to be looking at is not only how many times your tweet gets retweeted, but also by whom. If you get a tweet retweeted by someone with 1000′s of followers (and add to that the number of followers THEIR followers have) then Google is likely to see your tweet as a valuable piece of information (and give your website some credit back as a result).

Which means two things for businesses and website owners.

1. Get on Twitter – engage, socialise, tell us about your stuff and tell us interesting things about your industry. Be the expert (or at least display a good level of knowledge) about the area you are supposed to be respresenting.

2. Ensure your blog and tweets (that you want retweeting) are about the subject matter on your website. My guess would be that tweets that people find funny (and retweet) will have no bearing on your website (unless you are a comedian).