Google AdWords Series: Ad Extensions and Bidding
Google AdWords is an excellent way to drive quality traffic to your site. It can also be expensive if not handled correctly. It all comes down to how smartly you manage your Google AdWords Campaigns.
As we continue discussing some of the most common mistakes made by webmasters with their Google AdWords campaigns, we turn our focus to two mistakes that are particularly common among AdWords newcomers: a failure to use ad extensions, and not bidding on one’s own brand.
Let’s take a look at each of these.
The mistake: not using ad extensions as a means to enhance your advertising copy
Whenever you develop ads for your campaign, you only have a limited amount of space to work with when you consider character limits, two headlines and a brief description. However, you can work around these limitations by using the ad extension feature and link headline text. These features are free and can add a lot of benefit to your ad copy.
What is an ad extension? Ad extensions are additional pieces of information about your business, like a phone number or a link to a specific page on your website, you can add to your ads. Ad extensions are free to add to your ads, with the usual charges for any clicks you get. Ad extensions appear with ads on the Search Network, and depending on the extension might also appear with ads on the Display Network.
Ad extensions allow you to cram more information and links into your advertisements, which in turn gives you an edge with your copy over a lot of your competition. Your ads will take up slightly more space in search results, which makes them more noticeable to people who perform the searches.
Examples of ad extensions include:
- Call: Add a contact phone number for your business, to add a bit more credibility and another way for searchers to get in touch with your company.
- Location: Add your address into your advertisements as a way to emphasize you are a local business or to make it easy for customers to look up directions to your storefront.
- Sitelinks: Add in additional links into your advertisements, and use link text to include additional calls to action and various selling points of your products or services.
- Structured snippets: Show off the range of what you are offering in your advertisement by providing examples of various styles and applications.
- Callouts: Add some short and persuasive phrases into your advertisement to make your ads compelling. For example, if you have free shipping, this is the place to include that information!
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to include as much information in your ad as possible!
The mistake: not bidding on your brand
“New advertisers are often convinced that these ads will not pay off. The argument is that if you already have the top ranking in the organic search results, it would be a waste of money to pay for an ad for the exact same search. In other words – some advertisers are afraid brand ads will cannibalize organic results.” ~ Frederik Hyldig
Many entrepreneurs new to AdWords do not realize you can actually bid on your own brand name keywords as a way to increase the amount of conversions you get coming in. Of course, if you are going to use this strategy, you will have to pay some attention to the value of your brand.
Customers are typically willing to pay a bit more for a product or service if they tend to receive positive customer experiences when engaging with that brand. Providing such positive experiences can be accomplished through PPC and SEO advertising. So here are a few reasons why bidding on your brand search terms could be helpful:
- Secure your space: Simply put, if you do not bid on your brand keywords, eventually your competition will, which will mean you have wasted an opportunity for some easy lead and conversion building.
- Affordability: Bidding on brand keywords usually costs less money than bidding on standard keywords. When you can get a low cost per click for keywords that are likely to drive conversions, you always want to jump on that chance.
- Intent: Consumers who use product or service keywords are usually beginning their initial research about that product or service. Once they decide they are going to buy, they often shift their searches to use brand keywords. Therefore, you can capitalize on this intent of searchers by bidding on brand keywords to position your brand well when consumers have made their purchase decision. Remember, keyword optimization is DEAD! Intent based search optimization is critical!
By bidding on your own brand, you are both promoting your company to new audiences and reaching out to existing customers. Even if your brand keyword doesn’t get much traffic or search volume for that keyword is low, it’s still worth using those keywords in your campaign.
Stay tuned as we discuss two final mistakes commonly made by AdWords users!
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