11 Tips for Successful Google Adwords

You might have read on here or elsewhere about SEO and Google rankings. It's unlikely, however, that you will get a significant ranking on Google without some really good inbound links. These are hard to find, and even harder to keep. To maintain a decent Google presence, you might like to consider spending money on Google AdWords. There are, of course, other pay-per-click services available; but Google happens to be by far the largest and is the first place to start.

Essentially, you select the words that you want to trigger the ad, and the maximum amount you are willing to pay. The ads are displayed in the 'sponsored links' section at the top and down the right of the natural search listings. Getting an ad to the top depends on the pay per click (PPC) you are willing to pay compared to everyone else, and the 'quality score' of the destination page on your website.

For Google, if you can create an enticing advert, and when people click buy a product or service from you, you are more likely to increase your ad budget. So the trend is towards more specific ads that don't over-promise. The key for an advertiser is to place highly specific, highly targeted adverts that give visitors exactly what they expect.

Here is a football team's worth of tips to help your AdWords performance.

1. UK Only!
You only sell to clients from the UK, so save yourself wasted clicks by specifying UK only in the account settings.

2. Put your keywords in your ad
If you include the targeted keywords in your headline and description, they will be displayed in bold, e.g. 'Energy Performance Certificates in Bath'. People look for what they have searched for, so make your ads stand out.

3. Get the headline right
The most important part of the ad. This might be the only part your reader looks at, so it needs to say everything. But you only have 25 characters. What about 'Energy performance certificates in Northampton'? Already 46 characters! Luckily, Google knows that EPC stands for energy performance certificate, so you're covered either way. So chopping down to 'EPCs in Northampton' gives 19 characters, giving us a bit more room to play with.

What about 'EPCs in NN2'? More specific to what someone might search for, but not very enticing. At least it gives us even more to put in something a little more salesy. What do people want from an EPC? They want things like speed, quality, value. Picking one of these, that gives us 'High-quality EPCs in NN2'. Not bad - but you can do better.

4. Remove excess fat
Most ad headlines work without some common words like ‘a’ ‘an’, ‘the’, ‘of’. Try and see what you can cut out to make more room for your keywords.

5. Call to action
Tell the reader what to do next (apart from clicking on the ad, obviously). Call for a quote, etc.

6. Test, test and test again
You can create multiple versions of the same ads, and Google will rotate them and show the best-performing ad more frequently. So experiment with your words, with capitalization, with the display URL, etc. Try really bland ads. Try ads filled with jargon. See what works the best. (This is called A/B testing, and there’s a whole series of posts behind it. Maybe another time.)

7. Choose a budget and stick to it
Don’t get carried away. It’s good to know that your ads are working, but don’t go overboard. But…

8. Track your enquiries
When people call or email, ask where they heard of you. (You should be doing this already.) If AdWords is providing lots of enquiries, consider upping the weekly budget by 10% or so.

9. Benefits, not features
You’re not accredited with BRE, or NHER. (Or whoever.) That doesn’t mean much to the reader. You’re accredited with the industry experts. You might be based in Swindon - good for you, but more importantly to the reader, you offer a next day service within the Swindon area.

10. Make the landing page relevant
You don’t necessarily want to send people to your homepage. By virtue of the fact they’ve searched on the appropriate keywords and clicked on your ad, you can assume a certain amount of knowledge and you can cut to the chase rather then hoping they’ll click through to the page you want them to. Question: should you consider creating a bespoke page for people that find you through Google AdWords?

11. Spy on your competitors
See what other energy assessors are doing, and see what the ones that rank well are writing. Can you get any ideas from them?

See also the ads to the left of this post. They are there through Google AdWords - I have no quality control over them. Are they any good? Are they just there because they bid lots of money or because they are actually good adverts? If they're advertising training, it's because they're advertising on the wrong keywords. Something you should be trying to avoid...

Lastly: Good luck!