Website Design Articles :: Google Adwords

Adwords: How do I make my ad relevant?

Making your Adwords ads relevant requires continual tweaking and monitoring of your campaigns and ad groups.

The following tips will help you create effective ads that generate higher click-through-rates (CTR) and lower your cost-per-click (CPC).

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1. Make sure you target the right audience - by selecting the language and countries appropriate to your business.

2. Use exact match and phrase match keywords - by enclosing your keyphrases in either square brackets eg [website design] or double quotes eg "website design".

Exact match (square brackets) means that your ad will only be displayed when the search is for the exact keyword phrase you have included within the brackets - ie no extra words.

Phrase match (double quotes) means your ad will be displayed for searches where your keyphrase is included along with other keywords. For example if your phrase match is "website design" your ad will be displayed when someone searches for 'cheap website design and hosting'. It will not be displayed if there are other words in between eg 'cheap website hosting and design'.

Therefore be creative in your choice of keywords and phrases. See Choosing Good Keywords for more information.

3. Match your ad to your keywords - by including the targeted keywords in the headline and the description of the ad. Google will highlight matching keywords in bold, catching the user's attention as they look for the terms they have entered in their search.

4. Remove common words - such as 'a', 'an', 'in', 'on', 'it', 'of', etc. Remove every word that does not absolutely need to be in the ad. With only 25 characters for your headline and 35 for each line of description you need to make every word count.

5. Deter freebie hunters - by including the price of the product or service in your ad. It may reduce your CPC but you won't be wasting your valuable budget on those who will never become customers.

6. Always write multiple ads for your ad groups - by testing two ads simultaneously, you can monitor their performance (known as split-testing) and keep improving on the under-performing ad.

You will need to edit your campaign settings to turn off optimised ad serving (under 'How often to show my ads') so that your ads are shown equally. Optimised ads means that Google will show the ones which perform best which is no good while you are testing their performance.

Let the ads run for a few days and check which one produces the higher click through rate. Google displays the details under your list of keywords on the Ad group page. Tweak the weaker performing ad in small steps - perhaps by swapping the description lines. Continue monitoring and tweaking as before. Your aim is to constantly try and beat your best performing ad.

7. Sell the benefits of your service - for example, 'free hosting', 'free domain name' etc.

8. Include attention grabbing words in your ad - eg 'Free', 'New' etc. avoiding unnecessary capitalisation or excessive exclamation (!!!) which will be disallowed.

Include power words or call-to-action phrases that provoke emotion and encourage readers to respond eg 'sale ends tomorrow', 'special offer', 'download free trial' etc.

9. Sell Your USP (Unique Selling Point) - what makes your product or service better, or different from the competition? Spell it out in your ad eg 'small business specialists'.

10. Direct potential customers to the relevant page - if an ad is for a specific product or service, then link your ad to that page on your site (known as the landing page). Your visitors are busy - they don't have time to search your site or admire your home page. If what they see first is relevant they will almost certainly look around.

To sum up - your return on investment requires effort and attention. Don't become complacent - and keep testing different keywords and ads to improve your conversion ratio. It will pay dividends in the end.