Let’s make one thing clear before we dive in: There is no one website hack that you can use to improve pay-per-click (PPC) results. Rather, great results from a PPC campaign are cumulative and come from ongoing efforts to tweak AdWords, content, SEO and other aspects of a successful business website.
3 Guiding Principles for Successful PPC Campaigns
Getting results from an AdWords campaign can take a while. Success requires careful attention and constant intervention. That said, there are three guiding principles that can help you achieve AdWords success a little faster.
- Focus on conversions and sales, not clicks. Unless the only reason you are conducting a PPC campaign is to improve numbers and build brand awareness—not a great reason to spend the money, actually—your bottom line is what matters.
- Be consistent in your copy. Make sure that the copy on your landing page matches the keywords in your ad, and make sure it targets conversion.
- Test early and often. Monitor your results carefully. Not every strategy is going to work as you hoped. Algorithm changes, market changes, inadequate content, geographical location, season of the year, the nature of your product and many other factors can influence your results.
Specific Tactics to Improve PPC Campaign Results
After ensuring that you are going in the right direction, there are several tactics things you can try that may improve your PPC results:
- Put your keyword in the headline and the body of the copy. The benefit of having the keyword in the headline is significant, and carrying it through into the copy proves to the reader and the search engines that your copy is relevant and on point.
- Ask questions in your copy. Searchers are using Google, Bing and others to find answers to their questions. By answering questions in your copy, you encourage searchers to convert to readers and then to customers.
- Consider bidding more for keywords when you begin a campaign. Everything must be aligned. Commit to making your ad relevant to the search term and your landing page relevant to the ad. Make sure visitors have a positive experience once they reach the landing page from the ad. Once all these things are in place, increase your bid, at least for a while until the ad proves itself. A higher bid does not always result in greater conversions, which is why you must follow the third principle above: monitor and test.
- Consider paying for ad extensions. These can help your click-through rate (CTR) and your placement in the search engine results page (SERPS). You can get extensions for reviews, links to your site, telephone calls, address and location, call-outs and other elements.
- Use the keyword in the URL. This is a basic, but often overlooked, strategy that can help in furthering your optimization efforts.
- Use negative keywords. For example, if you have an ad for Honda Civic car parts, you could use Toyota Prius as a negative keyword, because you are not selling Toyota Prius parts. You can learn which searches are incorrectly landing on your ad by selecting the Queries tab.
- Optimize your landing page. Pay attention to mobile usage, load speed and content quality. Read up on additional optimization techniques you can use to improve your landing pages.
Get Help With Your PPC Strategy
Implementing these strategies takes time. You can speed things along by working with an experienced PPC consultant. Call our firm today to learn how we can help you achieve your PPC goals.
