Google ads can be a daunting area to get into. Its options are endless, making it difficult to know where to start. Because of this, we’ve put together a quick list of some best practices to keep in mind to help give you a head start in your journey:
Try to find your keyword niche
Using broad, highly competitive keywords is an effective way to lose money in Google Ads.
Keywords like these can be good at the beginning of your campaign. Yet, the idea is to replace them over time as your campaign matures and you begin to develop a coherent idea of your audience.
Keep a close eye on the click-through rate for each ad and note the keywords. Ideally, you are looking for low-competition niche terms that still attract traffic.
Keep an eye on your quality score
Your quality score is one of the metrics that determine your ad’s placement. It’s an estimate of the quality of your ads, landing pages, and keywords as determined by Google Ads.
Sometimes your quality score can seem arbitrary. The above factors, despite seeming perfectly fine, could be deemed ‘low quality’ by Google Ads; Google doesn’t always get it right.
Frustrating as this may be, it’s still important to consider your quality whenever writing new ads.
Use extensions
Extensions are free real estate on your ads. Advertisers use them to highlight sections of their website, providing a shortcut to pages they want searchers to visit. See below for an example:
There’s no guarantee that all of your extensions will appear at any one time (if at all) – this is determined by your ad’s ranking. Nevertheless, it’s always worth adding as many extensions as possible as they increase the size of your ad at no extra cost.
Use negative keywords
Want to see if a Google Ads campaign is badly run?
Enter a business’s name into Google. Do you see an ad for that very same business? Is it right above that business’s first-place rank in organic search results? If yes, that advertiser may as well be scattering their Ads budget to the wind.
Avoid this by using negative keywords.
So what are negative keywords? Negative keywords allow advertisers to list what they don’t want to rank for. For example, say you’re running a search campaign for a website that sells gumboots. It might be a good idea to add ‘soccer’ as a negative keyword.
Adding that negative keyword will help ensure people who want to buy soccer boots don’t click through to a website selling gumboots. As an advertiser, it’s important to make sure you’re not spending your ad budget on clicks that are unlikely to result in a purchase.
Be patient
Successful digital marketers are good at playing the long game.
Ultimately, your success in Google Ads is determined by your ability to create a sales funnel that, after some time, will essentially be able to run itself.
This takes patience and persistence, as whittling down your audience to find an exact niche – the ideal keywords, bid strategies, and audience types – can be a lengthy process. Those that stick with it, check in every day, and constantly seek to improve, become the Dons of Google Ads.
Have a good website and landing page
No matter how good you are at Google Ads, all your hard work could still fail if you’re working with a badly built or designed website.
Site performance is one of the factors Google Ads takes into account when determining your ad’s rank. So, a slow site can dramatically decrease the likelihood of your ad being seen.
This means design, user experience, and web copy need to be up to scratch. Your ads could be engaging customers only for your site’s copy to lose them.
A good website is essential to any halfway decent Google Ads campaign.
Does your website need some TLC? We can help.
Get in touch with the team at Meta Digital for a no-obligation first meeting.
