If you’ve been following our series on pay-per-click advertising, you’ll already have generated and organised your keyword list and thought a bit about keyword match types. So, now it’s time to settle down and write your first collection of adverts. I’d start with making sure you’ve got a strong cup of tea, something decent on the iPod, and your keyword spreadsheet to hand… Once you’ve got that sorted, here are the rules of engagement.
Differentiate yourself
There’s a lot of competition out there, so have a think about what makes your particular products and services unique – are you the cheapest in the market? Do you have the widest range of widgets? Do you have an amazing price promise? Try to get these features into your ads to help you stand out from the crowd.
Keep it brief.
You’re limited to 25 characters for your headline, 70 for the main body of your ad, which will be split across two lines when it appears in Google, and 35 characters for a display URL (this doesn’t have to be the full destination URL if that’s too long, but it should be on the same domain and look relevant). You’re looking for snappy, concentrated little sales pitches. If you can’t say everything you want to say about a particular product in one ad…
…Create variations.
Since each ad has such limited space, you can’t expect one ad to appeal to all people or promote all aspects of your product or service. Three variations of each is a good start. This is the place to experiment with different approaches to promoting the same thing – you’ll be able to view the sales stats later on and see which is the most successful.
Keep your headlines relevant.
You’ve already identified your keyword search terms, so make sure you match your headline to the search terms within each ad group.
Include a price in the headline
People are always enticed by a strong pricepoint, so if yours looks competitive there’s a good chance you’ll get the clicks. But there is a bit more to it than that – if someone clicks on an ad with a price in it, it’s likely they’re happy to pay that price – which means you won’t be paying for clicks from people who’d rather pay less. Plus, everyone loves a discount so if you’ve got a special offer running then phrases like ’save now’ and ‘X% off’ are a great idea.
Don’t forget your call to action!
Your ads will work better if you tell people what you want them to do, so include active phrases like ‘reserve’, ‘research, and ‘discover’. A sense of urgency helps, too, so try phrases like ‘Book now’, ‘Buy now’ and ‘Sign up today’. As Google points out, ‘find’ might be relevant but it doesn’t actively encourage a sale!
Target your links.
You’re much more likely to get conversions from your ads if they send customers directly to the most relevant page than if you send them to your homepage and expect them to rummage for the information they were after. Our general web hosting ads, for example, send people directly to the web hosting section of the website rather than pointing them at the www.daily.co.uk homepage.
Here’s a bit more from Google on creating your PPC ads
Next time, we’ll be delving into the money side of things with some thoughts on bid prices and budgeting. As ever, leave a comment or drop us a line if there’s something you’d like us to cover.
