As if paid advertising on Google wasn’t already incredibly valuable, new updates to the SERP have made the top spots even more lucrative. New display abilities, and new limitations put on organic results from the “snackpack” update have made visibility at the top of the SERP your ticket to fortune and fame. In keeping with the trend of discussing Google’s updates, and how important the top results are, we thought that we would bring you some wisdom as to how to dominate the rankings properly. AdWords, when used correctly is extremely valuable, but when used improperly, it can be a waste of money. Thankfully, you can get quality leads from AdWords by avoiding these 3 common mistakes that most people are making.
- Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you Google.
Nothing turns a potential customer off like visiting a page that promises them something only to pull the bait and switch, and not being offered what was promised. If your title or description says that you offer something that they are searching for, make sure your landing page is providing them the thing they want. Don’t make them search around for it, and certainly don’t bombard them with completely different services. Customers don’t like that, and will feel betrayed if you start to upsell them on things that they don’t want. AdWords stats show that nearly 30% of people click the top result on mobile, but if you aren’t exactly what they are looking for, they will bounce.
- Speaking of landing pages: Make sure they target the customer.
If a user clicks through to your page, the place that they land is called – you guessed it – a landing page. The importance of these pages cannot be overstated. This is where your sale is made. If your ad says flights from New York to Somalia for $349, then your landing page needs to show them that flight, and how to get that price. Properly targeted landing pages greatly reduce your bounce rates. Take these numbers to heart: a simple landing page with 1 call to action and nothing else has a bounce rate of between seventy and ninety percent, while a properly targeted retail web page had a bounce rate between 20-40%. When your page shows exactly what your ad says, the only customers you will get are the valuable ones.
- Right place, wrong time.
You need to get into the nitty gritty of your demographic. Find out who they are, and what time they are going to be searching for you. If you are a music shop that caters to guitar players, then running ads at 7:30 AM is not going to get any leads when 75% of your demographic is just going to bed. On the flip side, if you are a B2B company, then running your ads at night when people aren’t thinking about work anymore probably isn’t the best idea ever. AdWords can let you tailor your strategy by time of day, and even let you change the pricing plan so that you pay more during your best hours. There are plenty of tools at your disposal for calculating which time of day is best for you built right into the software. It’s all about timing.
Using Google AdWords is a no-brainer. The amount of money spent each year on advertising on this engine is in the tens of billions, and that’s for good reason. With click-through rates of nearly 30% for the top result, and nearly 1/3rd of all digital advertising coming through this one website, you can see that doing things the right way is incredibly lucrative. Avoid these 3 common AdWords mistakes, and start driving quality leads now.
