If you’re looking for advice on how to improve your company’s online advertising, then you’re in the right place.
Did you know that as many as 95% of 18-34 year old people follow brands via social media? And, how many times do you use Google or another search engine like Bing or Yahoo to search for products or services that you need or want? While some businesses can’t benefit from a particular digital marketing technique or platform, it’s very rare that a business can’t benefit in any way from a well thought out digital marketing plan.
Here are a few general tips that can help you improve your online marketing strategies:
1. Use Google AdWords to Your Advantage
There are a lot of fantastic Google AdWords features that you probably don’t even know exist.
One of the best features is called Ad Extensions. Ad Extensions make your ads appear larger because they provide more information abut your business, products/services, etc. that is displayed below your ad in search results. Some extension types include: location, review, structured snippet, callout, message and site links.
This article is too short to cover every type of extension and how they work, but we’ll tell you about our favorite because it works well for almost every type of business. Sitelink extensions allows you to add links to different pages of your website at the bottom of your Google advertisement. You can direct traffic to particular product or service pages that interest them or you can even feature a special or a call to action.
Popular choices include:
- Free Trial
- Get A Free Quote
- Find your nearest store
The best thing about these features is that they’re free to add and very easy to run. In fact, proper Adwords account configuration includes utilizing extensions properly. With that said, do not attempt to abuse or misuse ad extensions as Google will not approve your extensions to run if you don’t adhere to guidelines.
Shameless self-promotion: We are a Google Partner and we provide PPC Management services. If you aren’t seeing results from your PPC campaigns (or if you aren’t sure what you’re seeing) contact us for a free account review.
2. Register Your Negative Keywords
For those of you who don’t know, “negative keywords” are the search terms where you don’t want your ads to show up. Put simply; they’re keywords which are a waste of time and money.
Here’s a good example of how negative keywords can be used to optimize online ad performance: A private air charter company runs ads for the term “plane charter” so that their ads are displayed when people search that keyword. However, the company does not provide “free” or “cheap” private charter flights so they add the words “free” and “cheap” to their negative keywords. This tells Google Adwords to not display their ads when people type “cheap plane charter.” Without adding these negative keywords, their ads could be showing for the wrong audience and therefore the company could be wasting money on driving the wrong traffic to their website.
So, if you’re running broad or phrase match type keywords in your Adwords account, make sure that you maintain a negative keyword list. If you’re running exact match type then you don’t need to utilize this technique because your ads will only show for the exact search terms that you’re specified.
3. Have a Clear Call to Action
Each ad should always have a clear call to action. By this, we mean you have to effectively communicate to your potential customers the next step you want them to take. For example:
- Buy Now
- Request a Quote
- Get Your Free eBook
A lot of beginners get this wrong for some reason, but let’s take a closer look so that you can understand the importance of including CTAs in your ads. Here’s an ad for a local company that polishes concrete floors:
Polished Concrete Floors Tampa
Beautiful Concrete Floors
concretepolishedsolution.com
Transform Your Concrete Floors. Commercial,
Residential, Restaurants.
Now, let’s move a few things around and include a CTA:
Polished Concrete Floors Tampa
Get Beautiful Concrete Floors
concretepolishedsolution.com
Transform Commercial, Residential, Restaurants
Concrete Floors. Get A Free Estimate!
Of course, we would run both ads simultaneously to see which performs better, but we’ve rarely seen instances where ads without CTAs outperform ads that don’t have simple and direct CTAs. You are simply telling the person performing the search to take action and this best practice leads to more conversions.
Did You Enjoy This Blog Post on Online Advertising?
If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance you’re looking to grow your business by using internet marketing. If that’s the case, we’re confident you’ll find our other blog posts of interest. In our blog, we discuss everything from building an online audience to setting up successful social media marketing campaigns.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by learning online marketing then consider partnering with an agency or consultant.
Managing your own PPC, trying to keep your website updated and learning how each social platform works all while trying to measure the effectiveness of each campaign can be frustrating. Sometimes the best use of your focus is on doing what you do best, your business. And, allowing a digital marketing expert to handle your online marketing might be a better use of your time and money. If you aren’t sure, then get a completely free internet marketing evaluation (which will include actionable items you can use on your own).
Alternatively, please feel free to reach out and contact us about anything to do with online marketing. We’re always more than happy to help. Speak soon!
