Google Ads are not easy to get the hang of, and it’s a tricky balance between getting your ads right and making them stand out. With all the different features and options available on Google Adwords, you need to keep up with these best practices for campaign success.
The following Google ads best practices will help you set up an effective Google Ads account that produces high CTR rates.
How Google Determines Which Ads to Show
Let’s start by discussing how Google determines which ads show in search engine results pages (SERPs).
It does this based on Ad Rank, which is calculated from a combination of bid price per keyword multiplied by Quality Score. Your ad rank can be improved by increasing your bids or improving your quality score through better keyword targeting or relevant landing page content.
You should focus on improving your Ad Rank through these parameters rather than increasing ad bids alone. This is because the latter can result in lower quality scores for you and higher costs.
Let’s look at each of them individually:
Bid Price per Keyword
The maximum amount advertisers are willing to pay per click on an ad is called the bid price. The bid price is usually determined by how much advertisers believe a keyword will convert into business. This means that if advertisers feel a keyword will result in more conversions than others, they will likely increase their bid prices for those keywords.
However, over-bidding may not be worth it because Google will decrease the Quality Score for such ads. Competitors may also choose to outbid you, leading to a lower rank.
Keyword Quality Score
Google calculates the Quality Score based on how relevant your keywords are. The higher the relevance, the better the quality score.
While this sounds simple, there are several factors Google considers in deciding keyword relevance, and they include:
Estimated Click-Through Rate
While CTRs may not indicate whether your landing page content is any good, it does give Google a rough indication of how likely your ad is to interest users. It also shows whether there’s enough demand for the keyword you are using.
Quality and Location
Your ad will be shown to one or more locations if you bid on multiple locations. As such, its relevance depends on the number of competing ads and the quality score each ad has in those locations. Location also includes the keywords themselves.
Ad Relevance
The title tag and description used for your ad should reflect what’s being advertised. You want searchers clicking on your ads to associate with them when they arrive on your website.
Competitor Bids
Advertisers with higher Ad Rank get their ads displayed above those of advertisers with lower Ad Rank. But you can influence this factor by increasing your bids to the point that gives your ad enough relevancy and quality to beat other competitors’ ads.
Landing Page Relevance
Google will also take into account how relevant the landing page content is to the keyword. This means that your landing page needs to have content geared towards the keywords you are bidding on.
If your ads show up in a search for “shoes,” but your landing page is about pet food, Google will see this as a low-quality form of relevancy and lower your Quality Score.
Landing Page Quality
Google also considers how high-quality the landing pages of advertisers with higher Ad Rank are compared to those of advertisers with lower Ad Rank. You can improve landing page quality by providing relevant content targeted at users looking for what you offer—for example, advice articles or resources related to what you do.
Google Ads Best Practices for Campaign Success
If you’re struggling to increase your Google Ads campaign conversions, you need to make sure your ads are designed for success. The following seven Google display ads best practices will help you boost your Google ads campaign management:
1. Write a Compelling Ad Text
Your ad text is the part that appears above or below the search results. You have to make sure that it’s compelling enough for someone to click through and look at your website.
So, how do you write compelling ad text to get the best Google ads?
First, write short sentences. The best ad texts are those that get straight to the point and encourage click-throughs.
Second, use action words. Words like “free” and “now” can persuade your audience faster than any other words. So make sure you use them in your ads.
And third, include important keywords in the text of your ad. Include long-tail keywords for the right search terms. They will help improve your CTR rate because it makes you more relevant to what people are looking for on Google. But don’t overdo it, or you could annoy people by being too self-promotional.
2. Use Relevant Keywords and LSI Keywords
Relevant keywords give you more control over your ads. Relevant keywords help Google match your ad’s text to what someone is searching for on Google search results.
So if the person is looking for an online store that sells blue shirts, and you include the words “blue shirt” in your ad text, you are much more likely to get a click-through than if you simply used a general keyword like “shirts.”
To figure out which of your keywords are relevant, just look at how many people enter those terms into Google before purchasing from your site. If there are plenty of people looking for those specific terms, then chances are they will be interested in clicking through to your site.
Google Ads also has a feature called “LSI keywords,” which stands for Latent Semantic Indexing keywords. These are words that Google recognizes as being related to your target keyword. For example, “doormat” is an LSI keyword for “doormat” because Google understands that these two terms mean the same thing.
3. Write Clear-Ad Titles and Include Your Target Keyword in Them, Too
You want to catch people’s attention when they look at ads on Google search results pages. So, make sure you write clear titles that include your target keyword. But don’t overuse it.
If people get annoyed by the frequency of the keyword match, then your CTR rates may go down.
Also, add your target keyword to different title parts — like the beginning, middle and end — but do not overuse it. You just want to include enough of the key phrase so that you can still capture people’s attention.
4. Write a Clear Description with A Call-to-Action (CTA) Button
You have to make sure that your description text is clear and concise. It has to be long enough for people to read it, but not so long that they get bored or confused by what you are saying.
Make sure you explain why someone will want to click through and visit your site. Then include a “Call-to-Action” button at the end of your ad summary.
For example, if you sell blue shirts, asking people to buy a shirt might be an effective call-to-action because it shows them exactly what they can look forward to when they arrive on your site.
5. Optimize Your Ad Landing Page
Your ad landing page is the actual web page you send people to when they click on your ad.
This best practice for google search ads requires that you optimize this page for better conversions. You should make it clear what a visitor can expect once they arrive at your site. Also, have an action-oriented CTA (Call To Action) in place: sign up for a free trial, download a free ebook, or watch an introductory video.
6. Ad Placement
Placing ads in the right areas is an important Google Ads best practice.
For example, if your target customers are women who tend to visit sites like “WomensDay” or “Glamour,” then you should place your ads on these sites. It will help increase the likelihood of people clicking and visiting your site.
7. Improve Your Quality Score
A quality score is a number that represents the relevance of your ads to what people are looking for and the expected performance. This number may be low due to several reasons:
- Outdated site content
- Poor landing page quality
However, Google Ads also says that you can improve this score by increasing CTR (Click Through Rate). This means you’ll get more visitors who click on your ad when they see it in search results.
Improve Your Ads’ Performance With the Best Practices for Google Ads
The Google Ads best practices discussed above will help you get more traffic to your website and boost your sales, but you have to implement them well.
Therefore, we advise that you ask your digital marketing agency if they are following these tips. You should also make sure that the experts you hire to manage your campaigns are using them too.
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