It’s all too easy to setup a basic Adwords account. You simply choose a few keywords which relate to your business offering, create an advertisement, pop across your first payment to Google… and off you go! Hey presto – welcome to the world of online advertising.

As 99% of businesses find out, it really isn’t that easy. It can be immensely frustrating, time consuming and more importantly, an open cheque made payable to Google Inc.

The key to creating a high impact PPC campaign is in the preparation. In fact, we need to go back to Marketing 101 to ensure your technology-driven advertising platform provides success for your business.

Focus… (we’re talking attention, not Fords…)

First and foremost, just what is it you’re attracting potential clients to? Generic and mundane advertising delivering business prospects to your home page where they’re greeted with a bog standard welcome message will not cut the cloth in the world of PPC advertising. You’ve got to give people what they’re looking for … your job is to know exactly what they ARE looking for… Google provides you with a host of keyword tools to quickly understand the volume of search around any particular product or interest group.

Take time to ensure your advertising speaks to your intended audience. Through their search query they’re telling YOU what they’re searching for – now sell it to them!

Targeting

If you’re based in Cornwall, do you really want to be attracting site visitors from the North or Scotland? If you’re not selling products online, are customers really going to make the effort to travel that extra distance?

It’s all too easy to set up your Adwords campaign without necessarily focusing on location. Google provide us with access to a host of adjustment tools to help refine location- targeting, right down to a local village or community. 40% of search that takes place on mobile is location-based so ensure your advertising reaches your target audience, not just based on what they want, but where they want it…

Give People What They’re Looking For

Okay, so far we’re now taking the time to build campaigns which match our target audience both relating to their search and their location. Now, let’s ensure we engage with our prospects by giving them the thing they’re looking for. If a search query relates to a specific product, don’t simply drop them on your homepage – it only causes frustration to the end user and wastes your budget. The search query and your matching keywords tell you what product or service they want – now, show the end user the courtesy of landing them on the correct page within your site. Simply changing the ‘Destination URL’ within your Ad Copy ensures the user finds what they’re looking for with ease. Google grade your advertising based on relevancy. You may have the most fantastic creative and keyword bidding strategy, but if all you’re doing is landing people on the same page for every advert you will be penalised by Google if your landing page isn’t relevant to the search query.

Optimisation

As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither was any highly successful Adwords campaign. Taking the time to ensure your advertising reaches the right audience, at the right time and with the right message not only pays dividends in terms of new business, you’re also rewarded by Google. Following the simple tips outlined above will set your campaign in the right direction. Google grade your advertising based upon the Click Thru Rate (CTR) of each individual keyword. From Google’s perspective, relevancy is graded by the frequency in which their users interact with your advertising. The higher the CTR, the greater the chance of your advertising costs being reduced. Google use a ‘Quality Score’ system which will reward your ad versus those of your competitors judged by your keyword’s Click Thru Rates. You don’t simply bid your way to the top of the Ad positions, you earn your way to the top.

Following Google Adwords best practice not only increases the enquiries through your website, it will help deliver great results at far, far lower costs.