More than a year ago, Google announced they were testing a new ability for users to see targeted ads, based on their previous online activities. More specific: if a user has searched in the past for cheap web design services then goes on a camping blog to read more about his hobby, with interest categories advertisers will be able to show their ads on other unrelated websites, thus having the opportunity of getting more targeted visitors on their ads.

The Google Display Network now accepts “interest categories” and any advertiser can take advantage of this new feature. This is a big news while although this new feature is at its beginnings, there are way more chances to get targeted traffic that, based on their previous searches/visited pages/, seem to be probably the best “targets” for your services/products.

How to take advantage of this new feature? Just head to “Ad Preferences” page and select the categories you consider for being the most appropriate ones for your business. Furthermore, you can decide to opt-out from the “interest categories” and display your ads only on highly related websites.

There are over 1,000 interest categories to choose from – mobile phones, tourism etc – so there are many hidden opportunities to expand your brand exposure. According to guys from Google Adwords blog, their beta advertisers have increased not only their brand exposure but also a shoe retailer managed to drive 400% more conversions with lower prices. All these due to the proper interest categories selected.

Pay Per Click programmes can bring you lots of new clients but also can empty your wallets with zero conversions . Many folks optimise their ads for getting more clicks, but what about conversion rates?

Here are some tips regarding how to improve conversion rates in your PPC campaign:

1.      Ad copy and headline

How many times have you searched for let’s say “Toyota headlights” and instead of getting relevant results from AdWords campaigns you get ads like “cheap headlights”, “discounted headlights” and so on? Most of the times they are somehow related to your query but not exactly what you were searching for. Ads like that do not generate clicks, or conversions.

2.       Landing pages

Landing pages are vital for conversions. It is not enough to use the perfect ad in your campaign if your landing page does not sell at all your product/service. Along the fact that your landing page should contain title related to the query and the price (recent studies revealed that “visible” prices contribute to higher conversions), your page should be very user friendly and also contain a call to action.

3.      Do not underestimate the power of Google Analytics

Always try to keep a look on the long tail keywords and on the ratio expenses/income. If you have a keyword that brings let’s say 200 visitors but only 2 bought your product than something is wrong and you are only losing money instead of earning. Always be sure to track long tail keywords and add others when you discover ones.

In our next blog post we will talk about different ways in which you can increase your click-through-rate for your PPC campaigns.

Following beta trials Google’s new Search-based Keyword tool is now set to become another invaluable tool in the bid for search ranking supremacy.

The tool, which now comes with a handy how-to-use guide, lets paid search advertisers see what keywords they may be missing out on based on searches on their site.

Essentially the Search-based Keyword tool gives you keywords that are highly relevant to your site but are not part of your AdWords campaigns.

This means that on-line businesses will be better able to include all the keywords that are relevant to your product or service in new campaigns – and thus improve the reach to a larger set of potential customers.

Google has also added some great customised features to the keyword search tool including language and country-specific results and ad/search share filters.

See https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/KeywordToolExternal

Managing Google Adwords is one of the many things that i find myself playing with on a daily basis and over the years, I have learnt of interesting tips on how to affect your all important enquiries.

The 2 main aspects of Google Adwords are the Conversion Rates which show how many of your sites visitors via Adwords have made an enquiry on your site and the CTR (Click Through Rate) which shows how many visitors have accessed your site via your Google Adwords add.

Both of these are important and ultimately affect the cost you will pay to have your site listed via the Google Adwords advertising medium. Over the coming months I will go in to more detail about the various ways to manage a Google Adwords campaign. Today, i will keep things simple and start with the useful basics.

To start with, you need to consider your budget. This is the amount you are willing to spend on Google per month. If you set this to a realistic amount, you know that this is the maximum you are willing to pay to list your site. There are a few factors which determine your position but mostly this comes down to your budget. If you pay more, you pretty much appear higher up. However, being No 1 on Google Adwords or being No 50 is pretty irrelevant providing you are getting enough visitors to your site to warrant the budget you have specified. To many Adwords users worry about being No 1 when it is your budget and click expectations that should be your main considerations.

Once your add is being displayed you can monitor on a daily basis the performance of your add. If you are receiving lots of visitors then you may decide you can lower your daily budget and or monthly budget. If you are not receiving enough you may decide to use different keywords or increase your budgets. Again, these are all aspects of Adwords which i explain in a later post.

To make things even more interesting there are the Conversion Rates to consider and if anything, these are the most important statistics you should be looking at. You may very well be receiving hundreds of visitors to your site but if these are not turning in to actual business or enquiries, something is wrong.

Google Adwords has a clever system whereby you can at least monitor your websites conversion performance with regard to online enquiries. This can be setup with some simple code which any website design company can assist with including of course, WebCreation UK. Once the code has been added you can monitor which of your visitors actually turn in to enquiries and even which keywords they used to find you and make their enquiry.

I hope the above has helped explain the difference between Conversion Rates and CTR’s. Later on i will explain further about the Google Adwords system and ways to utilise this fantastic marketing tool.

If you wish to discuss Google Adwords in further detail, by all means contact our team.

Cheers!