Top 10 Google AdWords Mistakes to Avoid

Google AdWords is Google’s advertising platform which enables advertisers to promote their content, brand, website, products using search,  YouTube video,  doubleclick media,  display ads,  shopping feeds etc. to generate leads and acquire new customers. Ecommerce businesses who want to display their ads on Google and its advertising network needn’t wait for organic search engine rankings to increase Web traffic.

The basic principle on which AdWords works is that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. It’s called PPC advertising (Pay-Per-Click). So for anyone that’s trying to advertise their products, the PPC is a short cut and greatly minimizes the risk involved. To make AdWords work for you, you need to invest time and energy in addition to money.

When people say that AdWords doesn’t work for them, what it really means is that they are not knowledgeable in how to make it work. Here are some things that you can do to avoid Google AdWords common mistakes for better results in SERPs:

1. Have a Optimized Landing Page

You should always keep in mind that your homepage is different from your landing page; while your homepage is a great way to introduce your business to visitors and prospects, it’s your landing page that’s going to get the sales conversions. Your landing page specifies your campaign objective and is dedicated to achieve that, so be sure to customize it that way. Matching ad keywords to your landing page headline is one way of doing that.

2. Pay Attention to Your Landing Page Experience to boost your Quality Score 

Having realized your landing page is an important place to launch off from, you need to remember that nothing will compensate for a bad landing page experience—not even paid search traffic. Optimize your landing page and your landing page user experience (UX) to get better results in search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!.

3. Keywords are Important and Should Be Chosen Properly

Keywords are one of the most important ways that Google connects online visitors with content. The concept is simple enough; having users’ common search terms in your content helps to ensure that they find your website.

Keywords should be included at a natural frequency in your site’s content. They shouldn’t be “stuffed” as to appear unnatural but they should be regular enough that it’s clear what you want to be found for. Consider “long tail” keywords as a supplement to the obvious ones: A combination of many lower traffic keywords can often bring you more traffic than a few high traffic keywords.

Never forget to include negative keyword targeting. Negative keywords help streamline the ad and present it on relevant search result pages. This drives better traffic and leads to landing pages while improving Google AdWords.

Infographic Source: TechWyse

4. Loosely Bunched Keywords Don’t Pay

Just as broad keywords are not relevant to the business, loosely bunched keywords are a waste- AdWords penalizes you, you waste marketing dollars and have to pay more for each click. So create separate campaigns for your different keyword sets and run different test campaigns. Your quality score remains intact and cost per click also reduces.

5. Don’t Tackle Too Many Keywords at Once

Trying to do too many things at once backfires and so it is with keywords too. Choose your keywords carefully and make them work for you. Test keywords, nurture them and find out which are profitable.

6. Make Your Ads Work for You

Making ads work is hard work for they need to be nurtured constantly. With many clients to manage, some of them tend to go into the background. Adopt a workflow that makes it possible to work on the ads every week without wasting too much time. Check on your campaigns regularly and use opportunities that present themselves. Those ways you’re always up to-date and know which ones are working and which ones are not.

7. Promote Your Brands by Bidding on Them

You may be limited by a small budget or the search volume for your brand is not very high. Bidding on your brand keywords could help you make it to the first page in Google’s SERP—this is a great way to increase your reputation and build brand awareness.

8. Calculate Lifetime Value (LTV) of Customers

A customer is worth acquiring only if you earn more from them than you pay for acquiring them to ensure a positive return on investment  (ROI). It’s always  good to begin by calculating customer lifetime value first and then turn towards managing your campaigns return on ad spend  (ROAS). Your cost per conversion and overall acquisition cost must be managed carefully.

 

9. Know Your Competitors

Looking at your competitors’ landing pages, identifying the keywords they use and comparing them with your ad campaigns is very important. This gives you an idea about how to improve your landing pages, how to design better and how to use keywords. By testing new landing pages with the old ones you know where you can improve and get more conversions. Break your keywords into different ad groups and see how to improve on them.

10. There’s Always a Room for Ad Improvement

You may have created a great ad and don’t like to change it but the ultimate testing point is whether you ad is not ‘merely interesting’ but actually getting traction. Make your ads are compelling, highlight deals and product benefits and do anything to make it more striking.

Ecommerce businesses that venture into the world of paid search should remember to set the bar high and ensure that they get ahead of their competitors. If paid search isn’t working, then there’s a reason why it isn’t. So take steps to find out what went wrong and how to improve it asap.

It’s exciting to know that Google AdWords is evolving and some recent technology enhancements have been made on the Google AdWords platform including more precise dynamic  retargeting, better demographics and newly released Firebase mobile app analytics. This means advertisers can get more optimized advertising with higher ROI. Responsive display ads are about to make an entry and that’s a good thing for customers on the move. Search is to be included within Google maps and that means advertisers can now talk directly to all those people who are viewing the maps.