Better PPC Management
In recent years, one of the bigger changes in pay per click advertising has been the importance that the PPC engines put on Click Through Rates. How often and ad gets clicked is now a major part of the quality score algorithms of the PPC engines. Paying particular attention to these numbers and fine tuning them can help you rise up in the rankings, but also even lower your costs per click.
There are a lot of ways to improve click through rates. Most of them require some rolling up of the sleeves and some consistent effort. If you are not up for that, then consider hiring a PPC management company to do that work for you.
Relevant Keywords
Think about the user who is searching the phrase you are advertising on. The more you can focus your ad to them, the more you can drive up our CTRs. This may mean including the keyword phrase into your actual ad copy. So, if you have built yourself and account with a couple ad groups stuffed with keywords, you are in a bit of a bind. You want to reach the searcher and nothing does that more by being as relevant as you can with an ad that speaks to that individual keyword.
If you do have your campaigns set up with few ad groups packed with keywords, an account overhaul may be needed. Not what you wanted to hear, I know, since it may mean starting from scratch. But the effort is worth it. Again, if this is too much work, this is where a professional PPC expert can help.
Negative Keywords
As Click Through Rates are more vital to success in PPC, so too are negative keywords. Negative keywords are words and phrases that you want to exclude your ads from appearing on. If you sell software, you may want to make “free” a negative keyword, for example, so you don’t appear under keyword variations of people looking for free software. Negative keywords not only save you from unwanted clicks that cost you money, but unwanted impressions. If you reduce those impressions, your CTRs will rise.
Ad Copy Improvement
Probably the most labor-intensive, but important items that can make an impact on your CTRs is better ad copy. And while things like a call to action or a value statement of some kind are key…split testing is even more critical.
Running multiple ads for each keyword — split testing — may seem like a simple process, but there are a few things to take into consideration. You don’t want to end a test too soon or too late. You don’t want to test for a few weeks straight and then not test for a few months. You want a consistent, constant effort. Over time, this pays off very, very effectively. If you don’t make a commitment to it, you won’t see much of an impact.
While there is a lot more to PPC optimization than improving your CTRs, it is certainly a good place to focus on. If your business is in a competitive marketplace, where keywords are expensive, you ought to consider protecting and refining your investment by hiring a professional PPC management company. If that’s not a possibility, then make that commitment to more time and effort. It will make an impact.
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