Tamara Weintraub — December 28, 2016 Follow @tamweintraub
For many local businesses, running a PPC advertising campaign is easier said than done, even if you already have a handle on the basics like picking keywords and creating a budget. As algorithms change, trends emerge, and the effectiveness of tactics shift right under your nose, you may find yourself struggling to keep up. Try these tips to give your search engine marketing a competitive edge and deliver more leads from your strategy.
1. Turn on Ad Extensions
Copy-only text ads just don’t set you apart from your competitors, nor are they always compelling enough to get the click from searchers. Enabling ad extensions can give you a leg up on the competition and entice searchers to learn more. Not only do ad extensions give you more space in the search results to promote your business’ products and services, but they are now factored into whether your ad will even show at all. Local ad extensions, for instance, are required for your ad to show up in local and map search results on Google. So, make sure you’re taking advantage of this option for your PPC campaigns.
2. Optimize that Landing Page!
You need a great PPC landing page to turn people who clicked on your text ad into actual leads. If your landing page offers a poor user experience, prospects will not want to contact you, and it could also result in a lower Quality Score. instead, you should have a landing page that loads quickly on all devices, is clean and easy to read, and most of all, has plenty of conversion paths for your site visitors. Having a prominent phone number and a call to action on your website or landing page are critical for generating leads from search engines and digital marketing in general.
3. Keep an Eye on Your Quality Score
Quality Score is a huge component of how your Google PPC campaigns perform. So, it’s important to regularly track how well it’s doing. If you already have a high Quality Score – meaning your text ads and landing page are relevant to the keyword you’re bidding on, keep up the good work! But if your Quality Score for a particular keyword is less than 5, chances are that campaign isn’t going to bring you the number or kind of leads you want. So, make sure your keywords, ads, and landing pages
4. Think Beyond Google
We love Google. Google is great. But it’s not the only search engine out there, and shifting some of your PPC advertising budget to other publishers can really benefit your business and bring you more leads. In fact, Bing covers about 20% of the market share when it comes to online search. So, by bidding on Bing ads, your advertising is reaching a broader audience that may be interested in your products and services. And in some cases, a costly, competitive keyword on Google can be much less expensive on a search engine like Bing, giving your ad a better chance at showing up for a related search query. This can result in more quality clicks for your investment.
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