Created: July 17, 2012 Last Updated: July 17, 2012
This screen image shows the Google logo. (Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)
We?re more than halfway through 2012 and I still find loads of small businesses that aren?t leveraging the power of search engine marketing (SEM) properly.?
\>");Small businesses are taking customers who are in a ?conversion-mindset? and sending them to general landing pages. Too many ads don?t accurately reflect the content of the landing page that the ad is driving to. Site links drive to an irrelevant page of a website. The list goes on and on ?
I?m not about to take you through the How To guide on SEM, nor am I going to teach you about Google Adwords and its various functions and capabilities. Instead, I am going to look at SEM from a broader perspective and provide you with insights into how to improve and refine your current SEM efforts. Small businesses generally are not flush with marketing dollars and these five tips will help you maximize those dollars you earmark for SEM.
With no further ado, here are my tips on how to get more out of your SEM dollars.
Stop Sending Your Traffic to General Landing Pages
Customers searching on the keyword phrase ?need dental implants? do not want to be sent to the homepage of a dentist?s website.?
Homepages do not provide the user with clear instruction and direction about which action to take. More importantly, a homepage is not usually relevant to the user?s query and will likely lead to a high bounce rate (users who visit that page and exit the site), as well as a lower quality score (will get into this later in the article). You, the business owner, are then charged for that click while missing out on that potential customer all because you sent him/her to the wrong landing page, which led to a bad experience and a bounce.
Search engine marketing is all about owning real estate on the search engine results page.
Search engine marketing is all about owning real estate on the search engine results page.
To build custom, tailored landing pages for your SEM campaigns, check out Unbounce.com?I absolutely love this solution. You have the ability to create simple, clean, intuitive landing pages in a matter of minutes at an affordable cost.
Advice: Be sure to fill in the proper title and metadata for each Unbounce landing page you create. Completing these allows search engines to read your site and thus assign a better quality score, leading to lower cost per clicks (CPC).
Leverage Ad Extensions
SEM is all about owning real estate on the search engine results page (SERP) and identifying where on the SERP you drive the best performance at the most efficient rate. To gain more real estate on Google, it behooves you to include ad extensions on your search ads. This provides users with more links and opportunities to engage with your ad, outside of just your standard text ad. Google now offers six ad extensions to append to your search ads.
? Location Extensions?allows you to dynamically attach your business address to your ads.
? Call Extensions?appears as a clickable business phone number in ads that appear on mobile devices with full Internet browsers.
? Sitelinks Extensions?allows you to show up to six links to pages from your website, beneath your text ad.
? Product Extensions?allows you to use your existing Google Merchant Center account to promote your products directly on your Google.com search ads.
? Social Extensions?Social Extensions link your Google+ page to your Adwords campaigns, so that all your +1?s get tallied together.
? Mobile App Extensions?this is the newest of the ad extensions. With this ad extension, users can see your ad promoting your app, and directly click to download it from the Android Market or iTunes App Store.
Track Everything
Nothing kills a new SEM test faster than campaigns, ad groups, and keywords that are missing valuable performance data. My one complaint about Unbounce is its inability to track leads at the keyword level. This platform accounts for and aggregates leads at the landing page level, which are tightly correlated to the different keyword groupings. This helps me deduce what type of keyword drove a conversion (for example a procedures keyword versus a general dentistry keyword).
The solution to this problem is to install a Google Conversion Tracking pixel on the Thank You page of each landing page. Once this is implemented (soon!), I?ll have much more granular insights into what keywords are driving conversions and which keywords are driving up costs within the account.
Bottomline: SEM is all about the data, and if you?re not tracking every piece of conceivable data within your account, then you?re missing out on potential opportunity and more importantly, are missing the complete ?story? behind the performance of the account.
Add Phone Numbers to Your Text Ads
I have found that through managing an online school and dentist?s SEM campaigns, prospects are more than willing to pick up the phone and call, instead of filling out a lead form.?
This has overwhelmingly been the case with my dental client. Adding Call Extensions takes two seconds; just punch in the business?s phone number and click Save. Take your SEM campaign to the next level by adding Google Call Forwarding Numbers. This enables your client?s phone number to show up on desktop and tablet devices, and not just mobile devices. Calls to a Google Call Forwarding Number are rerouted to your client?s business phone number.
Align the Messaging of Your Text Ads with Your Landing Pages
Google ranks your ad based on your bid (CPC) and your quality score. A high quality score means that Google ?thinks your ad, keyword, and landing page are all relevant and useful to someone looking at your ad.??
This relevancy is tied to a number of factors, including relevancy of the landing page to your text ad and the relevancy of the text ad to your keyword. Quality score is also affected by page load time (your page should load in less than 2 seconds), your keyword?s past CTR, your account history, and your geographic performance.
Make sure that when you?re crafting your ads, they align with the keywords that are within that particular ad group and the landing page you are driving that user to. If not, your CTR?s and conversion rates will suffer, as will your Quality Score.?
Get Busy Media is a blog and resource center that helps small businesses and entrepreneurs build smarter companies. For more information on how to jump-start your small business marketing, please visit www.getbusymedia.com or connect with us on Twitter, @GetBusyMedia.
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