No matter how savvy and on-the-button your Google AdWords consultant may be, if your website isn’t up to scratch, all that hard pay per click (PPC) work will be for nothing when the visitors your PPC campaign brought to your website disappear without a trace.

In fact, if your website isn’t going to convert PPC visitors into buyers, the time, money and energy you and your Google AdWords consultant/agency/team have ploughed into a great PPC campaign may be for nothing...

Of course, not every visit is going to convert into sales, but there are literally hundreds of ways that you can boost your conversion rates. In this post we’ll be looking at just three of the most fundamental changes you should consider if you’re hoping to become a conversion champion and squeeze every last drop out of your PPC!

(A quick note: Although this article covers website conversions from a PPC/AdWords angle - after all, you don't want to have to pay for traffic that doesn’t convert! - a lot of this could equally apply to traffic arriving to your site from non-paid search, too!)

Clarity
The first and most important thing you need to learn and never forget is that human beings are fickle and impatient creatures. The sheer accessibility of information on the Internet - at the click of the button - only makes matters worse. Visitors are not going to hang around if you do not give them strong, clear messages about who are you, what you do and what you’re selling, so be clear and don’t overcomplicate!

Keep your homepage short, sweet and to the point. Include strong images which show visitors that they have come to the right place for what they’re looking for but absolutely do not overcomplicate matters. However, if a better page is available as a landing page then make sure it’s the landing page!

By ensuring that your visitors know exactly what they’re looking at you’ll keep the ones you want and lose those you don’t.

Keep track of stats
Your Google AdWords person should be keeping their beady eye on your data in order to constantly improve your campaign and boost traffic, but these stats can also help you tweak your website into conversion perfection. Data from enquiry forms and shopping baskets will tell you which PPC ads brought visitors to your site and which ones converted into sales.

As an example, imagine you’re selling your clairvoyance service through your website (although if you can actually see the future, you’re probably not going to need a consultant’s help)! One of the keywords your campaign is targeting is “cheap clairvoyance service” but unlike your other keywords, that particular keyword just isn’t converting into sales, yet it is bringing in tonnes of traffic and your service really is cheap.

In all likelihood, your website isn’t making it clear enough just how cheap your service is. Highlight the key sales points that lure in visitors and you’ll turn even more visitors into customers.

Hand-holding
Visitors might be fickle, but they also need an awful lot of attention. Make sure you provide clear, helpful guidance to walk them through the sales journey on your website and you’ll find that your conversion rates soar. Make contact information easy to see and easily accessible, so they don’t end up leaving frustrated if they can’t find your phone number...

At Liberty Marketing, our PPC and Google AdWords consultants are experienced online marketing experts, who can advise you on how to boost your conversion rates whilst bringing you all the traffic you need to make your business a success on the Internet. Fill out an enquiry form today or get in touch on 029 2076 6467 or at info@libertymarketing.co.uk to learn more!

As a Pay Per Click (PPC) advertiser using Google AdWords, you can select whether your adverts show for broad searches relating to your keywords or very specific searches that match your terms exactly. By choosing from a range of ‘keyword match types,’ you can tactically enhance your campaigns and improve the quality of the traffic that you attract to your website.

In AdWords, there are five different keyword match types to choose from:

Broad Match

Broad match - as you might ascertain from the name - returns a broad range of results originating from your keyword or phrase. Your adverts will automatically run for keyword variations including synonyms, singular and plural forms, common misspellings and even other phrases that contain the selected keywords. Although assigning broad match to a campaign can help to increase traffic, it may also result in wasted spend, attracting clicks from people looking for products or services your business does not supply.

"Phrase Match"

By placing quotation marks around particular keywords, Google will only display adverts when the search term entered contains the keywords in the same order as they are listed in the ad. For example, when bidding on a keyword which is written in quotation marks - e.g. "car insurance" - you will show for those keywords in that order. However, you will also bid on search terms such as 'cheap car insurance', 'car insurance quotes', 'car insurance policies', etc.

[Exact Match]

Exact match is the most specific keyword match type. By placing your keyword or phrase in square brackets - e.g. [car insurance] - Google will only show the advert for that exact term, without including any variations.

-Negative -Match

Negative matches are an excellent method of reducing the amount of wasted spend your ad campaign generates. The addition of a negative sign shows Google that your ad is not to be returned for any search including that keyword. Using the car insurance example, by adding the negative keyword '-sports', your advert will not be returned for "sports car insurance" searches.

+Modified +Broad +Match

The most recent addition to AdWords, modified broad match allows you to apply a more specific version of broad match. By putting a plus sign in front of a keyword or key phrase, you can tell Google exactly which keywords you would like to bid for, ensuring you show for a range of terms without appearing for those which aren’t related to the products or services you sell. For further information on modified broad match, check out this blog post, when we wrote about its initial launch in the UK.

Done well, pay per click advertising can really help to drive more traffic to a website at a minimal expense. However, unfortunately, we’ve seen many people give it a go themselves, only to set up their campaigns with the wrong keyword match types in place. Our PPC Team have years of experience in setting up and managing campaigns in a plethora of industries and therefore know the do’s and don’ts with Google AdWords.

For more information, please visit our dedicated pay per click advertising page or call 029 2076 6467 today.

As a website owner, if you are only using natural search or Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising to generate traffic to your website then you could be missing out on a significant number of visitors. The majority of search engine marketers are of the opinion that a search engine marketing campaign budget should be split between PPC advertising and a more prolonged SEO (search engine optimisation) strategy. The importance of both can be illustrated by the fact that - even with a #1 search engine ranking - up to 25% of the traffic that lands on the results page for your key terms will click on the PPC listings. On the other hand, there are plenty of online consumers who completely disregard the PPC listings, so without a natural placing on the rankings, a website only involved in PPC advertising will miss out on a vast proportion of the total market.

Of course, as always, there are exceptions to the rule. In market sectors that experience particularly high levels of competition, it may be that the CPC (cost per click) is so high that smaller operators simply cannot compete. In this case, it may be more worthwhile to spread the cost over a far longer time span by opting for an SEO strategy, which will help your site to show in the organic results over time.

In many cases, website owners will invest in a PPC advertising campaign to create a revenue stream whilst they wait for their SEO campaign to drive the site up through the rankings. The amount of time an SEO campaign will take depends on a wide number of factors, although obviously the available budget and competition already in the market will heavily influence the time span.

Before spending too much money on a PPC advertising campaign, it is important to ensure that you understand the process intimately, or hire a team of professionals who can do this for you. Without very carefully tracking PPC advertising campaigns, if you are operating in a high CPC market or competing for a high volume search phrase then you could have spent thousands before you know it - so take care!

If you’re looking to control your advertising spend whilst getting a good return on your investment, Google AdWords – Google’s own paid advertising platform – is a good choice. No matter how much time or money you have available, AdWords can help you to reach new customers and get your business noticed.

Google give subscribers to the service complete control over the positioning of their ad, advertising spend, and also visibility of the impact of that ad and whether it is performing well or needs to be changed. AdWords allows businesses to reach customers at the exact moment they are searching for a product or service. Your ad will be displayed in a prominent position and the best thing is you only get charged when somebody clicks on your add.

There are many benefits of using Google AdWords:

• The service allows you to reach people who are searching for your services or products – this is great as these people are in the mood to take action and are more likely to click on a prominent ad
• You can choose exactly how or where your ad appears
• You have complete control over your AdWords spend – if an ad isn’t working particularly well, you can pull it and review your advertising once again
• There are no contracts and no up-front payments – you only pay when somebody clicks on your ad

Google AdWords works by using cost-per-click bidding, hence why it’s also called ‘Pay Per Click’ (PPC) advertising. That means you are charged whenever somebody clicks on your ad and not the moment your ad is published. Basically, there are a number of bidding options available to you. You can choose to set a monthly budget and Google will never charge above this rate, or you can set an unlimited budget.

AdWords also gives you complete visibility of your ad’s performance. Not only can you see how many customers are connecting with you, but you can also see where they are coming from and the time of day they visited. This information is invaluable when it comes to perfecting your website and how your ads are worded. AdWords also gives you access to tools that allow you to improve and edit your ad in order to increase its effectiveness.

Part of creating your ad will involve the selection of your ad’s wording. You’re going to need to get creative here as Google only allows a short ad, but with the clever use of keywords you can get your point across in just a few words. Google also has a Keyword Tool that will help you pick out the best for your business.

All in all, Google AdWords is a great service if you are looking for a cost-effective and controlled method of advertising. Unlike many other advertising services, you will not be charged unless your advertising campaign is effective.

Are you interested in Pay Per Click advertising for your business? Why not contact one of our Google AdWords consultants today?

Don’t let it be said that we aren’t willing to share here at Liberty. Yes we do have our own team of pay per click advertising specialists and yes they are extremely good at what they do, however, we are still willing to spend a little bit of time compiling this list of common pay per click advertising mistakes you should avoid like the plague should you decide to run your pay per click advertising campaign in-house.

Analyse your results

A pay per click advertising campaign is for life, not just for Christmas. Granted that’s a poor use of metaphor but it does help to emphasise just how important it is to look after your pay per click advertising campaign. You shouldn’t simply set it free to roam; it needs constant care and nurturing. All those statistics enable you to fine tune your campaign and cut off the fat, leaving a lean, streamlined and effective campaign.

Take your time over keyword choice

Choose your keywords wisely. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that a more expensive keyword is a better keyword. Conduct thorough research. You never know, you might unearth a gem! Sometimes niche keywords produce the most lasting results and the more targeted your choice, often the less expensive the bid.

Give your ads a chance

Don’t go chopping and changing your pay per click advertising campaign when you start to panic that you aren’t receiving enough clicks. To establish a true picture of the success of an advert, even if it’s destined to fail, it is essential to give it every chance. By leaving adverts for a good amount of time you will eliminate any element of doubt. Such an advert can then be removed from your future pay per click advertising strategy with certainty.

The top spot is not reserved for the biggest spender

Pay per click advertising can be a great leveller. Do not make the mistake of assuming that by blowing the competition out of the water with a high bid, top spot is guaranteed. Google is far too clever for that. Your bid will be considered alongside the wording of your ad and the quality of your landing page. Keep the standard high or prepare to be usurped!

If you’d rather trust the proven expertise of pay per click advertising specialists, Liberty Marketing’s in-house team benefit from the experience gained whilst managing over 200 campaigns.

If you believe the adage there is no such thing as bad traffic, you could well be wasting a good proportion of your Google AdWords spend by neglecting to add negative keywords.

Negative keywords can be defined as those terms which are not relevant or associated with the products or service being offered. Negative keywords can pose problems, as often a term which is relevant to your industry can also be used widely within another.

An example of the importance of a Google AdWords consultant identifying negative keywords can be seen in the following instance:

If, as a dedicated Google AdWords consultant, you are looking to attract new customers to your Pay Per Click service, you might choose to run an ad campaign with the search term ‘increasing traffic’ featuring heavily. However, traffic is a term more widely associated with the congestion of our roads, and as such your ad will likely be clicked on not just by individuals looking for a Google AdWords consultant or methods or increasing traffic via a PPC campaign, but also individuals trying to work out how long it’s going to take to get to work in the morning.

If your ads are attracting clicks from people looking for an entirely different service, then not only will you receive poor conversion scores, your cost per acquisition will also be far higher than it should be.

So how do you identify negative keywords?

• Keyword research
  As Google AdWords consultants will doubtless be all too aware, you should never dive into a campaign without having completed thorough keyword research. You will be surprised by how many of the terms you assume will be most popular actually receive a low search volume, with other industry specific keywords mopping up most of the traffic. There are a number of keyword tools that can you help you to identify negative keywords and they are all simple to use so there really is no excuse.

• Take a look at the search results
  The most popular search engines now have a feature which offers keyword term recommendations as you type your keywords into the search bar. This can help to identify other terms you have neglected to consider.

• Look at industry literature and use your intuition
  If you are a Google AdWords consultant operating in-house then you are likely to know your industry inside-out, including all of the most industry specific terms. However, sometimes when you are so involved in a project it becomes difficult to see the wood from the trees. Taking a step back and approaching the industry assuming zero knowledge can help you indentify terms you may have overlooked.

There are plenty of other strategies you can use to identify negative keywords, but obviously our team of Google AdWords consultants have to keep some of their resourceful methods to themselves. For further insight or a no obligation quote, please call our Google AdWords consultants on 029 2076 6467.

As a result of numerous requests from online advertisers, Google AdWords has offered ad group level impression share metrics for the Search and Display Networks, making it easier to identify, analyse and track the success of your highest performing ad groups, helping you to ensure your ads capture the maximum number of impressions.

Here at Liberty, our Pay Per Click advertising team had been suffering from sleepless nights for some time, unable to dampen their excitement and anticipation at having three new columns on their ad groups tab to play with.

The three new columns responsible for causing such excitement are:

• Impr. Share – this tab details the percentage of impressions you received as a proportion of the impressions you were eligible for.
• Lost IS (Rank) – this column identifies the number of impressions you lost due to your Ad Rank.
• Exact Match IS – (Search Network only) shows the percentage of impressions received for searches that exactly matched your keyword divided by the estimated number of exact match impressions you were eligible to receive.

In terms of Google AdWords, it seems it never rains but it pours. Pay Per Click advertising specialists are also happy to see the further addition of an update to the algorithms, ensuring more accurate campaign impression share metrics. This has brought about additional changes that PPC advertising professionals will need to keep abreast of.

• Improved campaign level statistics – an improvement in the algorithms has not only improved impression share metrics, it has also updated all erstwhile campaign-level impression share metrics dating back to May 2011. However, as a consequence of this change, you are no longer able to see campaign-level share metrics prior to May 2011.

If you’re looking to make the most of your PPC advertising campaign, the experienced and professional team here at Liberty will put their expertise to good use making sure you receive the very best value from each and every penny you spend.

If you want to learn how Pay Per Click advertising works and see what makes Google AdWords one of the most popular advertising platforms in the world then join us at our latest joint training course with Marketing Tom Media.

On the 3rd and 4th November in the ESIS conference centre in South Wales, Gareth Morgan, Managing Director of Liberty and Alun John of Marketing Tom Media, will be teaming up to offer another 2-day Pay Per Click Masterclass.

The course will look at everything from the history of search engine advertising and the theory behind Pay Per Click, to advanced AdWords uses, such as the display network and ad extensions. Attendees will be shown how to choose keywords, structure an account, write adverts, pick keywords, manage bids, and a whole lot more!

This training will benefit those new to AdWords as well as existing advertisers that want a refresher or a look at additional options.

Full details and a booking form can be found here. We hope to see you there!

Today Google has introduced a new feature of Ad Sitelinks - embedded ad sitelinks - which brings targeted links to within the advert itself. e.g...

How does it work? There are no additional lines available for the ad text. Alternatively, text in your advert that exactly matches one or more of your existing sitelink extensions in that campaign will automatically be linked with that sitelink’s URL. Allowing potential visitors to pick part of the advert that applies to their interest and visit the most specific page. 

As always, there are restrictions on when and where these extensions can be shown. First of all, you must have active sitelinks within your chosen campaign and your advert must appear above the search results. However, the embedded sitelinks will only appear for adverts that do not meet one or more of the requirements for the traditional set up – details here.

A recommendation made by the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) could lead to restrictions on bidding on competitors' brand names and trademarks in Google AdWords.

The adviser recommended that the ECJ should rule against Marks & Spencer for bidding on keywords such as "interflora" as well as variations including misspellings of the trademark and phrase versions including "interflora flowers."

Interflora, who started taking legal action against Marks & Spencer over two years ago, has been unhappy that M&S were paying Google to appear in the Sponsored Links section of the search engine results for its own name. They argued that as M&S' adverts bore no relevance to Interflora, they were taking an "unfair advantage of [their] brand, in breach of trade mark law."

Evidently, the Advocate General agrees, stating that a brand should be allowed to stop a competitor from advertising on its own name as a keyword "in the case where that ad does not enable an average internet user, or enables the said user only with difficulty, to ascertain whether the goods or services referred to in the ad originate from the proprietor of the trademark or an undertaking economically connected to it or from a third party." In other words, if an advert could be confusing and has nothing to do with the brand keyword being searched, then they should not be targeting that particular keyword. After all, a searcher may think that M&S' advert appears when they've searched for Interflora because they're associated with each other or working together.

The potential ruling's implications

The Advocate General's ruling may be non-binding, but it is a signal that the ECJ is likely to lean in that direction and rule in favour of Interflora and against M&S. If so, this landmark case could affect online advertisers throughout Europe when it comes to competing with their competitors' names on Google AdWords.

Bidding on competitor brand terms is not new. In addition to being a practice where one brand might attempt to sway potential customers from another brand, the number of impressions a keyword receives can also provide a valuable insight into the strength and popularity of a brand on a day-by-day basis. For example, as this is typed, Confused.com, Gocompare.com and Comparethemarket.com are all bidding on each other's names:

Bidding by accident?

Perhaps the biggest implication is the ruling's effect on accidental brand term bidding. This will be an issue for phrase term brand searches (e.g. "interflora flowers," "confused.com car insurance," etc.) or if a brand's name contains or is made up of a generic product/service keyword.

For example, if M&S' advert appears for the keyword "interflora" then it is obvious that they are bidding directly on their competitor's name. However, if the advert appears for "interflora flowers," is it because they are bidding on that keyword or because they are bidding on just the keyword "flowers" on broad or phrase match? What about companies that have keywords in their name, such as flowersdirect or Flying Flowers?

The above screenshot shows Interflora's ad showing for a search for "flying flowers," probably because they bid on the keyword "flowers."

Admittedly, Flying Flowers may not be trademarked, but what if it were? Will advertisers be expected to add every single trademarked competitor to their negative keyword list, or only bid on exact match and therefore require an extensive exact match keyword list? Will Google step in and automatically discount popular brand and trademark names and variations? Would it even be able to, without the need to acquire a mammoth list of trademark names?

The impact on Google

Speaking of Google, the ruling will have implications for them as well.

Any restrictions on keywords will result in less money being spent by advertisers, and a restriction on this scale could make a significant dent in the amount they earn from AdWords. If advertisers stick more to exact match keywords, if they are worried about bidding on trademarks via broad and phrase match, they could see even more of a drop-off in the amount of keywords that advertisers bid on.

Is it wrong to bid on competitor brand terms?

Obviously Interflora is pleased by the Advocate General's recommendation, wanting "to protect [their brand] for our customers, florists and the future." But what do others think of the recommendation? Patrick Altoft of BlogStorm argues that it's "a win for common sense. Loads of people bid on competitors trademarks but nobody in the industry really likes it." As mentioned previously however, bidding on a competitor is more than just stealing their traffic: it can give real, accurate data on how many people search for a brand, so this information will be lost as well, with marketers having to rely on Google's Keyword Tool and Google Insights instead.

Evidently it will come down to this: those who benefitted greatly from bidding on their competitors will be unhappy with the recommendation, while those who were taken advantage of (such as Interflora) will consider the potential ruling to be fair and will help them to get the clicks that they feel they deserve.

Either way, it will certainly change the landscape for PPC advertising in the UK and Europe.