Tweak Your Campaign and Track: Pay Per Click Strategies Part Two

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In part one of this article we examined how to get your PPC keywords up and running. This is the point at which too many people think the job is done and don’t realise there is still work to do.  In this second part we will look at three more steps to ensure a business gets the most from its PPC campaign.

Step Two – Design Unique Adverts for Every Single Search Phrase

A lot of people take the time to research the keywords for their company but then stop there. This is a mistake as there are a number of further steps to take to make sure you get the best return on your investment. The first thing to do is to make sure you design a unique advert for every single search phrase you are investing in. This will, of course, take more time than simply writing and designing one advert for all of your PPC search terms, but you will find that a bit of work now will pay big dividends later. This is because adverts that are correctly matched to the correct and corresponding search phrase will receive many more hits and this means much more targeted traffic for you and your business.

The first step is to make sure you write the correct and most effective title for the listing. The titles are the main link text of the listing. The text here should be chosen very carefully as it is effectively the attention grabbing headline for your product and advert. As with all good adverts the title should be short (in this case preferably less than 5 words) and get straight to the point. Unlike SEO it doesn’t need keywords to rank, just words that will sell your product and make people click through.

Underneath the title you get the chance to put a small description but again this is not the time to get carried away writing an essay. No more than 25 words and straight to the point, telling the consumer / reader how clicking your advert will find what they are looking for. For example, if the search query was ‘international teddy bears,’ then your title might be  ‘International Teddy Bears at HouseofTeddy.com’ and your description could be something like ‘Wide range of teddy bears from all over the world at unbelievable prices. HouseofTeddy offer the highest quality teddies at the very best prices.’

Step Three – Make Sure You Send Traffic to the Correct and Most Appropriate Page on your Site.

Again, this is another step that people sometimes bypass at the planning stage where a little bit of extra effort could make all the difference to their sales figures later. If you go to the trouble of setting up PPC with individual advertising for each and every product, then make sure you do the same for the page that you send them to. Use a URL that takes the person directly to the sales landing page for that product and not to your general homepage for your site. Many people don’t take the time to browse, or are not particularly skilled at navigating their way around sites. Imagine your customer is completely free of web skills and take them to the place where they can instantly buy what they are looking for and what you are selling. With this in mind build a sales specific landing page to answer the question they have posed. If they have asked google – ‘where can I buy English Beefeater Teddy Bears?’ then take them to a page that sells English Beefeater teddy Bears with one click of the button. Simple as that.

Step Four – Track your results.

Lastly, it is important to track the results of your PPC campaign. If you’re going to spend money on an advertising campaign you’ll need to know whether it pays dividends or not, so you can decide whether to do it again. This is easy to do and more importantly, free to do. Simply install the free tracking tools available via Google Adwords and you can measure the search terms that are bringing your business the best results. Also, look into other third party tools that can measure how well your PPC search terms and phrases are converting into sales.

In the end, after you have followed these steps and tried out Pay Per Click for a few weeks (or months) you can simply sit down and decide: Am I getting better results and more sales that make the cost of PPC worth it or not? If you are, carry on with PPC, if you’re not, stick to good old fashioned SEO.

Alex Simmonds is a journalist and freelance copywriter living in the UK. He currently contributes to a number of blogs on everything from jazz to cricket. He also writes a financial blog for the Bedouin Group on everything from contractor tax issues to umbrella companies.

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