Section Title A Small Business Guide to Maximizing Paid Search Results Part 2 Learn how to launch a successful Google AdWords campaign that will drive leads, increase sales, and help build your base of loyal customers
Part 1 of our series on maximizing paid search results explains why laying the groundwork for a successful Google paid search campaign costs time rather than money. There are three free steps small businesses should take before making a monetary investment in Google AdWords: Build a mobileoptimized website; rank in the Google Local Three Pack; and follow established Google best practices (see sidebar). Once you ve met these preconditions to help maximize your AdWords investment, you re ready to launch a search engine marketing (SEM) campaign with Google AdWords that will drive leads, increase sales, and help build your base of loyal customers. There are seven key elements to focus on as you build out your first campaign: Branding type; keyword match types; location settings; hours settings; device settings; ad copy; and budget. 2
Non-Branded Branding Type The path to a successful search presence starts with defining your keyword branding strategy. A brand keyword is the word or phrase used to search for a company name. There are three types to consider when building out your keyword branding: Non-branded: Non-branded keywords are general themes that relate to your service or products. To maximize non-branded keyword potential, you should develop keywords around established themes like price, reviews, local or top-rated. Competitive Conquesting Competitive conquesting: As its name suggests, the objective of competitive conquesting is to gain an advantage over your closest business competitors. This tactic involves bidding on keywords of your competitors brand names. Conquesting can drive significant visibility and sales with leads who know your competitors but have not yet found your business. Branded Branded: With a branded keyword strategy, you rely on your business name or variations of it to drive prospects into your sales funnel. While relying solely on branded keywords is a bad idea to drive new business (since it excludes all searchers unfamiliar with your name), bidding on branded keywords can be a good way to counter your competitors conquesting of your brand (see competitive conquesting below). 3
Pro-tip If you re going the branded route, don t advertise your brand to existing customers that s a waste of your ad budget. For example, if your business is Linda s Phone Company, you won t want ads to appear when people search for keywords like Linda s Phone company pay my bill or Linda s phone company customer service line, since these searches are likely coming from existing customers. To prevent paying to show your ads to existing customers, identify phrases they re likely to use in the example above they would be customer service, pay my bill, customer sign in, and live chat support and mark these phrases as negative keywords (see negative keywords below). 4
Keyword Match Types Once you have settled on a keyword branding type whether that s non-branded, competitive conquesting, branded or some combination thereof it s important to decide how to use match types. In Google AdWords, match types are essentially filters on keywords that control how loose or tightly your keywords can match search queries. You should familiarize yourself with the three main match types: Broad match Exact match Phrase match The default match type. Broad matches are designed to appear whenever a searcher uses a single word in your keyword phrase. While broad matches reach the widest audience, they can also lead to irrelevant clicks. It is important to utilize negative keywords to control your broad match keyword efficiency. The most restrictive match type, limiting results to your keyword phrase exactly as you enter it. The benefit of exact match is highly relevant clicks, but the downside is a more limited audience since even minor deviations from your keywords will not result in a click Phrase match lies between broad match and exact match. It limits search results to those who have searched for your specific keyword phrase, but allows for the inclusion of searchers who ve put other keywords either before or following your phrase. As you would expect, phrase match has some of the pros and cons of broad match and exact match. Example: If your keyword phrase is Car repair shop, your ad won t only appear to those who search car repair shop, but also phrases like New car, A/C repair, or Shop deals. Example: By setting car repair shop to exact match, your ad will only show up when searchers enter that phrase in that order, without any additional words before or after. Example: For car repair shop, searchers would reach your ad with that exact phrase but also with phrases like cheap car repair shop and car repair shop 24/7. 5
Pro-tip Starting out, use broad match. Then, download your search terms report. From there, you can identify high-converting keywords and refine your matching strategy based on those. BROAD MATCH Example Keyword: women s hats Example search: buy ladies hats PHRASE MATCH Symbol: keyword Example Keyword: women s hats Example search: buy women s hats BROAD MATCH MODIFIER Symbol: +keyword Example Keyword: +women s +hats Example search: hats for women EXACT MATCH Symbol: [keyword] Example Keyword: [women s hats] Example search: women s hats In addition to these match types, you should also get acquainted with negative keywords phrases that will lead to clicks without generating conversions. Negative keywords tend to be phrases that are thematically consistent with your campaign type but irrelevant to it specifically. For example, if you re a high-end department store advertising men s clothes, a negative keyword would be cheap. By including this as a negative keyword, you ensure people searching for Cheap men s clothes don t see your ad, since these people are unlikely to convert. Because you don t want to pay for clicks that won t pan out to be potential customers, it s important to mitigate losses by carefully researching and implementing negatives. 6
Location Settings Location is one of the most important settings in your Google AdWords campaign. As an AdWords user, you have the ability to target your campaigns to designated locations whether that s a small radius around a single pinned spot or multiple countries. 1 For small business owners launching a campaign, the best approach to location targeting is to ask two questions: 1. Which locations does my business serve? 2. Which locations do I want my business to serve? The answers to these questions should determine whether you advertise at the national, state, city, zip code, or pin-drop level or some combination thereof. While it can be tempting to view location targeting as an avenue to new business in uncharted areas, it s important that business owners only target ads to locations that are within their current or planned reach. If, for instance, you run a popular local auto repair shop and are expanding into the neighboring town, it might make the most sense to only target ads to prospective customers in that neighboring town. Because you already have a loyal patron base in your current location, you ll put your ad dollars toward securing similar customers in the new location. And since this hypothetical business caters to a local customer base, it would not make financial sense to target at a broader (i.e. state or national) level. However, there are situations in which broader geographic targeting does make sense for small businesses. One example is if you run a business in a popular vacation destination and rely on an influx of outof-town customers. In this case, it can be beneficial to target prospective customers from known regions that tourists come from (a small business in Las Vegas campaigning in California, for example). Another example is if your small business has an ecommerce component. In both of these cases, the expanded geographic base of your customers warrants expanded location targeting. 1 Target ads to geographic locations 7
Hours Settings AdWords defaults to running an ad 24/7, which may not make sense for many small businesses. You can generate an ad schedule and make bid adjustments that are tailored to your business needs with AdWords ad scheduling customizations. 2 Here s how to get the most out of ad scheduling: Align your ads with your business hours: If you re including a call extension on your ad (more on that below), it s important that your ad only runs when you can answer the phone. However, if your company provides lead forms, extended customer support, or other means of engagement after hours, then it can be beneficial to run ads beyond business hours. Review AdWords data by hour and day: Analyzing your AdWords data based on hour of the day and day of the week will tell you when prospects are most likely to engage with your ad. You can maximize spend efficiency by limiting ad displays during unpopular periods and shifting that spend to more popular periods. Modify bids: Make sure to also modify bids based on the relative popularity of different hours per day and days per week. 3 Adjust bids up during high-value times and down during periods of lower activity. 2 Create an ad schedule 3 About bid adjustments 8
Device Settings AdWords allows users to target based on three device types: desktop, tablet and mobile. Businesses can control where their ad appears to more accurately reach their audience. While in most cases it will make sense to run ads across all device types, there are exceptions. If your website isn t mobile-optimized, for instance, you may want to disable mobile displays although if your site is not mobile optimized, you might want to reconsider AdWords spend altogether (see Part 1 of this paper for more on that). Pro-tip Different devices may yield different results in terms of driving business. For best results, segment your data by device to understand if you should adjust bids based on device type. 9
Ad Copy There is a very limited amount of space to induce a prospect to click on your ad. Here are some tips to maximize your ad copy for clicks and conversions: Expanded text ads: Effective this year, Google discontinued standard text ads and streamlined expanded text ads. 4 The key difference between expanded and standard is that expanded ads have two headline fields (rather than one) and a longer description field. 5 Google made this change after finding that expanded text markedly improved an ad s clickthrough rate (CTR). 6 But while this optimizations allow users to advertise in a more targeted way giving them more characters to convey a specific brand message you can only reap the benefits if your text is strategically designed. Expanded Non-Expanded 4 Update your existing ads to expanded text ads 5 About expanded text ads 6 Available today: three ad innovations for a mobile-first world 10
Clearly and concisely convey your offering: With limited space, you want to make sure every word of your ad copy serves a direct business function. As you draft the copy, it s helpful to keep questions like these in mind, answering as many as you can: What s your offering/product? Who benefits from it? How do you stack up next to and stand out from the competition? Do you deliver quickly? Do you offer free shipping? Do you offer notably low prices that warrant a callout? Include location: Whenever possible, you should work to incorporate location into ad copy. For instance, if you re launching a targeted ad in Des Moines, make sure the copy directly mentions Des Moines. 11
Use ad extensions: Ad extensions provide prospective customers with additional bits of information about your business. These extensions are shown to bolster the visibility and appeal of ads, leading to more clicks. 7 Among the following types of manual extensions that you can add, it s important to select those that are most suited to your business objectives 8 : Call: Allows prospective customers to call your business directly instead of visiting your website. This is a good idea for any small business looking for customer phone calls. Location: Provides viewers with a specific address. This is another extension that makes sense to use if you re a local business or looking to drive customers to a particular physical location. App: Enables one-click downloading of an app. This is only relevant if your business has a mobile application. Review: If your business has garnered positive reviews outside of your own site, choose the best reviews and include them here. Pro-tip Because Google gives preference to ads with extensions enabled, you should use any and all extensions available for your business providing you have suitable content to fill them (a two-star review, for example, shouldn t make the cut for the review extension). Callout: Allows you to detail any business differentiators you weren t able to convey in the ad copy (i.e. price matching, 100% free returns, 30 years experience ). Sitelink: Adds links to navigate to certain pages on your site. These links are beneficial to prospective customers who want direct access to a specific part of your site. For instance, a customer looking to make a quick purchase may be more likely to click on your ad if you include, via sitelinks, a one-click path to your site s Online ordering page. 7 Understand the benefits of ad extensions inadwords 8 About extensions 12
Budget As you prepare to launch a Google AdWords campaign or campaigns, it s critical to set a feasible daily or weekly budget and then stick to it. While budgeting strategies will vary based on a business specific goals, it s generally good advice for small businesses to start small and local, putting a low daily budget toward ads that run in a targeted area closely surrounding your business. 9 Once this initial campaign gains traction, you can start incrementally scaling up daily spend and the geographic reach of your campaign. However, budgeting challenges can arise when you re launching multiple campaigns. By default, AdWords gives each campaign its own daily budget. For small business owners overseeing more than one campaign, multiple budgets can lead to limited oversight and overspending. But you can mitigate this problem with AdWords Shared Budgets tool, which enables you to group some or all of your campaigns into a single trackable budget. While shared budgeting is the best resource for simple oversight, it can lead to a high-volume, low-conversion campaign eating up your budget before other campaigns which may convert better have a chance to perform. To prevent this problem, it s important to closely track the performance of individual campaigns when you have shared budgets enabled. That way, you ll be able to make strategic adjustments in response to performance. 9 How Much Should a Small Local Business Spend on Adwords? 13
Conclusion Google AdWords can be a valuable resource for small business owners to drive traffic to their website, generate new leads, and expand their loyal customer base. But in order to realize these benefits, you must approach an AdWords deployment with a strategic eye. By following the recommendations outlined in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, business owners can launch campaigns that are intentionally designed and optimized to make search engine marketing a worthwhile investment. 14
Terms to know Paid search: An approach to marketing that involves paying for advertisements that appear as sponsored listings on the top of search engine results pages. Search index: Online databases that file information based on keyword terms and make it searchable to users. Google is the leading search engine indexing service. Pay per click (PPC): A paid search model in which advertisers pay their paid search provider a set fee every time their sponsored listing is clicked. Google AdWords: Google s paid search advertising program. AdWords is a PPC service. Search engine optimization (SEO): Unlike paid search, SEO involves implementing strategies to boost a business unpaid, or organic, search results. Common SEO strategies include creating original blog content and strategically using industry-specific keywords across the business website. Google Local Three Pack: The pack of three businesses that appears, accompanied by a Google Maps image, when you search for businesses by type and location (i.e. Plumber Baltimore ). The Three Pack changes based on the specificity of your search (e.g. Alterations Chicago yields different business listings than Wedding dress alterations Chicago ). Conversion: A conversion happens when someone clicks on your AdWords ad and then engages with your business in a way that you ve designated as significant in advance. For example, if you want people who click on your AdWords ad to fill out a form signing up for your company newsletter, somebody doing this represents a conversion. By tracking conversions, you can determine the success of your AdWords campaign in attracting potential customers. Bid adjustments: Bid adjustments allow you to increase or decrease the frequency with which your ads appear based on factors that include geographic location, device and time of day. For example, if you re looking to target customers in your zip code, you d adjust the bid up for searches conducted within or near to your zip code. This upward bid would result in your ad appearing more frequently to those nearby searchers. Keyword: In the context of AdWords, a keyword is a word or phrase that you want associated with your business. AdWords campaigns are built around keywords, so you want to choose ones that your intended customers are most likely to search. 15
3 Steps to Take Before Investing in an AdWords Campaign 01. Have a mobile-optimized website: Mobile phone use by consumers surpassed desktop/laptop use in 2014. 10 Since then, Google has announced that it s dividing its search indexes between mobile and desktop and giving priority to mobile. 11 Small business owners who launch an AdWords campaign without a mobile-optimized site are setting themselves up for limited visibility. And yet, of the small business owner AdWords users that Manta surveyed in November 2016, only 38 percent said they have a mobileoptimized website. 12 02. Rank in the Google Local Three Pack: The Google Local Three Pack is the box with three results that shows up when you search for a business in a specific location. Because these results are organic, you can t buy a spot in the Three Pack. Instead, small business owners should work to secure their place by creating or claiming their Google My Business listing 13, building out their business profile, and encouraging customer reviews. 03. Follow Google best practices: Google s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide outlines a series of practices all businesses should follow to boost their site s search presence. 14 Without following these recommendations which include having concise and relevant URLs; enabling easy site navigability; and optimizing content businesses will have difficulty mounting a successful PPC campaign. 10 Mobile Marketing Statistics compilation 11 Google is Splitting its Search Index, Prioritizing Mobile over Desktop 12 Methodology: Between 11/18 11/21 2016, Manta surveyed 613 small business owners via on-site poll. The margin of error is +/- 3.96 percentage points with a 95 percent confidence. 13 Google My Business: 29 Tips to Supercharge SEO for Small Business Owners 14 Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide 16
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