ACS Creative

So, you’ve decided to give pay-per-click (PPC) advertising a try. Now what? Just sign up for Google AdWords, pick a few terms that you use to describe your products and services, enter your bids and ad text and wait for the leads and sales to roll in. That’s pretty simple!

Although that’s one way to approach PPC advertising, chances are you won’t meet your desired outcome—and you might spend a lot of money in the process for very few results. What’s a more sensible, effective way to approach PPC advertising? Read on …

Step 1: Seek Out Search-Effective Keywords
You might think that you know the terms that people use to find products and services like the ones you offer. But, do you really know for a fact which terms and variations bring in high traffic and which ones people don’t use at all?

For example, it seems obvious that a business in the greater Washington, D.C. area that’s looking for a local company to help it with traditional and Internet advertising would naturally search on advertising agencies in washington dc. But according to Google data, people search on all kinds of related terms:

• advertising agency washington dc
• advertising companies dc
• advertising firms dc
• advertising services dc
• ad agencies washington dc
• print advertising dc area
• washington dc internet advertising

The variations can be astounding! You might be surprised to find out that the terms people actually use to find businesses like yours are quite different from the terms you think they use.

Fortunately, it’s easy to discover the most search-effective terms for your PPC campaign. The free Google AdWords Keyword Tool lets you view the average search volume per month for your suggested (and related) terms based on Google data from the past 12 months. You can quickly determine whether you’ll get more traffic from ad agency washington dc or washington dc ad agency, for example.

Step 2: Create Specific, Focused Ads
Writing effective ad copy for a PPC campaign is an art, and many companies turn to professional copywriters for help. Not only do you need to follow Google’s guidelines for content and format to the letter, but you also need to make sure the ad will appeal to your target audience and compel them to click through to your landing page.

In a PPC ad, you have just four lines of text to work with:

1. A title (at most, 25 characters, including spaces)
2. A line of ad copy (at 35 characters)
3. Another line of ad copy (at 35 characters)
4. A display URL (also 35 characters max)

It’s a good idea to include the target search term within your ad because that makes the ad more relevant to exactly what the person is searching for. For example, if a potential customer searches on ad agency washington dc, he’s more likely to click an ad that addresses that specific criteria. The more focused you make your ad for a particular term, the better chance you have of a searcher clicking your ad over competing ads that appear on the search results page.

Something like this ad might be a good starting point for a baseline test:

Full-Service Ad Agency                    [22 characters]
Washington DC, Virginia & Maryland:     [35 characters]
Inspired Web/print/multimedia ads        [33 characters]
www.AffordableCreativeServices.com    [34 characters]

Step 3: Sync Up Your Landing Page
The third component of any PPC campaign is the landing page: that is, the page of your Web site where the searcher will end up after clicking your ad. Perhaps contrary to what you might think, sending the searcher to your home page is not necessarily the best tactic. Instead, send them to a custom landing page that’s in sync with both your ad and your target search term, and is effective in motivating the searcher to take action. You can then track these “conversions” to help you measure just how successful your keyword–ad–landing page unit is over time.

What makes a good landing page?

• Keep it simple, short and relevant
• Provide unique content that engages the searcher
• Keep it in sync with what your ad promises
• Prominently display and use the targeted search term
• Provide a form, something to download or a link to additional information that will convert the visitor from a searcher to a qualified lead—or paying customer—for your company

Google calculates a landing page quality score for the landing page of each search term you target to encourage advertisers to provide optimal search experiences for searchers—not to mention better results for you and Google. Creating high-scoring landing pages benefits you by lowering your costs per click and improving your ad positions.

 More Than Meets the Eye
Although there’s more to PPC advertising than you might think at first glance, approaching it with a well-thought-out strategy and deliberate testing will help you reap the rewards it can offer.

 Not enough time to do it right? Consider hiring a company that specializes in managing PPC campaigns. The expertise and project-management services a good company provides lets you stay focused on what you know best: your business.