If you’ve had a go at online adverts, like Google Ads or Facebook Ads, you’ve been actively involved in paid search. The industry you are in and how competitive that industry is can significantly impact the success or not of any paid search campaign. It could cost you as little as £15-20 a month, or it could cost ten times more.
However, a successful paid search campaign is not just down to your budget. Several other factors can determine the outcome of your paid search campaign. So, what are the dos and don’ts of paid search for small businesses?
What is paid search?
Paid search, also known as pay-per-click (PPC), allows businesses to ‘advertise’ on search engines or social media platforms. Paid search ads appear in a user’s search listings if the ad is relevant to their search. The benefit is that you only pay when a user clicks on your ad.
Google displays organic and paid results on search engine results pages (SERPs). The paid ad results feature a small green box before the listing with the word ‘Ad’.
What’s the difference between paid search and organic search?
Paid search are ads organisations, businesses and sometimes individuals have created online, via Google or a social media platform, advertising a web page, event, promotion, special offer or anything else the company wants to advertise.
Paid search ads will appear above organic search results and with the average Click Through Rate (CTR) in Google SERPs being 2.1%, compared to just 1.9% with organic SERPs, paid ads can be highly beneficial.
According to a user’s search query, organic search is the web page results that Google’s bots have searched for. Google’s search criteria is matched against a website’s content, headings, meta tags, images and other aspects to determine how much of a match that website is to the user’s search parameters. The list of websites subsequently listed in SERPs is known as organic search.
The do’s of paid search
There are steps you can take to ensure your paid search ads are fully optimised to generate the best results.
Set up an account structure – organisation is key, so the sooner you can set up an account structure that organises your ads, ad groups and ad campaigns, the easier it is to manage your campaigns. Ensure that each ad group doesn’t have too many keywords – just select the top 20 – and that no more than two or three ads are running per ad group. If your ad groups are too big and you’re running too many ads, it makes the monitoring and performance analysis of your campaigns much harder.
Decide your daily budget and stick to it – always set your daily budget and stick to it. If you set your budget high or even unlimited, you will soon find that you will go well over your budget in a short space of time. If you’re new to paid search ads or want to test a campaign, set a daily budget that is reasonable enough to generate sufficient results to analyse whether it’s worth continuing or cancelling the campaign. This way, you will not only avoid spending too much on paid search, but you will also be able to test several ads to see which one works best.
Be smart with your targeting – paid search ad setups, particularly Google Ads, offer many targeting demographic options – age, gender, household income, and location. It’s tempting to tick as many boxes as possible to cover everyone in your audience. However, doing this will only spread your message too thin and is unlikely to generate favourable results. First, consider what you want to achieve from your paid search ads, be specific about your targeted audience and then select your demographics. You can set up several ads that have different demographics to assess your best target market.
Generate a keyword list – paid search ads are triggered by a user’s search query. Therefore, getting the keywords right is vital in successful ad campaigns. One way of doing this is to consider your commercial and transactional keywords first, then consider informational and navigational ones. From your initial keyword list, select the most important keywords that are highly relevant to your business and the ad. Aim for 20-25 keywords for each ad group.
Ensure an ad is relevant to the landing page – there’s no point in advertising one product or service and having a landing page that doesn’t feature that product or service or taking the visitor to a list of all your products and services. Make sure the landing page is an accurate representation of your ad.
The don’ts of paid search
Several factors will also hinder the success of a paid search ad campaign.
Avoid using the Smart Campaigns option – whilst it is tempting to use Google Ads’ Smart Campaign option to build your paid search ad campaign, particularly if it’s the first time for you, there is little flexibility, i.e. no control of your bidding strategy. You’ll be stuck with just the basic ad settings.
Don’t use the default targeting or bidding settings – whilst it may seem to be simplifying the ad building process, in the same vein as the Smart Campaign option, flexibility is limited, or targeting is too broad. That said, automated options can help, such as bid modifiers.
Lack of A/B testing – a common mistake is not to A/B test your paid search ads. When you run test ads, Google Ads splits your incoming traffic into two ad variations so that you can analyse which ad works best. Yes, it will cost you a little bit of your budget to run test ads, but it will save you a lot in the long run.
Don’t miss Ad Extensions – miss out ad extensions at your peril. Ad extensions, like Callout, Social, Sitelink or Review, provide search users vital additional information that could be the difference between them clicking on your link or giving you a miss. Although Google Ads will insert some ad extensions automatically, don’t count on them to be accurate or effective. Take the time to set up your personalised ad extensions for the best results.
Whether you are a newcomer to paid search ads or an experienced online marketer, we all make mistakes. Following these do’s and don’ts will go a long way to ensuring successful online ad campaigns.
At My Digital Agency, we offer a variety of social media, SEO, content and local marketing, as well as website design services that are not only highly effective but will also meet everyone’s budget, no matter how big or small. Whether optimising your website, developing a social media plan or helping with local marketing, contact us today and let’s chat.
