PPC services

Planning / Things to consider

When trying to write the perfect ad copy for your adverts, whether it be on Google, Bing, Facebook or any other pay per click platform, you should always follow the same general guidelines. It should never be something that is done instantly. We would suggest that a lot of thought, planning and research is carried out before even thinking about starting to write ad copy.

Ad copy should be tailored to a specific user (traffic) and this is usually your ideal customer who will be seeing the adverts. Furthermore, it should be bespoke to each industry, bearing in mind that different industries target different users and have a different target market. Another important factor to consider when writing ad copy is competitor & industry research. Remember, this is very important as our advertisements will be competing with these. We can study competitor ad copy and manipulate our own adverts to make you stand out and give the user a reason to click on your adverts – as opposed to a competitors. A good way of ensuring that users click through to your adverts and not a competitors is to include USP’s (unique selling points) which can be advantageous over competitors.

It is often good to keep reminding yourself when preparing and writing ad copy, of what you’re trying to achieve. Asking yourself what does my company / client do which could give us an advantage over competitor companies / clients? Questions like this are always good to have in the back of your mind as this will ensure that you pick the right ad copy to compete with competitors. Always remember your goal should be to get the clicks over competitors and to get the highest click through rate (CTR) possible. Click through rate is the number of impressions received compared to the number of clicks being received through a paid advert. E.g. if you receive 10 impressions and receive 1 click through to a landing page from a paid advert you will have the CTR of 10%.

Advert Structure

Adverts are broken down into different sections which include, a final URL, headlines, descriptions and display paths.

A Final URL

A Final URL is the URL of the webpage in which your ads will be landing on once clicked through a paid advertisement. This page should be relevant to what the user is searching as this will increase Quality Score, which is highly beneficial. Quality score is not just scored through ad copy relevance, it also considers other factors such as expected CTR and landing page experience – we suggest trying to get a Quality Score as high as possible as a 10/10 Quality Score can get you a 50% discount off the usual cost per click. Our goal is to make our ad copy hyper relevant to make sure that the landing page is also relevant or as relevant as possible to the user’s initial search.

Headlines

This is the most important section to your adverts, and are broken down into 3 separate headlines, headline 1 should always include the product or service which the user is searching for. Headline 2 should be a unique selling point which can draw in the user’s attention. Headline 3 should be an incentive. Sometimes it’s also good to include a call to action in either a second or third headline. For Example, “Book Now & Don’t Miss Out”. (Remember headlines are restricted to a maximum of 30 characters including spaces). Another tip for Headlines is to use Title Case.

Descriptions 1&2

The description section is the backbone of an advert. Here is where you should include all relevant & useful information as descriptions have the most character space with a limit of 90 characters including spaces, so we are able to insert much more content. We would also advise using Title Case. It’s important to make sure that descriptions include:
what the user is looking for and expand to what the user could be interested in – basically show off your product/ service.

– a unique selling point
– a call to action which tells the user to book, call or enquire.

Display Paths

Display paths are used to make the display URL look or seem more relevant to a user’s search. Display paths are limited to 15 characters each and display path 1 is always shown before display path 2, which both sit at the end of the display URL. If you would like to use two or more words in the display paths, it is good to link the two words with a dash – this ensures that it looks like a legitimate URL. Additionally, the two display paths are separated by a forward slash. Display paths are a good way to increase advert relevancy and CTR. For example, if a user is searching “blue Nike trainers”, we would make sure our whole advert is relevant to blue Nike trainers. In addition we would also ensure that our display paths increase relevancy and in this case a good use of display paths would be – Display Path 1 “nike-trainers” Display Path 2 “blue” this would show a display URL of www.example.co.uk/nike-trainers/blue

Aesthetic

A website’s aesthetic plays a significant role in PPC. It can heavily impact not only your PPC’s performance, but all traffic sources. When a website looks dated, poorly designed or unsuitable for their industry it can impact how much a user can trust your business.

Another overlooked factor in a website’s aesthetic is the use of colour. Websites that have a poor selection of colours can instantly put off users and reduce the likelihood of leads being generated.

Usability

A website’s usability involves how well the website functions. This includes factors such as a website’s load speed and uptime. If a website takes 5 seconds to load after a user has clicked your ad, you can expect to lose much of your paid traffic before they even reach the website.
This goes hand in hand with website uptime. If your website is frequently down, potential customers could click on your ad before Google detects that there is any issue with your website and disapproves your ads. This leads to a waste of budget, which is now going on clicks that are taking users to an offline website.

Website usability also includes whether the website is compatible with mobile devices. With over 60% of Google searches being performed on mobile devices, it has never been more important to possess a mobile-responsive website. Mobile users are now so accustomed to mobile-friendly websites that they will instantly bounce off a website that is not easily navigated on mobile. That could mean 60% of potential business you could generate online is off the table.

Navigation

An overlooked area of web design for PPC traffic is navigation. Navigation plays a crucial role in the user journey and informing your potential customers about how you can benefit them. However, when a user is provided with endless pages and menus to navigate it is easy for them to lose interest or get lost in the website’s maze of navigation options.

Therefore, it’s in our best interests to keep the website’s structure both clean and concise. It is also beneficial to create landing pages specifically for PPC traffic. We can create these pages and remove any header or footer navigation buttons. This removes the options that users have to navigate away from the landing page. Instead, they are presented with the option to enquire or leave the page. This typically increases the total number of leads generated on any website that chooses to implement PPC specific landing pages.

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

Conversion rate optimisation refers to the intentional design of a website’s layout to maximise the total number of potential leads generated. Implementing changes to the website with CRO in mind include having both clickable telephone and email links which direct users to either their phone app or email app. Other CRO changes include having forms placed throughout the page and above the fold.

If none of the mentioned changes were implemented on your PPC landing pages, the user would likely have to navigate to the ‘contact us’ page to enquire. We want to make the process of enquiries to be as simple, and streamlined as possible. This is done by implementing CRO, as soon as they land on the page. Users should be able to see the prior mentioned changes on the page straight away, allowing them to enquire as soon as they are aware that they are applicable to your services.

Quality Score & Landing Page Experience

Quality score is a metric Google use to rate your ad’s quality. It’s broken down into 3 areas:

– Expected click-through-rate
– Ad relevance
– Landing page experience

Landing page experience refers to how applicable Google finds your chosen landing page in relation to the users search query. This includes prior mentioned usability factors such as website speed, mobile-responsive pages and also website content quality. Google can rate the landing page experience as below average, average or above average. If Google deems your website to have an above average landing page experience it will increase your total quality score, which will allow you to earn discounted clicks.

With cheaper clicks, we can get more clicks out of your existing budget which will lead to more total leads generated.

Web Design & PPC

The influence that web design has on PPC cannot be understated. The design of your website can without a doubt be considered as one of the core areas that determines whether your PPC campaigns are a priceless stream of new business, or a complete waste of both time and money. Therefore, before any PPC campaigns are conducted the website’s design should be reviewed on how viable it is to send paid traffic to.

What is Quality Score?

Quality Score is a metric used by Google to award advertisers who provide high quality. It is scored from 1 to 10 and can bring numerous advantages if you possess high quality scores. Quality score is measured at the keyword level, so if you have 14 keywords in your PPC account you will have 14 individual quality scores, as every keyword has its own Quality Score.

How Quality Score affects Google ads performance

The primary benefit of having a higher quality score is being eligible to receive clicks at a cheaper price. For example, if you have a 10/10 quality score, you can expect your clicks to be discounted by 50%. If you are advertising on keywords with high volume, this essentially doubles the amount of clicks you will get for this keyword with your budget. With such a significant increase in clicks you will also benefit from an increase in leads generated.

Having a higher quality score will also improve your ad rank. This allows you to rank above your competitors even if your bids are lower, as Google has deemed your ad to be of higher relevance and will therefore decrease your cost per click.

How Quality Score is measured
Google will give you a rank of below average, average or above average across three key areas. If you rank as above average in all three areas your keyword will be given a 10/10 Quality Score, allowing your keywords to get a 50% discount on any clicks. Whereas, a 1/10 Quality Score will lead to an increase of 400% in your click cost. Making Quality Score a variable in Google ads we cannot ignore.

Quality Scores are broken down into 3 areas. These are:

– Expected CTR
– Ad relevance
– Landing Page Experience

Expected CTR and landing page experience carry more weight in your overall ranking, both of which count for 39% each of your total score, whereas ad relevance accounts for 22%.
Expected CTR (clickthrough rate) is the percent of users that click on your ad. Google will consider where you typically rank on Google Search, users who rank higher will be expected to have a higher CTR to get an above average rating.

Ad relevance concerns how relevant your ad is to the keywords you choose to advertise on. If your ads contain the exact keywords you advertise on, Google will deem your ad to be relevant to the users who see your ads.

Landing page experience is based on a few website factors. Some are technical, such as how fast your website loads, whether or not it is mobile friendly, if your website has any errors etc. Other factors include the relevance of the page and if the content relates directly to your chosen keywords.

How to improve Quality Score

Expected CTR – Having high quality ad copy is essential for capturing a users’ attention and their clicks. This includes making sure you have relevant ad copy to what they are after. Using keyword insertions can assist greatly with making sure your ads are tailored to your potential customers.

If your ad copy contains promotions, offers, call to actions or any incentive – you can also expect to see a higher CTR. Something as simple as a free consultation or a discount code can lead to not only a higher CTR but an increase is new business generated.

The use of ad extensions is also essential. Not only do they provide more relevant information to the user and build trust but they are increasing the size of your ad, which leads to a higher CTR.
Ad relevance – As mentioned earlier, your ads need to contain the keyword they show up for in their ad copy. This can easily be achieved with Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAGs). SKAGs allow you to tailor your ads to one specific keyword, ensuring your ads will always receive an above average score for ad relevance. Alternatively, you could implement keyword insertions, which allows you to display the exact keyword that the user searched.

Landing page experience – To achieve an above average rating on your landing page experience you need to check a few boxes. The primary ones include your website load speed, if your website is slow to respond, Google will immediately dismiss all other factors such as the quality of your landing page.

Outside of load speed, you should be focusing on having a relevant page with great content. This along with a mobile responsive page will ensure a happy user. Not only will these factors improve your Quality Score but they will increase the total leads you generate due to the excellent quality of the page.

Google Ads & Quality Score

To summarise, Quality Score plays a critical role in the success of your PPC campaigns. Having excellent Quality Scores can make all the difference in your campaigns. On the opposite end of the spectrum having terrible Quality Scores will hinder and immobilise your campaign, making a successful PPC campaign more difficult to achieve.

Is my website suitable for PPC?

Every website is suitable for PPC with regards to research and tracking performance, but if it’s not professional in its interface or not extremely user friendly, then technically it isn’t PPC friendly. Your website needs to be ‘worth it’.

For instance, if your website is difficult to navigate, has contact details which are hard to find or has a slow loading speed, then people are not likely to stay on your website for very long, let alone buy a product or send their details for an enquiry.

Through CRO (conversion rate optimisation), we make sure your website is up to scratch. This helps users to trust you and be more willing to use the services you provide. Otherwise your paid advertising budget is being spent for nothing.

What keywords do I want to show for?

The search terms that eventually lead people to your website need to be as relevant as possible to the services you provide. For example, if your business was a cake shop based in Manchester – you’d want to show for terms such as ‘cake shop Manchester’, ‘best cakes in Manchester’, ‘Manchester professional cake shop’ and so on.

The idea is to make your keywords as linked to your business and services as possible. Using a keyword such as ‘confectionary in Manchester’ would not be specific enough – the combination is too broad in terms of services and a lot of people will be likely to click on your ad in a negative way. This means that if they don’t find the exact services they need, they will click away from your website and you will have paid for a click that was useless. Paid advertising accounts that are poorly managed are filled with irrelevant clicks, but with proper management we can filter the keywords you appear for to ensure that you only pay for highly relevant clicks.

To get a bigger idea of which keywords are best for you, you can use software such as KWFinder to see the kinds of search terms people are typing into Google to find services like yours, plus how many people are searching for them on average.

Which keywords are worth bidding for?

One of the most important areas of PPC is keyword research. Not only do we need to know what keywords are relevant to your services, but we also need to know which keywords are going to get you relevant clicks and more business at your door at a reasonable cost per click.
Software such as KWFinder or Google Ads’ Keyword Planner are used for this purpose. They allow us to see the average CPC (cost per click) for each term, as well as how many people are searching for specific keywords each month. The more people Googling a keyword, the more likely you are to get people going to your website.

Which areas are best for me to target?

The areas you target are important when it comes to PPC. If your services stretch across the entire nation, your advertising needs to be reaching people throughout the UK with keywords that not only advertise your services, but also locations you work within. For example, using ‘skip hire Liverpool’ and ‘skip hire London’ instead of simply ‘skip hire’.

On the other hand, if your services only reach throughout certain areas, your advertising needs to be localised with keywords broadened for further reach within a small area. For example, using ‘local skip hire’, ‘welding services’ and ‘driving instructors near me’.

Are you getting regular updates on the performance?

Communication is imperative in this line of work. Many businesses seek the services of a PPC company and are never actually sure what they are paying for due to lack of interaction.
The usual reason for little to no communication from a PPC company is either not enough work being done or, in some cases, none at all.

Our first step when securing our services with a client is to build a monthly report that we update each month. This allows us to show you where things have improved, or need improvements every four weeks. Of course, we are happy to communicate any time in between then, but as a basic rule of thumb this allows us to ensure communication between ourselves and the client is active.

Is all necessary tracking software in place?

To accurately monitor the performance and behaviours on a client’s website, software needs to be installed, ensuring everything is being tracked. Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager are usually the go-to pieces of software for monitoring.

Without tracking, how can a PPC company be sure that they’re doing a good job? This, in some cases, leaves them open to use jargon and knowledge of the industry to make the client believe that all is as it should be.

If your PPC company is not tracking the performance of your PPC campaign correctly, there should be some major concerns.

Tracking is mainly needed for performance monitoring of course, but it’s not just the experts who may require access to this. Most clients that we interact with who are confident in using computers and software want to see results for themselves to make sure all is running accordingly.

Are you noticing an increase in business opportunities and leads?

The biggest sign that you are getting the best out of your PPC company is the interaction between yourself and your customers. Are you seeing a lot more emails in your inbox than usual? Is the office phone starting to ring off the hook? Finding a lot more people in your store than usual? If this begins to happen some time after you have started paying a digital marketing company for PPC services, then you know that they are doing their job.

If it is business as usual, then there is nothing wrong with checking up with your PPC company on their recent activity in terms of your business. Everything could be fine and their data may support that, however you may find that your chosen company isn’t performing as they should.