Coast Digital Blog

In recent months Google AdWords have made considerable improvements to make sure you do the best you can with your ads to achieve a Quality Score.

Clearer notices, guidelines and pointers all now feature prominently at Ad Group level. These recommendations shouldn’t be ignored. You should make every effort to develop your Quality Score if you want to run a successful AdWords campaign.

Here are some pointers for developing Quality Score:

1. Write more than one ad

The AdWords system optimises much more efficiently around more than one text advert. If you are building a new campaign make sure you include several text ads from the outset, and try to vary them to incorporate various USPs.

2. Include target keywords in your ad

If the keywords featured in your Ad Group aren’t included in your ad text copy it’s unlikely you’ll achieve a GREAT Quality Score.

A poor Quality Score is usually due to the creation of large, disorganised Ad Groups with lots of keywords relying on just one generic advert. If you have a huge bunch of keywords in just one Group it’s very likely that they won’t all relate 100% to your ad.

3. Quality landing pages

Your landing page is spidered by the Quality Score robot. So don't send traffic to a generic page which doesn’t tie in with your ad text.

For example, if you’re talking about a great Christmas promotion then deliver to the Christmas promotion page. Google needs to see the relevant text and subject theme; don’t hide this from Google.

Also, the Quality Score spider uses a calendar so don’t expect Seasonal Ad Groups to perform well out of season.

4. Include a strong call to action in your Ad Text

Google wants to see enticing, relevant adverts for its audience. Do your best to create strong calls to action, some good examples are Enquire Now, Book Today, Buy Online and Apply Now.

5. Testing, testing 1, 2...3

Don't think just because you’ve established a GREAT Quality Score on your keywords you can leave those ads running forever. Create new ads, similar to those with the best performing CTR's/conversion rates, to drive costs further down.

It’s good practice to continually add new adverts alongside your best performing. Monitor and compare relative performance and adjust accordingly for even greater success.

Take pride in your AdWords campaign and continue to push AdWords to be more successful for you.

Keep an eye on the competition and regularly cross-reference your performance to last month, last week and previous days. Changes can happen very quickly in AdWords so you need to be on the ball and prepared!

For more information about succeeding with PPC please read our latest publication: Making every click count, which includes 12 top strategies for success.

As search marketing specialists we regularly come across potential clients who are interested in search engine optimisation (SEO) services. Many of these have already invested heavily in ‘all-singing-all-dancing’ websites, and then as almost an afterthought consider looking into search marketing.

As a result we're often faced with websites that look great but just aren’t search engine-friendly, or even user-friendly for that matter. It can be difficult to break it to the client that their new website needs extensive work, especially if a vast amount of money may have already been spent.

When we encounter this situation we work with both parties to achieve a search-friendly website by either advising the design agency on changes, or by implementing them ourselves – with permission of course. But you may be thinking how can this be avoided?

Think of SEO at design concept

The most important time to think of search engine marketing for your future website is at the design stage. Make sure your design agency has the knowledge and skill to build a search engine-friendly site. Ask to see examples of their work. You may find that they are not as well equipped as you first thought, or as they may have claimed.

Power to the people

If you’re having an e-commerce site built, especially if it’s going to be powered by a CMS, (content management system) make sure you have full control.

Check that you can make the following changes freely:

• Define META data for individual product pages and site content
• Incorporate a proper content structure using Headings (H1, H2 etc)
• Add pages freely to your site navigation and/or other navigation modules (i.e. footer links)

Summary

As we have seen, many make the mistake of focusing mainly on the design of their new website, neglecting search engine optimisation at what can be great expense. Make sure you pick a design agency carefully and ensure they build you a search-friendly site that can be optimised in the future, either by yourself or a search marketing agency.

If you find yourself in a situation where your site needs extensive SEO work then don’t despair, Coast Digital are highly experienced and capable, and can help guide you through the necessary changes. 

If I speak about “optimisation” people naturally assume I am talking about the practice of search engine optimisation, or “SEO” as it’s otherwise known. But optimisation should mean a whole lot more than just SEO.  

When considering the optimisation of your website you need to consider not only how search engines will see it but also how people will use it. So here is a quick guide to help you optimise for all of your web marketing, not just your search engine results!

Optimise the user experience

All too often I see companies’ spending money on internet advertising and search engine marketing when their websites offer a poor user experience. There is little point in driving traffic to a website if it fails to engage, or even worse, offers a confusing user experience. Generally speaking people prefer simple websites with clear, uncluttered screens and logical site navigation. So the message is “keep it simple”.

Optimise your landing pages

If you are considering running an online advertising campaign then you should review your campaign landing pages. These are the pages people will hit when they click through to your website. The more targeted the landing pages, the better the response rates and the more successful the campaign. So optimise your campaign landing pages and make sure there is a clear “call to action”.

Optimise your logistics

If you are launching a web marketing campaign then you will need to ensure the order fulfilment process is smooth and trouble free. Too many companies launch online marketing campaigns without considering the logistical issues of order fulfilment. Take time to carefully plan your logistics, paying particular attention to ensuring you have sufficient stock and dedicated resources to handle fulfilment, returns and customer services.
 
Optimise your relationship marketing

It can cost a lot of money to acquire every new customer online. So you need to make sure you put a strategy in place to communicate with your customers on a regular basis, in order to help retain them.

Communication should be personalised wherever possible and based on your users’ specified areas of interest. Implement data capture and personalisation techniques via your website and start to build “relationships” with your customers online. Use email newsletters to keep them informed and questionnaires to capture feedback and new ideas. 

Optimise your results

So now you have a great website that’s working well for your business. Don’t forget to use an analytics package to further optimise your campaigns. Analytics isn’t just about how many hits or visits you’re getting. You can use an analytics package to see where visitors are dropping off your website and gain insight into user behaviour. Take the findings and use them to make your website even better!

Optimise for search engines

Of course it goes without saying that you also need to optimise your website for search engines – both for paid and natural search. A good SEO agency can assist in getting you to the top of the search engine results pages and can also advise on set up and management of pay per click campaigns. 

Overall optimisation

I believe it’s important to take a holistic approach to optimisation. This approach will yield significant benefits, which as we’ve seen, involves much more than just optimising for your position in the search engine listings. The best method to ensure overall and powerful optimisation is by working with an agency which can advise on a whole range of online issues, both commercial and technical.