Optimising your Paid Search

Paid search can be hugely beneficial to your business if done correctly. With good campaigns and an effective strategy, you can target consumers at all stages of the buying cycle, and ensure your business is in pole position on the search results. There are also infinite ways to tweak and improve your strategy so that you achieve an optimum click-through rate and conversion rate.

The world of pay per click marketing, however, moves quickly, and it can be easy to fall behind if you have a busy organisation and a lot on your plate. Not keeping up can mean you miss out on minor adjustments that could have a big impact on your success rate. So how do you ensure you’re on the right track with your paid search marketing?

To get you started, we’ve compiled a list of some key strategies that will help you ensure your paid search campaigns are working hard for you. But first, let’s take a look at why you should be optimising your paid search in the first place.

Why should I optimise my paid search campaigns?

With more and more businesses relying on their online presence, the search market is more competitive than ever. And it takes work to stay on top of your game. So creating ad campaigns and then just hoping they’ll perform isn’t a particularly smart approach. You may end up wasting money on keywords that don’t bring in traffic, or having your ads appear for search terms that aren’t relevant. Plus, any competitors that are taking the time to optimise their campaigns will quickly move in on your territory. So it makes sense to check regularly that you’re getting a good return on your investment, and that you’re not wasting impressions by advertising at the wrong times or for the wrong searches.

How can I improve my paid search?

  1. Streamline your keywords

The most important aspect of optimising your paid search is to streamline your keywords, rooting out any that aren’t performing. Weak keywords will be delivering a low number of impressions, clicks, or conversions, so think about pausing those to see if it improves your overall success. You may also need to re-think the ad copy that displays for certain keywords. Perhaps users have a different intent when they search for a phrase than the one you assumed when you created the campaign.

Adding negative keywords into your campaigns is essential too. For example, if you offer sports massage services, you don’t want your ads appearing for searches for hot stone massage, or worse – erotic massage. So add these to your negative keywords list to limit your impressions to relevant search terms.

  1. Choose manual bidding

With long-term paid search campaigns (i.e. those that aren’t simply running for a few weeks to advertise a special offer), it can be beneficial to manually bid on keywords. Using automated bidding strategies is the easier option if you’re time-poor, but making the effort to manually bid at keyword level means you can pursue your most profitable words and phrases, as well as make instant changes where necessary. Perhaps a news item has increased search volumes for a particular term that is relevant to you, and you want to maximise impressions. Having the ability to be reactive is a huge advantage in the fast-paced world of search marketing.

Of course, manual bidding does mean you need to stay on top of monitoring your PPC campaigns, which is where a PPC agency can be of great assistance.

  1. Tweak your ad copy

Creating effective adverts isn’t always as simple as it sounds, so it’s a good idea to tweak to copy on any ads that don’t appear to be performing so well. Really think about the user intent of each keyword. Where is the consumer in the buying cycle – are they researching, or ready to make a transaction? Tailoring your copy accordingly is essential. It’s also worth considering the following:

  • Be concise – You only have a small amount of text to get your point across, so be clear about how your company can solve a consumer’s problem
  • Use relevant keywords – Pop keywords that are relevant to the search term in your copy and see if it makes a difference to ad position and performance
  • Use relevant numbers – Are you offering 20% off a product? Is it one of the top 10 best-selling products in its sector? Say so! This will help to build credibility.
  • Include a strong call to action – Keep your call to action clear and simple. Do you want customers to download a brochure? Buy today? Give you a call? Make it precise.

  1. Set up relevant landing pages

When optimising your paid search strategy, don’t stop at the adverts themselves. Go back to your landing pages and ensure each ad links to the most relevant page. What are users hoping to find when they click on your ad? If you’re selling a product or service, does the ad connect to a page that gives more details, or a more generic page that may cause users to jump away from it immediately? Is there a strong call to action and a clear way for the consumer to contact you or place an order? Ensuring you have effective landing pages will mean all your hard work on optimising your PPC campaigns themselves isn’t in vain.

For PPC management services and further advice on optimising your paid search campaigns, contact Whitefish Marketing today.

Avatar for Kayleigh James
About Kayleigh James

Kayleigh is our digital marketing executive. She is well versed in a variety of digital marketing activities some of which include producing monthly KPI reports, developing SEO Strategies, Social Media Management, Press Release distribution and much more.