Quotall Marketing guide you through the Google Adwords jungle

Google Adwords is a great alternative, maybe even a replacement for traditional marketing avenues like newspapers and radio advertising – but only if used correctly. Too often business owners are seduced by Google Adwords’ offer of free credits to try the service and set up accounts with little or no understanding of exactly how the program works. Setting up your adwords account incorrectly will not only result in poor results, but also could be a very expensive lesson for your bank account. Incredibly, the insurance industry takes up a just under a quarter of all PPC ad campaigns and the highest pay per click bid, currently standing at £32.05, is for ‘car insurance’. Even if you generate just 1 erroneous click a day, that could cost you a over £11000 a year. This is however, completely avoidable. Enlisting the help of a professional can not only save you money in the long run, but also increase the traffic of customers to your site, and therefore create more business and money. Here are the top 5 mistakes made by Google Adwords users. How many are you guilty of?

1. Using Generic homepage links when you should be pointing your prospect to a particular page.

The most common mistake that companies big and small make is directing your Google advertisement back to the home page of your website. For example, when searching for ‘Public Liability Insurance’ send your customers directly to the relevant page on your website. People want instant results so directing them to your home page, or worse, contact page will only send them back to Google to see where else they can find the information (most likely your competition) faster.

2. Taking Google Adwords advice on keyword suggestions, which can often be far too generic.

You want to avoid just taking the whole list, which will have a lot of generic and irrelevant terms. If you are an accountant, paying for generic terms such as “accounting” might generate traffic but often it might attract people looking for accounting software or an accounting course in night school. You don’t want those people clicking on your site. Irrelevant, generic Adwords traffic is an expensive and not going to gain you any money. High traffic is only good when it is the right kind of traffic.

3. Not using negative keywords in your Adwords campaign.

Google Adwords allows you to set negative keywords to avoid unwanted impressions and clicks. If you are focussed on selling ‘commercial property insurance’ you may want to filter out words like ‘residential’ or ‘home’ as negative keywords for example. This filters them out and therefore people looking for descriptively close products won’t see your Adwords campaign, click, and then cost money because what they want and what you’re offering aren’t actually aligned.

4. Not localising your Google Adwords campaign.

Google Adwords allows you to set up specific ads to only show to searchers within a specified area – your postal code, town, city or county, for example. Are you a business which people will travel hundreds of miles to visit? If not, there’s no point showing and paying for your advert to be seen by them. Google Adwords uses the searcher’s IP address to determine where the search is so can keep your adverts local.

5. Failing to test your adwords is an adwords crime.

Unlike newspapers, magazines and radio, Google Adwords allows you to track and monitor how well your marketing strategy is working. Test different ads and groups of words to determine which campaign works best for you. Google Adwords allows you to track every aspect of your campaign so take the time to fine tune it so you’re not paying for unnecessary clicks. Google Adwords can be a very effective marketing tool for your business but it does take time and attention to set it up correctly. Can you afford to throw away money on ineffective advertising? It’s worth investing in the proper set up of your campaign by getting the knowledge of professional help. How many of these mistakes have you made in your ad campaign? Do you feel confident enough in your abilities to correct them?   Talk to our marketing team today and find out how you can make the most out of your Google Adwords campaign.

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