The Top 4 Google Secrets Business Owners Should Know

There’s one tool on the internet that can get you $2 back for every $1 you spend. Think you know what it is?

It’s Google Ads/AdWords (they’re in the middle of rebranding). And those aren’t made up numbers. They come from the writings of Google itself.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t make more back for each dollar you spend. After all, who wants their business to be average?

To kick up those numbers — and your profit — check out ways to update your SEO and Google Adwords performance below.

1. The Best CTR Is Five to Ten Percent, Not Two

If you ask the average marketer, they’ll tell you that a 2% conversion rate is average and it’s what you should aim for. But here’s the secret – average isn’t how you build a successful business.

You want to aim higher than the average if you ever want a hope of beating out your competition. That means you’re going to have to get creative with your ad copy and employ more than the classic strategies.

How do you do that? Good Question. The first thing to do is look at the top performers in your market. What do the ads they’re running look like?

They’re probably not doing the bare minimum – just following Google’s formatting rules and throwing a keyword in there (or two).

They’ve put good thought and strategy into their copy. Their call to action is specific and it’s written to target the specific ad audience.

We’re not saying you should copy them, but you should take inspiration from them.

If all else fails, start writing emotional ads. Humans are driven by their heart more than their head, even if they don’t think that’s true. We’re exploring more about emotional ad writing next.

2. Write Ads with Emotion

What made you hire the copywriter or marketer you have now? Either you were desperate (it happens) or they really knew how to market themselves.

If it’s the latter, then writing ads that evoke emotion should be a breeze for them.

There are three main things that drive people to click on an ad (in our opinion).

• The value
• The promise
• The results

So many people write their ads around the value and the description of their items. Which is fine – but it’s not turning any heads.

You should focus on the results. What will the person get out of using your product? How will it change their life?

Let’s use a little example. Which of these ads would you click on if you were in the market for a diet product?

• A. One Pill, One Pound: Diet Pills by ABC
• B. The Last Diet Pill You’ll Ever Have to Take

You’d pick B, right? Not only does it evoke emotion, but it plays directly to what that audience wants. People who are in the market for diet products have usually tried everything else.

They’re addressing the customer’s fear that they’ll never lose the weight and providing a solution. Whether or not it delivers is not the point – the ad got the click.

Don’t just think about what is going to make your customer click on that ad, think about who you’re talking to. Your audience will react differently to your ad copy depending on whether it’s a display ad or a search ad.

3. Test Everything With Google’s Own Tools

You know that Facebook ads offer A/B testing, and you know that Google will “optimize” your ads for you.

But how do you know what they’re optimizing is what your business actually needs? In this instance, Google is being selfish.

When they say optimize ads for clicks, it really means, optimizes so that we get your money when people click on it.

Just because someone is likely to click, doesn’t mean they’re likely to convert – even if you change your ad rotation setting to “optimize for conversions”.

You want to at least select “rotate evenly” if not “rotate indefinitely”.

You make a lot of different ads (hopefully) and you never know which outside factors will cause one to do better than the other.

If you only run the ones that Google likes all the time, you’re not giving those other ads a chance to shine. Not to mention, you’re spending more of your money.

It’s a little frightening to set your settings to “rotate indefinitely” since you don’t know what’s going to happen. Even Google puts up a little warning that says your ads “may not perform as well with this option”.

Ignore Google and try this out, for a month or two. You should see your CTR improving and your ad spend going down. You can always go back if it doesn’t work for you if you don’t like it.

And don’t test one ad vs a slightly different ad. Try out different styles of writing (like emotional ad copy) and test them against what you’re doing right now.

There’s no better way to see which works better for your company.

4. Run a Destination URL Report for SEO Success

Let’s get away from ad copy and strategy for a moment. Go ahead a run a Google AdWords destination URL report on your account.

It’ll show you which of your website landing pages your customers stay on the longest and “like” more. Then take a look at your top performing pages vs. the bottom ones.

What are the differences? How can you make the bottom performing pages look more like the top ones?

Maybe it’s two different types of products. If so, then you may need to adjust your audience or other ad strategies for bottom performing pages.

Or maybe it has to do with graphic design, like needing a clearer call to action. It might even mean using fewer call to actions on a page – that’s a mistake people make a lot.

One page, one clear call to action. That’s the winning recipe for conversions.

SEO and Google AdWords

Your SEO and your ad strategy aren’t two separate entities. One plays into the success of the other, and vice versa. If you only focus on one, then the other is going to bring both sides down.

Try out our SEO and Google AdWords tips for a little while, then reassess. Don’t give up too soon – changes in marketing take a little while to catch on.In the meantime, make sure you’re not making these common SEO mistakes.