5 Ways to Get More Out of Google AdWords

One of the quickest ways to get more traffic from Google is by buying ads through Google Adwords.

You give Google money and they’ll gladly send you more visitors.

The problem with Google AdWords, however, is that it’s expensive. That is unless you can figure out a way to optimize your CTR (click through rate).

If you don’t know what a click through rate is, let me explain. Assume you’ve placed an ad on Google Adwords. The click through rate is the percentage of people who see that ad and actually click on it to visit your website.

Now, if a high percentage of people are clicking on your ad and visiting your website as compared to your competitors’ ads, then not only is your cost per click going to go down (yay!), Google is also going to start showing your ad more than your competitors.

Why? They’re making more money off of you, that’s why.

So let’s go over some ways you can really optimize your click through rate and get the most bang for your advertising buck.

1. Identify your competition

Use a competitor research tool like SEM Rush or SpyFu and put in any URL or keyword to see who is buying ad spots for that particular string. For instance, say the keyword you’re researching is “Italian restaurant.” It’ll show you every single company that’s bidding on that exact term and the ad copy they’re using!

2. Improve on their ad campaigns

Now that you have a list of your competitors’ ads and keywords, you can really start to do some damage. The results at the top of this list tend to have the highest click through rate. Now take this information and see if you can’t create a better version of their ads.

3. Include the keyword in your ad copy

You need to make sure that the keyword someone is going to be searching for appears within your ad copy. Basic psychology would tell you that if the keyword they’re searching for isn’t in your copy, there’s a significant chance that they’re not going to click on your ad. And the whole point of this is to get people clicking through to your website from your ad.

4. Run your ads during peak hours

So many people make the mistake of running their Google Adwords campaign 24 hours a day. This is a complete waste of money and time.

You want to turn your ads on only during the times you know your ideal audience is going to be active online. So if you’re operating an Italian restaurant, you want to run your ads from noon until 9 pm to take advantage of people putting together their dinner plans for the evening or the weekend.

You don’t want your ads running at 3 am when not only is your restaurant closed, 90% of your potential customers are in bed.

5. Getting to know geotargeting

If you’re a local business and you only serve a particular geographical region, it’s not going to help you one bit to serve ads to people 500 miles away. Not only is it a waste of your advertising budget, but showing ads that are irrelevant to people 500 miles away means they’re not going to click through to your website. And as we’ve discussed, when people don’t click through to your website, you lose in more ways than one.

So make sure you specify the region your business caters to in order to get the most out of your Google AdWords campaign and drive your click through rate through the roof.