3 BIG Google Ads Myths Holding You Back From Making Quick Sales
Are you trying to find the most cost effective marketing channel?
Confused and overwhelmed by the amount of information online?
You are just one of millions of small business owners trying to achieve the same thing!
So how do you break through to your customers online?
One of the most effective ways to get your message in front of internet users is to embrace Google Advertising.
Google Ads appear in the sponsored results sections of Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).
You may need to pay to get your ad listed there, but it’s well worth the investment if you know what you’re doing!
[bctt tweet=”The sad news is that most small businesses avoid Google Ads altogether because they either don’t understand it, or have misguided beliefs about it but this might actually be the exact reason why most small businesses fail.” username=”@SmartTrafficAU”]
Today, we’re breaking those down to show you how toactually leverage Google ads to grow your sales in perhaps the most cost effective manner you can online.
Let’s get started!
MYTH #1 – Google Ads requires a lot of money and so only works for big businesses
Can you bring in a 1,000 new customers spending just $100 on Google Ads? … No.
But do you need to be spending thousands on Google Ads every month just to stay afloat? … No.
Here’s what actually happened when you hear small business owners say “Google ads don’t work”…
They hire a freelancer/agency or choose to do it themselves, pick a bunch of keywords to go after (usually their brand or main services terms for which there’s probably already loads of competition and high cost per clicks), they chuck up a few ads and then sit back to watch Google chew through the hundreds they’ve put in… (fingers crossed 🤞🏻)
THAT is not a strategy for success.
You need to actually invest time and resources into creating a strategy that promises a return on investment … apart from your monetary investment.
Often, business owners only target high-traffic keywords when aiming to drive as many paying customers to their website as possible. However, high-traffic keywords can be expensive to bid on, and in some cases, they’re not the best keywords to target.
“High search volume doesn’t always equal more conversions, customers or sales. Keyword intention, ad relevance and the strength if your offer are much better indicators of success.”
Before you even bid on search terms, you’ll have to research your keywords, competitor activity and customer segments to make sure you’re getting the most you can for your budget.
Search for keywords that are both affordable to bid on and have a high chance of converting
For example, ‘Google Ads services Sydney’ may have a lower average monthly search volume than ‘Google Ads’, but people searching for ‘Google Ads’ may simply want more information on the subject. On the other hand, those who search for ‘Google Ads services Sydney’ are clearly people who are interested in Google ad services.
What else can you do to make your marketing budget stretch as far as possible and maximise your lead conversion rate?
Tailor your content
Encouraging people to click on your ads will prove to be a waste of time and money if your content doesn’t persuade them to go through with the sale.
Make sure you understand precisely what your customer wants to find when they click through to your landing page. Use strong call to actions, and clearly detail the benefits of your offering to increase your chances of securing sales.
Aim for ‘transactional’ keywords
There are many ranking factors you need to be aware of when creating a Google Ads campaign, and one of the most important is ‘user intent’. Google wants to make sure that searchers find the content that’s most related to their search query at the top of the page.
Therefore, if your landing page focuses on your content marketing service, make sure you bid on a related keyword that won’t confuse readers. You need to make sure people find exactly what they’re looking for when they click on your ad to keep your bounce rate to a minimum.
If you’re trying to target customers towards the end of the online buyer’s journey (i.e., at the point when they’re ready to make a purchase), consider targeting transactional keywords that include words such as ‘buy’ and ‘purchase’.
They may not be the best phrases to target if you want to drive as much traffic to your website as possible, but they are likely to result in a high conversion rate.
Write perfect descriptions
When your ad appears in Google’s sponsored results section, you need its headlines and description to be persuasive. This is your chance to encourage people to click on your ad and read what you have to say. Make sure you summarise the benefits and USPs of your product and services in the content of your ad in your description and include a strong CTA.
Optimise your campaigns
One of the most beneficial aspects of Google Ads is that you can alter your campaigns by analysing data points such as number of click-throughs, conversion rates and much more. Think Google Ads makes it impossible to track your ROI?
We’ll dispel that myth in section 3.
MYTH #2 – The competition is too fierce for my Ads to appear on page 1
65% of small-to-midsized businesses have a PPC campaign (source)
Yes, that’s a lot of businesses all competing on the same platform.
But the good news is you can still find untapped traffic through Google Ads by being intelligent with your keyword strategy.
If you want to rank on the first page of Google for a high-traffic keyword such as ‘digital advertising’, be prepared to spend a lot of money – and don’t expect a huge return.
Targeting high-traffic keywords might seem appealing, but any online marketing specialist worth their salt will tell you that you have a higher chance of making an ROI and earning first-page positions if you aim for lower traffic keywords (which can be more affordable to bid on).
Keywords aside, there are many things you can do to increase your chances of landing on page 1.
Some of the most affordable and effective tactics include:
Target specific customer segments
When your competitors are trying to target all your customers in one campaign, you might have an opportunity to create a more tailored campaign for a specific customer segment, putting you in a better position to get your message in front of them (the more relevant your ads are to a particular customer, the more likely they are to fair well with Google and its users).
Analyse your customer data to see where you could make gains. You can also use a range of online tools to examine your competitors’ campaigns, enabling you to make improvements or address shortfalls.
Utilise the full functionality of Google Ads
When you create a campaign, you can use Google Ads to target specific customers by location, age, demographics, interests and much more. It’s worth finding out exactly who your users are so that you can create adverts that are tailored to their needs. Learn more about boosting your PPC conversion rates.
Optimise your landing pages
You need to make sure users like what they find after clicking on your Google Ad. That means you need to create great content, minimise your page loading speed, ensure your ads and landing page look great on smartphones, and include a contact form. Maximise your engagement metrics (i.e., keep people on your website and encourage them to interact with your content), optimise your quality score and your ads will be appearing on the first page of Google in no time.
MYTH #3 – You can’t really track ROI
Here’s what people really mean when they say this…
“I don’t know what to measure (I’m measuring the wrong thing) or how to read what I’m measuring and what it means”
Your ROI and return on ad spend from Google ads are highly measurable, if you’ve got your tracking setup correctly and understand what the data means and the belief that you can’t track ROI couldn’t be further from the truth.
Using the Google Ads platform, you can track and store data relating to:
Customer activity
Conversion rate
Number of impressions (how many times your ad appeared in front of users)
Location of users who clicked through to your ad
Using those data points alone, you can start optimising your campaigns to improve your ROI as well as find out how much money your ads are currently generating.
Paid online tools like SEMrush can help you track your competitor’s campaigns, perform extensive keyword research, find out how people find you, and much more.
The belief that you can’t track ROI using Google Ads is ironic – being able to track your ROI with pinpoint accuracy is one of the biggest benefits of the advertising platform.
Advertising on Google might take some getting used to but if you put in the required time and effort, you’ll be able to see a significant improvement in your business from your efforts.
Having said that though, the absolute worst thing you could do is to waste your budget trying to figure out how to run profitable Google ads campaigns by yourself or worse… outsource it to an agency that can’t deliver results.
If you want make Google ads work for you business, you need someone who can walk you through a strategy, proof of results and a plan of action to help you hit your business goals consistently.
If that’s what you’re after, then we’ve got what you need, so get in touch,we’ve helped countless companies reach new heights over the past couple of decades and you don’t need to spend thousands (unless you want to obviously) to see the kind of results you want.
About the author
Michael Holder
A specialist in Google Ads, and with a wide range of SEO skills and experience, Michael has a particular interest in Local SEO strategies for small to medium sized businesses. When Michael is not working hard increasing conversions for clients Paid Advertising campaigns he enjoys traveling, dining out and watching Formula 1 and football.
