Efficient Tips to Help You Better Attract Your Local Market and Generate More Leads
Are you currently running Google Adwords campaigns for your business?
Are you looking for new ways to generate more clicks?
Are you looking for new ways to help your ads stand out from the competition?
Then this post is for you. Pay-per-click campaigns are a great way for businesses to generate immediate leads while building up organic efforts. As a way to help local businesses increase their reach and make their PPC budgets work more effectively, we will introduce 4 simple Google Adwords tricks that can push your text ads to the next level.
How? Through ad extensions. Ad extensions allow you to add benefits and extra messaging that does not fit within the base of the ad copy.
Let’s get started.
Call Extensions
Call extensions show your business number along with your ad. With more and more users favoriting mobile as their go-to device for finding local services, this ad extension gives you an upper hand.
The number is programmed by Google to be easily clickable and go straight to calling. This action allows your prospects to contact your business directly without having to land on your page to then have them search for your business information. The quicker and simpler we can make the contact process for your audience, the better.
Calls Made From Website
Google Adwords allows its users to track two forms of call:
- Mobile call extensions (which was just mentioned above) and
- Calls made from your website which is done with a Google forwarding number (free of charge)
In order to track call from Adwords that were made from prospects who have landed on your website, you will have to add a tag provided by Google. All you have to do is create a new “Phone Call” conversion goal (under the Conversion tab), select “Calls to a phone number on your website”, enter the business number shown on your landing page and then copy/paste the Google tag that is provided to the header of your landing page or website. Once this is programmed, prospects will see the Google forwarding number when they click on your ad and land on your site. When a call is made from this number, Google will track it on their end and provide you with the conversion results under the “Conversions” tab of your account.
The great thing about these calls is that you can define the number of seconds a caller is on the phone call. For example, a call must last at least 30 seconds for you to want to consider it an actual “conversion”, anything less than that doesn’t work for you. Once this is defined you can how many calls your are receiving on a day-to-day, weekly or even monthly basis. If you notice a dip these metrics, then it would be a good time to evaluate the behavior and plan for a few optimization ideas.
Location Extension
When consumers are searching for service-based businesses such as dentists, attorneys or accountants, they want to see how far the office is from where they are currently standing. The closer your prospect is to you, the higher the probability they will select you for their intended needs – typically anything within a 3 mile radius.
Location extensions are a great way to show your office’s address without having to use your ad description area to type it out.
As you will see in the example above, your address will be shown with a location marker to allow it to stand out more clearly. A clear benefit is the elimination of wasted clicks for your campaign. If a prospects sees you are too far from their current location, they may skip and move to the next one. This then allows you to target on those who are willing to drive to you.
Structure Snippets
One of our favorite structured snippets is the “Service Catalog” because it allows us to outline any sub-services businesses might want to showcase but can’t fit within the limited text description.
For example, if a dentist has a “Cosmetic Dentistry” ad, he or she can show the services they would like to focus on such as: veneers, sealants, fillings, etc.
These structure snippets can be added at the AdGroup, campaign or account level – but we prefer to do it by AdGroup so each is thoroughly focused on its specific service. Keep in mind that these snippets are not linked to go back to your website, they only provide extra information about your services.
Callout Extension
What are some common callouts businesses have to entice prospects to contact them? “Free Consultation”, “Latest and Greatest Technology” and so forth. If you want to add more perks and benefits to your ads, this is the way.
In the example above you will see that this San Diego dentist has come up with at least 4 different callouts that they believe will further capture their audience’s attention. They understand their market and know exactly what they are looking for, example being the “New Patient Special”. This extension can also be added at the AdGroup, campaign or account level. Since these callouts are more broad and can be used for different style ads, you can save time by adding it to the account level instead of having to remember to add it to each AdGroup.
What Is Your Favorite Extension?
Well there you have it, we have laid out 4 different PPC extensions your business should start taking advantage of today. Once you turn them on, make sure to always test and optimize to make the most of your daily budget and continue to increase your CTR and conversions.
Have an extension we didn’t mention but would like to share? Tell us in the comments below to continue the conversation.