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PPC Ad Text Tips And Tricks

ccg — Mon, 03 May 2021 13:07:14 +0000

PPC Ad Text Tips And Tricks

In the past, we have covered keyword generation and how to sort those new keywords into ad groups. Now, we will be moving on to ad text tips and tricks.

First and foremost, it is important to realize that someone else’s best practices could be your worst nightmare. If something sounds like a good idea to you, test it! Then try re-testing it over time. With that caveat out of the way, here are some pieces of advice you might find useful when writing your ads.

The best thing an ad can be is useful. Now that you have gathered your keywords and campaigns, you will need to quickly prove that you are worth someone’s limited attention. Make sure your ad is relevant to your customer’s needs by including their keywords in your headlines. If you do not have ad text restrictions, or any reason to believe your ad could be misleading, feel free to use dynamic keyword insertion. While your headline may appear to you as {KeyWord: Business Lawyers}, Google will automatically update your headline to match one of your keywords that best matches your client’s search terms.

Even though ad text descriptions are rarely scrutinized, they can be useful tools to prime your audience for your website. If you have a difficult time writing ad text, consider pulling words and phrases from your website. You will simultaneously prepare your audience for your website and give Google’s algorithm proof that your ad is relevant to your landing page. If nothing else, try to highlight the benefits you can provide. If you give free case evaluations, be sure to mention it in your ad text descriptions.

Although ad extensions have been covered in the past on this blog., I would like to reiterate their importance. Ad extensions are not only additional places for your potential clients to click but are also a great way to cram in additional information. Keep in mind, ad extensions applied to an ad group take priority over those applied to a campaign, which then take priority over account-level extensions.

Above all, remember to keep your ad content useful and relevant. If you cannot spare the time to do this, consider learning more about how eGeneration Marketing can generate leads for your firm.

ccg Mon, 05/03/2021 - 09:07

Blog tags

PPC, Keywords

How To Organize Keywords

ccg — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 21:02:14 +0000

How To Organize Keywords

There are a couple different methods to group your keywords, but Excel is really the only place to do it. Once you have your keywords listed in Excel, one to each cell, you can sort them in a couple different ways: source-based, page-based, or theme-based. If you need help generating new keywords, check out my last blog post here.

Source-Based

If you, like many Search Marketers before you, have mined your Search Query Report for new keywords, this method is for you. All you need to do is add the search term as a keyword in the same ad group that triggered it. As with everything, this rule is not infallible. Occasionally, there will be another ad group that would be a better fit for your keyword than the one it originally showed up in. For example, a Personal Injury keyword could trigger a search term like “work injury lawyer.” In this circumstance, that keyword would best function in a Workers Compensation campaign instead of with the keyword that triggered it. If you’re at a loss, you can always make a single keyword ad group.

Page-Based

It’s possible you are just starting your account and have no pre-existing campaign to mine keywords from. Maybe you wrote your own keywords or scoured Google Keyword Planner to get your firm’s campaign started. In this case, try divvying up keywords based on which of your firm’s landing pages best correspond with them. With Personal Injury, this would look like dividing your keywords based on case types, like slip and falls, auto accidents, or general negligence. This method will benefit you additionally because of how Google monitors quality, which will be explained in a future article.

Theme-Based

This is my preferred method of keyword grouping, but it is the most time intensive. Sort your keywords alphabetically, but please do not make your ad groups solely based on which letter your keyword starts with. Ad groups should have some kind of theme or concept that ties the group of keywords together, be it a location, intent, or specific characteristic of your firm’s offering. Once your keywords are sorted, write down the general theme of the keyword in the column next to it. As you do this manually, you will begin to notice patterns emerging. Segment your keywords based on the natural divisions that arise. The most common may be sorting your keywords by area of law, especially if your firm handles multiple areas of law. If you only handle one area of law, you may want to segment your keywords by specific case types.

While keyword organization can seem like a small part of your campaign, I recommend taking your time with this, as it can greatly affect your firm’s campaign performance. If you’re unable to give your campaigns the attention they need to thrive, feel free to learn more about how lead generation can help your business grow.

ccg Wed, 01/27/2021 - 16:02

How To Quickly Generate New Keywords

ccg — Thu, 05 Nov 2020 20:20:24 +0000

How To Quickly Generate New Keywords

If you are looking for quick and easy ways to expand your keyword list, look no further. For all intents and purposes, treat this article as a guideline to expanding your already existing keyword lists and campaigns. Organization of said keywords will be covered in my next blog post, so stay tuned.

Look Through Your Search Query Report

The most straightforward method to expanding an existing keyword list is to navigate to your search query report. If you’re looking at your campaigns page, navigate to the toolbar on the left-hand side, and click on “Keywords.” Select “Search terms” on the drop-down menu that appears. This will pull up your Search Query Report, which is essentially a list of searches people made that triggered your ad. Be sure to filter for “none” under Added/Excluded. To save time, you can also filter out any search terms that are an exact match to your keywords. Download this list to Excel, and use metrics like click-through rate, Conversion Rate, and Cost per Conversion to decide if you want to add these keywords to your account.

Check Out Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner provides another simple method of finding new keywords. The Keyword Planner is currently located on the top navigation bar, Under “Tools” and then “Planning.” All you need to do is enter a couple relevant keywords into the search bar, and Google will come up with a list of new, semi-related ones. For example, you could type “law firms in Kalamazoo” or “personal injury lawyers” into the search bar. An added benefit of Google Keyword planner is the volume forecasts attached to each keyword. If you can, find keywords with high volume and low competition. Make sure not to bid on any branded keywords, such as competing law firms, or keywords you already have in your account.

Use Your Firm’s Website

If you prefer a more abstract method of researching keywords, you can start by combing through your firm’s website text. This is also a useful thing to do periodically to make sure you are sending people to the right landing pages. Even if you don’t find any new keywords that jump out at you, keep a running list of the important themes and services emphasized on your website. This is one of the many ways SEO and PPC can work together. There are easily accessible websites that can help you determine synonyms and word associations that you might find useful for your copy.

Hopefully you are now equipped to start adding new keywords to your firm’s account. This guide is meant to help you expand a pre-existing campaign, but if you want to learn more about how to group the keywords you’ve found into different campaigns or ad groups, stay tuned for my next article.

ccg Thu, 11/05/2020 - 15:20

Blog tags

PPC, Keywords

What Rose Gardening Can Teach You About PPC

ccg — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 17:21:16 +0000

What Rose Gardening Can Teach You About PPC

Before I tended to the PPC campaigns of eGen, I used to tend to my uncle’s rose garden. It was sweaty work, but those flowers were absolutely gorgeous. The key to rose-keeping, according to my uncle, is to recognize and eliminate where on the rosebush the water could be going other than the flowers. Water is precious, and every part of the plant is eager to absorb it, whether or not it actually produces anything. It’s not entirely unlike running a PPC campaign on a tight budget, in the sense that you have to be mindful of what you put your resources behind. With both rose gardening and PPC campaigns, it’s important to identify and weed out poor performance. With that said, here are some rose gardening tips for you to apply to your PPC campaigns.

Identify What Isn't Performing

Yellow or dry leaves are relatively easy to identify. They might not look like they are absorbing water that could be used to fuel the flowers, but it’s important to cut them off nonetheless. Because your keywords won’t be yellowing or have brown spots, you’ll have to create your own criteria to determine the performance of your campaign.

Your criteria for identifying underperforming keywords, ad groups, or even campaigns should be based on your goals. As a PPC Specialist working to generate leads, I typically focus on a keyword’s long-term cost per acquisition, recent cost per acquisition, and the volume it generates. Ask yourself: based on performance, is this a keyword that I should devote my time, effort, and budget to?

Figure Out Why It Isn't Performing

If you forget to water a rose, and then dead-head it because it’s looking a bit wilted, you have unfairly punished your plant. Having never figured out the reason your rose wilted, you will likely repeat your mistake and end up with a rose-less rosebush. While you cannot save a wilted flower, you can revitalize a keyword once you’ve figured out what caused the drop in volume. Start by checking recent changes you have made, such as bid reductions, adding negative keywords, changing match types, or ad text rewrites.

Here are a couple of questions that may help your search:

Have you reduced your bids recently? If your keyword has dropped below the first page bid, its conversion rate is likely to drop with it. Consider the loss of volume in the context of the profitability of the keyword before making any changes.
Is there a more relevant ad group for your keyword? Even if it’s bringing its current ad group some much-needed volume, consider how a more specific ad group or dedicated landing page would impact your conversion rate.
Is your keyword in an ad group with another high-volume keyword that tends to hog all the traffic? Consider putting the higher volume keyword into its own ad group, and regularly checking the Search Query Report to see if anything interesting turns up.
Look at the keyword’s performance over time. Has it always been low-volume, and you’ve never noticed because the weekly cost is low enough to fly under the radar? Low weekly costs can still add up. Grab your garden shears and get rid of it!

Decide What To Eliminate, and Get Rid of It!

While this article was written with keywords in mind specifically, you can apply the rose gardening principles to ad groups and campaigns as well. Find your yellow leaves, figure out how they got that way, and get rid of them if they can’t be salvaged! Ask yourself if a campaign is spending more than it’s making, and if there’s a conceivable way to fix it. Not only will you be able to avoid a drop in volume, but you’ll be less likely to make the same mistake in the future.

For those of you without a green thumb, consider calling 617.800.0089 to learn how eGeneration Marketing can get you low-cost, high-quality Social Security disability, personal injury, employment law, and workers' compensation leads.

ccg Fri, 03/13/2020 - 13:21

Five Lessons Holiday Shopping Can Teach You About PPC

ccg — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 16:46:23 +0000

Five Lessons Holiday Shopping Can Teach You About PPC

The wind is picking up, the sun is setting early, classic carols are creeping into grocery stores and we’ve all got one thing on our minds: Pay-per-Click advertising. Kidding. While that may not be strictly true, there are some strategies of holiday gift shopping that apply to PPC. You likely care about one of these things much, much more than the other, but PPC can be an incredibly effective tool to generate cases for your firm.

While we’ve definitely covered match types before, a quick review probably couldn’t hurt. In PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, marketers bid on keywords that prompt their advertisements when someone enters a relevant search into Google or Bing. For example, if your Personal Injury law firm operates out of Kalamazoo, you’d probably bid on a search terms like “injury lawyer Kalamazoo” or “Kalamazoo attorney” Match types (broad, phrase, exact) determine how closely a keyword has to match a search term before it triggers an ad.

Unnecessary Traffic Can Drive up Costs

Imagine hosting a White Elephant party; it’s on you to provide the food, drinks, music, and a cheerful environment to exchange gifts. Every added guest is an added expense, but their presence and gifts justify the incremental amount of money spent on cookies. Attendees who don’t bring gifts are a bit like clicks on an ad that don’t end up converting. Because ads are charged on a cost-per-click basis, every click your ad receives will drive up your cost incrementally even if it doesn’t result in a conversion. At the risk of sounding like a Scrooge, more is not necessarily merrier.

Let Your Budget Be Your Guide

How much you’re willing to bid on a keyword can impact your ad’s placement, reach, and quality score. Let’s say your Kalamazoo-based firm directly competes with a rival firm in Portage. You’re probably both bidding on terms like “injury attorney Michigan,” so if your landing pages are of similar quality, ad placement could come down to budget. Overspending is dangerously easy if you don’t have a strategy in place. You will likely discover how well this principle applies to Holiday shopping once Black Friday sales roll in.

Know When to Leave Room for Interpretation

Broad Match keywords are a bit like giving out money for Christmas. The gift is valuable, but it’s not specific and you can’t attach your own intent to it. Much like your teenage relative can use your money to buy almost anything, broad match keywords are triggered by anything remotely related to your keyword. You could end up triggering something like “Kalamazoo law school,” which likely won’t turn in to a viable case.

This is where broad match modifiers—and gift cards—come in. By substituting “Kalamazoo attorney” with “+Kalamazoo +attorney,” you will only trigger search queries that contain both of the words you’ve specified.

Specificity Can Save Time and Money

Have you ever been out with a friend who points out the perfect present to get them? Have you ever bought what they suggested immediately after they did so? That situation is a bit like using exact match keywords, which will trigger ads when someone types in the same exact words you have bid on. While the likelihood of both an exact match and an exact gift are small, the results can be fantastic.

Know Your Constraints

Hardly anyone gets their Christmas shopping, budgeting, and preparations done in time. It can be difficult to get the results you want when you don’t have the time, energy, or knowledge to execute even the most specific of plans. While we don’t necessarily have the solution to holiday stress, we can greatly improve your marketing efforts. If you’d rather stress over giving gifts to your loved ones than the intricacies of keyword bids, give us a call to learn more about our Social Security Disability, Personal Injury, Workers’ Compensation, and Employment Law leads. Figure out how to get through the holidays, and we’ll take care of the rest.

ccg Fri, 11/15/2019 - 11:46