It is not so often that Google changes AdWords – it is actually rather rare. But, when Google do alter something in PPC advertising, you will usually find that it improves PPC some way or another. The last update to PPC saw the number of paid search adverts increase from three to four while completely removing the right hand side adverts from search results. In the latest innovation in PPC advertising, Google have changed the colour scheme of paid search to feature just three colours: grey, blue and green with the option of orange depending on if certain ad extensions are used.
Before the change, the adverts on Google search results typically looked something like the below image (which was taken from the ‘Analyse A Real PPC Campaign’ series for Loaf):
As we can see, the advert’s had a certain format in terms of the colours chosen:
- Any link in the advert would appear as blue.
- The description of the advert would appear as a grey.
- The URL of the advert would be in green.
- The ‘Ad’ logo would appear in yellow.
However, we can see this has changed with the latest alteration Google has made, where they have decided to change the colour of the ‘Ad’ logo from yellow to green:
Although the change was based on positive feedback from testing and to make clear to the web user that the adverts are adverts, I can see changing the ‘Ad’ logo from yellow to green to have a number of other benefits too:
- The advert colour scheme is simpler – Whatever software that is being created, such as Android, Windows 10, Mac OS or iOS, it seems we are heading for simpler software (at least visually). From doing this will make the advert look less cluttered visually which will make the adverts more aesthetically pleasing to look at.
- A change always makes a short term difference – Whatever change you make in PPC, you will always see a small spike in results (in the positive direction) from the change. This is because you will have changed how people thought adverts looked to a new format (this time in terms of colours). This, of course, will attract web user’s attention in the short term leading to better results for advertisers of PPC.
- Less colours blend paid adverts – Although Google claims that the change will make the ‘labeling clear and prominent’, having adverts with less colours in them will make them closer looking to organic search results. Therefore, it can definitely be seen that the paid search adverts are getting closer looking to organic SEO results, since the colour schemes for both paid search and organic search results are pretty much exactly the same (with the exception of the ad extension colour schemes). For PPC advertisers, this might be great news. For those looking to generate traffic from SEO, this could be slightly worrying as the difference between adverts and organic results (being the ‘Ad’ logo) has now adopted a colour that will enable paid adverts to blend far better with the top of organic search results.
