Writing ads for your AdWords campaign is for many PPC newcomers, one of the hardest tasks to carry out. Or allow me to rephrase… It seems like it’s super easy when you’re writing your first ad, but when the ads are not converting or attracting enough traffic, you find yourself dumbfounded. This post will teach you to write better Adwords ad copy by describing the next actions you should take!
Writing good AdWords ads is a hard task and at White Shark Media, it’s one of our main areas of training for new Account Executives.
It’s somewhat easy to teach the AdWords system – how to find appropriate keywords and how to build an account. However, when it comes to creatively expressing the benefits of your company (while still being specific and yet differentiating yourself from your competitors), it can seem extremely challenging.
I have gathered some of my best proven recommendations on how to write AdWords ads so I suggest that you try them out in your own campaigns!
Start with the Basics: Remember your Main Keyword
A lot of advice relies on having your main keyword in your AdWords ads. This is basic advice, but it’s so monumental that I would like to extend my recommendation for it, as well.
There are very few ads I’ve seen in my AdWords career that did better without the main keyword incorporated in it somehow. Not only does the Google Quality Score algorithm punish you for not having the keyword in your ad, but you also lose visibility in the search results page.
Remember to Tell the User What to Do and it’s NOT to Click
You always want to help the user figure out what the next action step is once they get redirected to your landing page.
Explaining the next step (call-to-action) serves two goals:
1) The user will actively look for the call-to-action mentioned in the ad. If you, like most websites, have several calls-to-action, then mentioning the one best-suited for your visitors can has massive positive effects.
It tells the user exactly what to look for and thereby helps the user achieve his goal quicker.
2) Using a call-to-action explains to the user what is possible on your website. If a user is dead set on buying a new camera, then he will be glad that you mention Buy your Camera Here – Huge Selection.
Instead of writing Huge Selection of Cameras for Sale, you now tell the user exactly what to do. This has proven to be a more successful formula for keywords that reflect a high buying intent.
Match Your Searchers Intent by Analyzing Keywords
The intent of your searcher can be identified in many cases through the keyword they’re using.
If a user searches for how to relieve back pain, then you know that the user is researching different ways of how to relieve back pain. You don’t know what kind of back pain yet though, so an ad like the one below would most likely be a bit over the top:
Relieve Back Pain Today
Surgery to Relieve Back Pain.
Book Today – Only $1000.
www.USBackPainSociety.org
The ad speaks directly to desperate individuals who already know that they need back surgery in order to feel better. It however doesn’t do much for users who don’t know what they have yet and are still in the researching phase.
In the search phrase how to relieve back pain, the following ad would be more appropriate:
Want to Relieve Back Pain?
9 out of 10 are in Risk of Developing
Serious Back Pain. See if you are too!
USBAckPainSociety.org/Resources
This ad speaks more generically to a person looking to find out more about back pain. If your goal is to only get leads for your back pain surgery service, then yes, the first ad might work better.
But if you carefully implement a funnel process for searchers with the 2nd ad that consists of starting out with your newsletter and then slowly working them in your favor, then your potential will be far greater.
Use Ad Sitelinks to Guide Searchers Using Generic Keywords
It can be very hard to identify the intent of a user if they’re using a generic keyword. Generic keywords are usually one or two-worded keywords.
Examples of generic keywords
- Back Pain: surgery, remedies, better office chair, etc.
- Jobs: new job, job numbers, job information, educational information
- HD Video Camera: buy, reviews, browsing, comparisons
- AdWords Help: do it yourself, agency help, beginner articles, advanced adwords books
- Hotels in the Caribbean: where, what price range, what type, etc.
All these keywords can consist of several different types of searcher intents. These keywords can make it very hard to write the perfect ad for these generic search terms.
Ad Sitelinks to the Rescue!
With Ad Sitelinks, you have the opportunity to display up to 6 links beneath your AdWords ads.
When you have generic keywords, you can use Ad Sitelinks to present shortcuts for searchers. These shortcuts should ideally be links to the most visited pages on your site, or the most popular products.
A Caribbean hotel browsing website could have four different links to the most popular hotels within four different price ranges.
Writing Successful AdWords Ads Has Many Facets
As you can see, the thought process that goes into writing successful AdWords ads can be quite extensive. It’s important that you take the time and think of the best way that you can present your message to your prospects.
Your AdWords ads are your window to the search results page and if their content is not exactly what users are looking for, then your results will suffer.
Ads should be an area of focus for you from the beginning of your AdWords career!
AndrewLolk
Andrew Lolk is the Chief Marketing Officer at WhiteSharkMedia.com. With 4 years’ experience in Paid Search, SEO, Affiliate Marketing, and Google Analytics, he now runs the marketing outreach program at White Shark Media, Inc. Meet him on Twitter: @AndreasLolk
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