5 Google search advertising tips for businesses with small budgets
Search advertising is becoming more and more competitive, and for that reason, more expensive.
The good news is, there are many ways to save money when setting up your Google or Bing Ads.
Here are some best practise recommendations to make sure your account is setup correctly and you have methods in place to ensure you are not spending too much, and your targeting is on point.
Tip #1: Find your keywords
When you have setup your Google Ads account, use their own keyword tool to pick out the best keyword phrases for your business.
Targeting long-tail keywords can also help to keep costs low.
For example:
Targeting “plumbers” is going to be very expensive
However, targeting “affordable plumbers in Southampton” is a long-tail keyword which will be less competitive and more cost affective.
Important note when adding keyword phrases to your campaign - you MUST add phrase match type. This means surrounding your chosen keywords with quotation marks.
Example -
affordable plumbers in Southampton - No, do not do this! This is broadmatch.
“affordable plumbers in Southampton” - Yes, do this! This is phrase match
This is because broad match will show your ad if someone types in ‘plumber’ and also if they just type in ‘Southampton’.
With phrase match, Google will only display your ad if the whole keyword phrase is searched for.
Tip #2 - Create a compelling ad
Your advert needs to stand out from the crowd. Your copy needs to be compelling and have a clear call-to-action or offer, which entices the searcher to click on your link.
It’s definitely worth experimenting with headlines and ad copy, and even create 2 versions and set Google to A/B split test, to find the best performing advert, and then continue to optimise as you go.
Tip #3 - Set your budgets
It is very important to set your daily budget and your overall budget, so you do not overspend.
For small businesses, I’d advise to pick out some very specific keyword phrases, add them as ‘phrase match type’ and set a low budget, to start testing.
Once you have received a few conversions (enquiries) from your search ads, and you are happy to continue, you can then up your daily budget.
Another thing to note is your CPC (cost per click) for each keyword you select. It is definitely worth setting a maximum CPC so you do not spend too much for a specific keyword phrase.
Tip #4 - Create an engaging landing page
The visitor has now clicked on your advert and landed on a page on your website.
To get the best return from your advertising investment, you must convert your lead.
Your website must be structurally sound and easy to flow from page to page with clear and precise goals for each page.
You need to put methods in place to capture your lead. This could be a newsletter subscribe box, a free no obligation quotation form or a website ‘we will call you back’ form, or perhaps a follow us on social media button.
You may also want to setup display remarketing ads which will follow your website visitor on other websites, with the aim to bring them back to your website and complete their enquiry.
Whichever you decide, your visitor must complete a very specific goal, for your business to see any positive impact on your search ad performance.
Tip #5 - Optimise & improve
Unfortunately you cannot just setup an advert and let it perform its own magic.
You need to continue to tweak and optimise it until you have found it is performing at its maximum.
There are tools available to help with this which include Google Ads very own split testing tool, plus Google Analytics and also Google Optimise, to help with web page optimisation.
Summary
It may seem like a lot to get your head around but as soon as you start using Google Ads, you will see some results. And like I say, if you are a small business, it is important to use a very small test budget to start with, ensure your account is setup correctly and you are hyper-targeted to avoid waste clicks.
Good luck, and let me know if you need any help with setting up your search ads account.
Gary B.