Changes to Adwords & How You Can Take Advantage of Them
Now at the top of pay-per-click advertising, Google AdWords has been undergoing a lot of changes throughout the past couple of years. Specifically, the media marketing giant made some alterations not just to their site layout, but to advertising capabilities. These are the ones that could help your business the most. We’re going to lay out the three big ones for you, and show you how these changes benefit your landscape design/build, architecture, or other type of home improvement company.
Expanded Text Ads - People Really Do Want To Know More Before Clicking.
Previously, the amount of text a business could include in their advertisements was getting plenty of complaints because they were just too short. AdWords apparently listened and decided that one 25-character headline and two 35-character description lines was not enough to create the kind of paid website traffic their customers were anticipating. With the updated expanded text ads, now businesses can fill two 30-character headlines and one condensed 80-character description line. This is huge for businesses because the more relevant, concise information you can provide about your services, the more clicks you will get. Also, instead of displaying your website URL directly on the search results page which had to be entered manually, your domain will be automatically extracted from your URL.
Related: 5 Things Home Improvement Contractors Need To Know About Google AdWords
The best ways for your business to take advantage of these changes is to increase the information you provide about your services, but in a concise manner! We can’t stress this enough: if you fluff up your current headlines by keyword stuffing simply because more space is available, you are wasting the potential all those characters offers. This is an opportunity to grab searchers’ attentions without robotically inserting the same things every other home improvement company on the web does: something about great local service with a smile, blah blah blah. Spice it up with eye-catching descriptors to complement keywords that make your business stand out. And of course, encourage a call-to-action (something about why the searchers should click on the AD now because of X).
Responsive Display Ads - Easier to Create and Much More Visually Pleasant.
Example of a Google Adwords display ad by Halstead Media Group.
Before this advertisement overhaul, display ads (basically ads that have an image rather than just text) would often look awkward and ill-sized depending on the platform they were viewed on, simply because they were only formatted for one platform at a time. Plus, ads had to be created in tens of different sizes (resulting in higher graphic design costs or less utilized ad sizes). Google’s new responsive display ads fixed that issue and make mobile advertisements much more accessible (great news for your business!). Just provide the proper information to AdWords, and Google can now build native ads that resize and fit into the publisher’s style and feel. No more struggled zoom-outs just to see the full ad only to ultimately scroll past it. This is probably one of the favorite updates of ours!
Related: Google AdWords Tips for Beginners
So long as you take advantage of it, that is. Google will do the brunt of the IT work, yes. But it is still up to you to feed AdWords correct and read-worthy information, or else you are missing a huge opportunity. Provide a correct URL, a snappy headline that stops users from scrolling by, a gripping description, and an eye-catching image that accurately represents your business, and you will have greater access to mobile-users.
Flexible Device Bidding - So That You Can Be More Smart About Where You Spend.
Since Google AdWords introduced Enhanced Campaigns in 2013, it essentially grouped together the frequency with which searchers can see your ads on desktops and tablets. Now that businesses have begun to take mobile advertising much more seriously (because mobile website visits are now higher than desktop website visits), AdWords has changed device bidding so that businesses can have much more flexibility about which devices display their ads and how much. You can set separate campaigns for desktop, tablet, and mobile.
If you so choose to take advantage of this change (which we recommend), you should do so only after becoming completely aware of the needs and limits of your business, as well as where the media marketing industry is heading. Is the majority of your business coming from desktop leads? Does it seem sensible to expand your ads across multiple devices? Can your business afford to stretch your ads to mobile and especially tablet (as tablet is gaining the highest flexibility increase with this change)? These are all things you need to ask before changing your device bids, because it could be very helpful for your business or you could waste your money. Related: 5 Top Mistakes That Contractors Make with Google AdWords (PPC).
In Conclusion
Yes, AdWords is bringing in a lot of changes that will affect the way consumers view ads on devices across the board. They’ll get more information about businesses directly from their initial searches (in the AdWords results), have easier access to ads on different platforms and devices, and ad frequency may alter from one device to the next. Is this investment (now and before) worth it? Getting free rankings should be your first priority (free simply meaning not paying for AdWords, but instead in investing in content that gets your website found for relevant searches). It's the foundation to your home. It's possible (highly) that Google AdWords may not be right for your business... or it could be perfect for a temporary period of time. Learn more if AdWords is right for you in this related article: When is Google Adwords Right For Your Company?