Many Kenyan businesses, both small and big have strongly embraced search engine marketing to reach their customers. This form of internet marketing can be very effective and efficient in reaching target audience if well managed. Unfortunately the opposite can also happen. A company can end up wasting so many resources, by getting the wrong people to website, or by not converting visitors into customers.
It’s a fact that Google Adwords is currently the most used and probably the most effective search marketing networks. Of course Bing & Yahoo also have their paid search methods. But make no mistake, majority of Kenyans internet users utilize Google. That means Google Ad words advertising is the preferred online marketing tool for local companies. The question is: Are most local businesses optimizing their Adwords campaign for high Return on Investment (ROI)?
Here are 6 tips to optimizing your Google ads for better click through rate (CTR) and improved conversion:
Identify your target audience
To run a sustainable and successful adwords campaign, it’s a must you thoroughly know how your customers and prospects use Google. Otherwise, you run the risk of wasting your marketing budget on website visitors who will not buy your services/products. You must have a good idea on how they conduct their searches on Google, what keywords their use and probably when they are likely to convert into actual customers.
Think like your target audience
Place yourself in the shoes of your customers. Speak their language and not yours. This will be important in establish the terms that they are likely to search in Google, describing what you sell. It’s all about them, not you!
Keywords selection
Identify both primary and secondary keywords for your PPC campaigns. The primary terms should be directly related to what you are selling. Be informed that, these keywords can be very expensive for highly competitive niche. But they are also more likely to achieve higher conversion. The secondary keywords though not perfectly related to your services or products, are important. Not only can they bring down cost of per pay click, they are also good way to get prospects to notice what you have.
Good Site placements
Identify the Google Adwords website partners where you target audience visit. For instance if you sell computers and accessories, it might be advisable to choose popular computer related sites or websites that appeal to electronics-lovers. It will total waste of money to advertise on jobs website if you are looking for people to buy cars. You will get high click through, but very poor conversion and subsequently negative ROI.
Conversion monitoring
You just don’t want clicks; you want more sales, right? In fact it’s better to have 20 clicks and 2 people buying than 1000 clicks and 5 closed sales. Sustainable conversion of website visitors into customers is the key to success of any internet marketing campaign. If your visitors aren’t converting, then something ain’t right. Just don’t monitor clicks, track conversion very closely.
Effective Landing page
Where are the visitors landing on clicking your ads? Is it your home page, products page or a well designed and effective web page. You got to convince them why your service/product is important to them? But how do you do it? If they are convinced how are you going to lead them in to buying? Is it really important to tell them to buy now and if yes how do you tell them?
