Failing to Choose Keywords Based
on Buyer Intent
Not Eliminating Worthless Traffic
Using a Negative Keyword List
Your first intention when you start searching
for keywords to use for your PPC ads is to find
all relevant keywords that have high search
volumes. Unfortunately, search volume of
a keyword alone isn’t going to ensure the
profitability of that keyword. This is because it
may not have a buyer intent behind it. If your
buyers aren’t clicking on it, then your traffic
won’t convert.
This feature in your PPC campaign can
and should be put to use. If your local
small business sells handmade furniture, you may have people searching
for DIY articles and videos about making handmade furniture. So you want
to make sure that you eliminate those
DIYers, since they aren’t looking to buy.
You could eliminate keywords like “DIY”,
“How to” and “video”. Controlling you
traffic will ultimately enable you to control your PPC budget.
The search queries you choose (the keyword
phrase people will type in to find your
business) should be carefully thought
out. Research will have to be performed
to determine how your target buyers are
finding your small business. If you already
have Google Analytics connected to your
Web site, you can use that to find this out.
The keyword phrase should be quite
specific. For example, if you see the key
phrase “home insurance” and it has over
15,000 searches per month and costs $26
per click, this isn’t a good option. Home
insurance is too generic. What would be
better is “buy home insurance” or “home
insurance quotes”, especially if they have a
high search volume.
Sending Traffic to the Wrong Pages
When people click on your small business ad,
where are they taken to? If you aren’t sending
them to a landing page that will help them to
convert into paying customers, then you need
to rethink your strategy. A common mistake
made by beginners is driving traffic to a home
page or contact page.
When someone clicks on your ad, they are interested in whatever it is your small business
offers. The page they land on should help them
find more information about your product or
service and how to purchase, aka sealing the
deal. Otherwise, you will have frustrated individuals leaving your site within seconds, sending your bounce rate soaring.
Your best bet is to create specific landing pages to use for your pay-per-click ad campaign.
You can then offer special deals to the incoming traffic. The ads should also be related to the
copy in your PPC ads. To do this, build a landing
page for each and every offer you have.
Not A/B Testing Your Ads
You won’t know what works until you test it
out. Guessing what you think will work and
then failing is going to quickly deplete your
PPC budget. A/B testing, also known as split
testing, can be used to determine which ads
perform the best. You simply create two or
more slightly different variations of an ad and
watch them for a few days or weeks.
What you should be paying attention to is the
quality of the traffic, versus the quantity. It’s better to have a lower amount of converting traffic
than a high amount of non-converting traffic.
An example would be to have one ad say
“Save 25% on Bed Sheets” and another that
says “Buy Bed Sheets 25% Off”.