SEO vs. AdWords: Where should you start?

Is SEO or AdWords My Best Place To Start?

Last Friday I had lunch with an old college friend and her friend, Tim. Tim has been working on a new minimalist running shoe for the past two years and he's just about ready to bring it to market. Hence, the meeting with me to pick my brain about next steps.


If you know anything about my extracurricular activities, then you can see why this would be a match made in heaven. Not only do I love running, but I just so happen to run in huarache sandals. That's as minimalist as you can get without running barefoot. 

During our conversation Tim asked about SEO and AdWords advertising. He was curious to learn more and see which one was a better fit.


My answer? Hands down AdWords advertising is where he should focus his attention. Of course, he shouldn't ignore SEO completely, but that's not the path to profitability and sustainability if you're launching a new product or service.


I'll also point out the fact that Tim did not even bring up social media. If he had, then my answer does not change. Social media is not your answer when you're just starting out.


Tim's #1 priority in the short term is to find his ideal selling strategy. In other words, he needs to figure out as quickly as possible the optimal price point, sales copy, website layout, cart abandonment follow-up sequences, upsells, retargeting sequences, referral programs, and iron out any kinks in the delivery and return processes.



So how the heck do you do all of that?


Well you start by driving a consistent, dependable stream of traffic to your website and then you systematically test all of the moving parts in your sales path. That's the basic process to find your ideal selling strategy. It's not rocket science, but it does take time, discipline, and the most important variable is traffic. Without a consistent stream of high quality prospects, then you can't test anything.


And neither SEO nor social media will reliably provide this type of traffic. That's why online search advertising in Google AdWords is the best place to start. As long as your ideal customers are going to Google to find your product or service, then AdWords is the best option available. Focus on optimizing your selling path and then when you're ready to expand your marketing, look into SEO or social media.

13 Questions to Help You Improve Your AdWords Performance

I wish I had this list when I was just getting started with Google AdWords… It would have prevented countless early mistakes that cost me a lot of time and money.

 

The reality is that Google AdWords is a big, hairy beast of a platform and it’s nearly impossible to set everything up correctly unless you follow a step-by-step guide or a checklist.  To make matters worse, AdWords is unforgiving.  Small mistakes like using default settings can end up costing you hundreds or even thousands down the road.

 

 

That’s why today I’m publishing a list of questions you need to answer to ensure you’re not missing any important details.  Whether you’re just about to go live with your ads or they’ve been running for years, walk through the questions below to see if there’s any room for improvement. 

 

1. Are you targeting buying-intent keywords?

One of the biggest mistakes with AdWords advertising is targeting research-intent keywords.  When prospects are doing research, then they aren’t ready to make a purchase so the vast majority of your ad budget will be wasted when you target research-intent keywords.

 

Instead, focus on buying-intent keywords where you know the prospect is searching in Google in order to make a purchase.

 

2. Are your keywords grouped into Ad Groups of similar phrases?

The purpose of organizing your keywords into Ad Groups is not to make your campaign look neat and tidy.  Keyword organization actually plays a critical role in an AdWords campaign because every keyword in a particular Ad Group will use the same ad copy.  That means if you have many different keywords in the same Ad Group, then your ad copy will not make sense for all of them (unless of course you draft a boring, generic ad, but you know that’s not going to work).

 

3. Are your keywords Broad Match, Phrase, or Exact?

By default AdWords will set your keywords to broad match. That means your ads will be displayed on any keyword AdWords considers relevant to your keyword.  Did you know that?  You would assume if you add the keyword “leather journal” that your ads would only display when someone searches “leather journal.”  But that’s not the case unless you use the Exact match type!

 

Phrase match keywords allows AdWords to display your ads for any search that includes your keyword phrase.  Clearly, it’s important to review your match types to make sure you’re ads are displaying on the right keywords.

 

4. Are there any negative keywords?

Unless every keyword is using Exact match type, you’ll need to add negative keywords.  Negative keywords specify words or phrases that you do not want to target with your ads.  For example, if you add “free” as a negative keyword, then your ads would not display for searches that include the word “free.”

 

5. Are your ads 100% relevant for all the keywords in the Ad Group?

This is marketing 101 – match your message to the market.  If your prospect is searching for a “leather journal” then your ads should focus on your leather journal products.  As mentioned in question #2, your keyword organization plays an important role in whether or not your ads will all be 100% relevant.  First, organize your ads into Ad Groups of similar phrases and then you’ll be able to draft ads that closely match your keywords.

 

6. Is the core keyword used in your ad copy?

This should be fairly obvious after the previous question, but it’s worth clarifying.  Review your ads and make sure the core keyword phrase that you’re targeting in the Ad Group is in at least one of your ads.  This will help your relevance score, which leads to a higher AdWords Quality Score, and it tends to also increase your ad click-through rates.

 

7. Do your ads include a compelling offer and call to action?

Search in Google for your target keywords to see what your competitors are offering.  Then put yourself in your prospects shoes and honestly consider which ad you would click on based purely on the ad copy.  Would you really click on your ad or would you click on one of the other more compelling offers?  If you struggle with that question then chances are good your prospects are not going to find your ads compelling either.

 

8. Are All appropriate ad extensions set up?

This one is easy.  Simply check to see if all of the following ad extensions are set up:

1. Location
2. Call
3. Sitelink
4. Callout
5. Structured Snippet
6. Review

In some cases, one of the above will not make sense for your business, but whenever possible set them all up.  Ad extensions tend to increase your click-through rate, which leads to higher Quality Scores, which leads to better ad position for less cost.

 

9. Is your landing page 100% relevant for the keywords and ads?

First of all, are you advertising to your homepage? If yes, then create a dedicated landing page ASAP.  Even if it’s a duplicate of your homepage, it’s important to have a dedicated landing page because you need the freedom to make edits to improve conversion rates.  Plus, your homepage is rarely the most relevant page for all of your keywords.

 

10. Does the offer on the landing page match the offer in the ads?

Often when I review an ad campaign I’ll notice one of two things:

1. The offer promised in the ad is nowhere to be found on the landing page
   
   
2. The offer on the landing page does not match the offer promised in the ad

Both cases will hurt sales conversions, but they are easy to fix.

 

11. Do you have separate Search vs. Display campaigns?

This is another easy one to answer.  Check to see if any of your campaigns are targeting both the Search and the Display network. Each network behaves quite differently and requires a separate campaign to properly optimize your ads.

 

12. Are you targeting mobile traffic with a mobile landing page?

We all know more and more prospects are turning to mobile to surf around, and even buy online.  That’s why AdWords by default will enable all of your ads to target mobile devices.

 

The problem is that many businesses do not have mobile friendly websites.  That means you may be spending precious ad dollars to send prospects to a website that is nearly unusable on a mobile device!  To prevent this, make sure you turn off mobile targeting until you have mobile friendly landing pages.

 

13. Is all the appropriate conversion tracking setup?

Finally, this list would not be complete if we didn’t touch on conversion tracking.  Even the best set up campaign will need ongoing tweaks to keep the ads running smoothly and profitably.  That means you must set up conversion tracking.  Without tracking there is simply no way to optimize your ad campaign because you’ll be flying blind.  Here’s the list of all the conversion tracking you should set up:

1. Webform conversion tracking to measure how many forms are submitted on your website as a result of your ads
   
   
2. Website call conversion tracking to measure how many phone calls are generated from your website as a result of your ads
   
   
3. Ad call conversion tracking to measure how many phone calls are generated from the number displayed on your ads
   
   
4. GCLID conversion tracking to measure offline sales (phone calls or in-person sales) generated as a result of your ads

 

Congratulations! By making it this far you now know how to ensure your AdWords campaign is set up properly.  The next step is to take action and fix any issues that may have been highlighted by walking through the 13 questions above.

 

If you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or simply don’t have the time, Let us know or comment below with your questions.

Digital Marketing "Summer Tune-Up" (3 Simple Questions)

 

Before summer speeds by and we’re officially into the fall season, I recommend taking some time now to tune up your marketing so you have a strong finish to 2015. Before we know it, the holiday season will be here… and then with the blink of an eye, the ball will drop in Times Square.

 

To help you assess your digital marketing and make fast improvements I put together the following 3-question “summer tune-up.”

 

Question 1: Where Can You Get More Website Traffic?

First, look at what’s already working and find ways to improve those campaigns.  What are you doing now that is driving traffic to your website? For example, if SEO is working (generating leads and sales), then determine how you can improve your current rankings and expand to even more relevant keywords.

This sounds overly simple, but do not skip this step!  It’s easy to overlook these easy opportunities to improve your marketing because they are typically not very exciting.  Personally, I find it hard to rally behind “doing more of what we’re already doing,” but the reality is that it’s by far the cheapest and most effective option.

Expanding into new territory is nearly always more expensive and more time consuming so focus on what’s already working first.  Then once you’ve maxed out a particular marketing tactic, then review your options to expand.

Second, assess what’s missing.  What are you not doing that could be driving traffic to your website? For example, if you’re using AdWords Search advertising, then consider expanding to Bing Ads to get even more exposure when your prospects are searching in Bing or Yahoo.  Or if you’re advertising in AdWords and Bing, then look into launching an ad campaign on Facebook.

 

Question 2: How Can You Increase Your Website Conversions?

Driving traffic to your website is only half the battle in digital marketing, yet it’s where most businesses invest most of their time and resources.

The second half, which is arguably the more important half, is converting that traffic into leads and sales.

Consider this example.  One business invests in marketing to drive 1,000 visitors to their website and converts 1% into customers.  A competitor invests half as much to get 500 visitors , but their website converts 2% into customers. Both businesses generate 10 customers, but the competitor invested only half as much to get the same number of customers!  If everything else is equal then the competitor is twice as profitable and can now afford to invest to drive even more traffic.

Can you see now how important it is to focus on improving your website conversions?

Now let’s review your website.  Do you have what’s called a “lead magnet” to capture contact information from website visitors?  A lead magnet is a free offer (report, white paper, video, coupon).

Note that a lead magnet is not an email newsletter subscription!  Email newsletters are not as compelling all by themselves and only a very very small percentage of your visitors will sign up.  Instead of an offering your email newsletter directly, offer a report that provides information or reveals a secret your ideal prospect needs to know. And when people opt-in for this report, they’ll also receive a subscription to your email newsletter.

If you already have a lead magnet, then take a closer look at it.  Could you make it more compelling? Can you offer more lead magnets that more closely match each of your different customer avatars?

 

Question 3: How Can You Improve Your Digital Marketing Tracking?

I’m not going to waste time in this article explaining the importance of tracking. Most people know it’s critical.  The problem is many businesses don’t take the time to set it up correctly, which means they can’t accurately measure the results of their marketing campaigns.

Here are the 3 key components you need to track your digital marketing:

1. Google Analytics to measure visitors and their activity on your website
   
   
2. Phone tracking to measure number of calls for each of your marketing channels
   
   
3. CRM (customer relationship management) tracking to measure leads and sales for each of your marketing channels

If you’re missing any of the components above, then set them up in the order they are listed.

The thing about tracking is it’s not retroactive.  That means if you’re investing in marketing now without tracking, then there is no way to determine which campaigns were profitable and which were losing money.  Only after you set up tracking can you start to calculate your return on investment (ROI).  That’s why I always recommend businesses get their tracking set up as soon as possible.