As complex and innovative technologies reshape the digital marketing platforms, advertisers are scrambling to remain significant and competing to find a top place in customer minds. In this shifting digital arena, paid search keeps on gaining relevance, unlike the traditional search patterns. The quality and placement of your ads have become an omnipresent influencing aspect all through the whole customer buying decisions. However, most marketers today believe that it is fundamental for a brand to show up at all phases of the funnel.
“On average, 41 percent of clicks go to the top 3 paid ads on the Google search results page.”- Word Stream
Paid ads simply gain momentum in this digital era. But how to optimize it and reduce Google ads CPC and achieve the highest traffic flow is a tricky question!
Unlike the traditional ways of approaching the shops directly, most of the customers in the present days search online for their purchase decisions. This trend is mainly due to the increased internet use by people. However, around 80-90% of people search and refer only to the 1st page of Google. Only the remaining 20-10% people click and navigate to the other Google pages. That too, most of the users only focus on Google’s top 3 search results.
The recent research study by Forrester shows that 71% of customers use a search engine to make a search of products or services as the initiation phase. 74% of customers consider using search engines for their research, comparison and final purchase transaction decisions.
Is this search trend a challenge for the businesses who are struggling to get increased visibility and traffic flow to their websites? In a way, yes it is!
So, it is necessary for a business to get into the top 3 search results to increase business revenue and get more traffic to their websites.
These days many competitors are focusing on the top search results and therefore the Google Ads CPC is high.
Do you know that PPC visitors are 50 per cent more likely to purchase something than organic visitors?
What happens if your business website is not on the Top 3 search results? You will lose high buying intent prospective audience and end up targeting the assumed audience who does not have buying intent.
Based on AccurCast data, the average click-through rate for an ad in the first position is 7.94 per cent. So, focusing on the top search result is the best solution for every business to reach the target customers and get higher conversion rates.
Now the question is how can you get top positions on Google Search engine results page? As you know, there are 2 ways to rank your website on Google:
SEO as a strategy to rank your website on top of the 1st page of Google SERP is ruled out as every competitor of yours wants to rank their website and also the top 3 results of Google Search engine results page is Search Engine Marketing Results (Google Ads Results).
Google’s Ad Revenue in 2019 is $116.32 Billion – Statista
Google’s ad revenue from 2001 to 2018 (in billion U.S. dollars)
So SEM is the only way to rank your website on top of the 1st page of Google SERP. Since every business in your niche aims to rank on top of the Google’s 1st Search engine results page, the cost to rank on top of the Google’s 1st Search engine results page is increasing day by day.
The best SEM strategy is to know how with the Search Engine Marketing, you get on top search with reduced Google ads CPC (Cost Per Click).
Before we give you a strategy to rank your website on top of Google’s 1st Search engine results page at a reduced CPC, we want you to understand how the Google Ad auctioning Works From this we can understand, that your website ad position depends on a factor called Ad Rank. Higher the Ad Rank, the higher will be your website’s ad position.
Ad Rank can be compared with the mysterious algorithm which helps the sites to rank in Google’s organic search results. However, Ad rank slightly differs from an algorithm that Ad rank decides the placement of your ads, whether in the sponsored results and also based on the amount the advertiser pays when the ad is clicked by the user.
Now you know how to optimize your ads and increase the Ad ranks so that you can receive a greater number of ad clicks.
So, you can improve the Ad rank by simply improving the ad quality score as well as the maximum CPC bids (the maximum money you paid for Pay per Click). Here’s the Ad rank calculation formula:
Ad Rank = Quality Score * CPC Bids
By bidding higher, you end paying more. So the SEM strategy to pay less and rank higher is by increasing the quality score.
If Quality Score weren’t focused till now, you are missing something huge in impressing the customer and rightly influence their purchase behaviour. What happens if you don’t increase Quality Score?
You end up paying more for the same ranking that can lead to you spend more money in the long term. You will also lose the high buying intended customers if you don’t target them rightly or find a position on the top 3 search results.
So, one of the success formulae for getting into the top 3 search results is to improve your ads Quality Score. Quality Score is nothing but scores given by Google to your ads and keywords with a measuring scale of 1-10 (from awful to amazing).
Quality Score is Google’s evaluation of the quality and significance of both your keywords and PPC ads. It is used to decide your Cost per Click (CPC) and increased by your most extreme offer to decide your Ad Rank. Your Quality Score can be based on many determinants like Expected CTR (Calculated by Google based on the keyword historical data), landing page experience and Relevance.
Nobody other than Google knows precisely how much each factor is prominent in the Quality Score algorithm, yet we do realize that active visitor clicking rate is the most significant part. At the point when more individuals who see your ad click it, that is a solid sign to Google that your promotions are important and useful to users. If you can achieve a higher Quality Score, Google rewards you with higher ad rankings and lower costs.
4 Factors to Increase the Quality Score to improve your Google paid rankings & eventually reduce the CPC.
- Expected CTR
With regards to Google Quality Score, it’s not about CTR but rather the normal CTR. Google predicts whether the keywords you’re focusing on is probably going to be clicked when appeared for that keyword, without considering the ad position or other ad formats that may influence the quality of your Google ads.
What should you do increase the Expected CTR?
- Segregate the Google ads targeting keywords into different groups (If you have identified 100 Targeting Keywords, Group into 5-10 groups in such a way where you can write relevant ad copy)
- Write 3-5 ad copies for every ad group
- Add keywords of the ad group in the Ad copy
- Landing Page Experience
With an end goal to be progressively clear in your Google ads approach, Google presently makes an endeavour to reveal to you why your Quality Score for a given keyword is low. One reason may be due to the compromised quality of your landing page experience. If Google thinks your landing page experience is “below normal,” it could hurt your Quality Score.
As per Google, you should concentrate on three things if your focus is to improve the landing page experience. These three vital elements are Relevant and original content, transparency and easy to navigate web pages. You may also concentrate on the Ad scent, which helps you to boost conversions by ensuring consistent Ad experience.
What should you do to increase the landing Page Experience?
- Optimize the landing page Load time (Should be below 3 seconds)
- Give the information on the landing page that is required to convince themselves to buy from you
- Use original Content
- Appropriate contextual CTA’s
- Relevancy
Looking at relevancy, there should be complete relevancy between ad group ad copy and landing page. When the user feels you give all relevant information based on his search query, user engagement will be higher on your web pages.
- Ad Formats
In Search, we have two Ad formats. One is without Ad extension and another is with Ad extension.
Search ads with extensions will give you extra space to give more information to the users.
Some of the ad extension that will help you increase the Quality score is
- Site link Extensions – With this you will get an opportunity to cross-promote other web pages of your site. For Eg: If you are promoting a particular product or service, using site links you can show Case studies page, About us Page and related services page
- Callouts – With this extension, you can add multiple USP’s and offers in the Search Ad
- Call extensions – With this extension, you can add your phone number in the ad
- Price Extensions – With this extension, you can add the price of your product
- Location Extensions– With this extension, you can add a business location
We have few more ad extensions like Structure Snippets, Message extensions and so on. All these extensions help us get more ad space and at the same, it will help us to give more information to the users.
These 4 factors help you to increase the Quality Score to improve your Google paid rankings & eventually reduce the CPC.
So what are you waiting for? Start Implementing and rank higher on Google SERP at a reduced CPC If you feel Google Ads CPC strategy is not your cup of tea or if you are already entangled in the loop of Google ads game, don’t lose hope as you have come to the right place!
We at Digitechniks, guide you with successful digital marketing strategies and programs so that you have a competitive edge in the industry. As they say, Success is not a forbidden fruit. All you have to do is aim it high and take the smartest strategic move. You will finally see it coming, it’s all yours! We are here to throw light on your digital marketing dilemmas. Make sure you resonate with what your prospect is looking, to eventually reduce the CPC & increase the quality score.
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