In my earlier blog post, I began to answer the question I am often asked, “Does online advertising really work?” The question behind this question is, “Will advertising on the internet work for my business?” or “Why didn’t advertising my business on Google work when I tried it before?”
The clearest, most definitive answer I can offer on whether internet advertising works is… it depends.
Depends on what? Your success with advertising online depends on where you advertise… and how you advertise.
You can reference my earlier blog post on where to advertise (and where not to advertise). Advertise in the wrong place and you might as well throw your money down the toilet.
How you advertise online will also make or break your efforts.
Reasons Why Your Advertising Online Didn’t Work
We have seen businesses run their own Google AdWords campaign, but how they ran it resulted in very poor results. Why? Here are several common reasons:
1. The way you set up your campaign structure. I have a whole set of free materials on how to optimally set up your campaign for top results, so I won’t take the time right now to go over this information.
2. What you say (in your ad). People are actually searching for the services you offer. The only way you will get them to contact YOU (instead of someone else) is if they click on your ad. How can you make your ad more attractive to the searcher?
a. Stand out and differentiate yourself. Your ad is just one of 8-10 ads, and a whole page of organic results.
Far too often, all the advertisers say the exact same thing (“24/7, Family owned, been in business 490 years,” etc.). Yawn. Why pick you over a competitor? Try saying something that portrays you in a unique or superior light (Voted Top Painting Company By 3 Different Organizations, or a community poll), or offers something no one else is offering (75% off sale, full money back guarantee, free shipping BOTH ways)
b. Make your ad headline specific to the keyword your ad is showing up for. If someone is looking for a Nikon D390 camera, which ad do you think they will choose? One that says “cameras for sale” or “Nikon D390 camera for sale”? Yes, it takes more work to write up a bunch of ads that are specific to the keywords you are going after, but the extra work will pay off in a MUCH higher response rate.
c. Split test your ads. This mean you have Google or Yahoo rotating two ads equally to see which ad gets a better response rate. Even the most experienced professionals don’t know for sure which ad will do better. Keep the ad that does better, get rid of the other, and write a new ad to see if you can beat the current best ad. Over time, you can double your response rate, which doubles the traffic to your website (a beautiful thing!).
If you like these ideas, but seriously doubt that you have time to do these well, give us a call. We can help you effectively advertise online.
The next challenge you must face, after getting the visitor to come to your website, is to get them to respond by calling you, or emailing you, or buying something on your site.
Getting People To Call You (or buy something)
In our experience, this is often a bigger problem for businesses than getting them to your website in the first place. It is very common to see a business expend a lot of energy and money to get them to their website… but have the website visitor not do anything when they get there.
How can you get them all the way home… and have the searcher respond on your website? Download our free report, Website Persuasion Checklist to learn powerful ways to get your visitors to respond.
