Stop wasting money on Google Ads

One of the quickest ways of reaching more people on Google and appearing right at the top is to pay for Google Ads. It’s an easy enough process: sign up for a Google Ads account, create your advert, and off you go.

Your website will appear at the top of Google when people search for keywords that match your campaign and you only pay for results, like when someone clicks through to your website or gives you a call. This is called pay per click advertising, or PPC for short.

And it sounds simple, right?

Wrong!

Whilst setting up Google Ads is something you can do yourself, there are many other factors that you need to consider before throwing your hard-earned cash at this option.

Here are two things you need to do BEFORE you even consider a Google Ads campaign:

Know your goals

The goal of any business is to be visible online; to be found first when looking for your particular product or service. But as you know, it’s not as easy as simply launching a website and waiting for the customers to drop by. As I’ve written before, driving traffic to your site requires setting goals and consistent action.

Without clear calls to action, that advertising spend may result in paying for clicks to your website that simply don’t convert to increased sales, and that’s a real waste.

Ensure your website is worthy of Google Ads

What do I mean by that? Well, it’s Google’s goal to “Deliver the most relevant and reliable information available” to users of their search engine. So, your website itself must be of relevance and provide value to Google ‘customers’ – and that’s those who are doing the search.

If your website is not secure, or visitors click on your advert and arrive at your site only to leave again because your content and structure are poor, you’ll just be losing money. You’ll still have paid for the click but won’t get anything out of it, and chances are any future PPC prices will rise. Why? Because you are not providing the result that Google needs to maintain its position as the world’s leading search engine.

Case Study: Malpass Pest Solutions

Pat Malpass of Malpass Pest Solutions had a generic looking website built in WordPress that was OK, but not performing well when it came to Google Ads. He was paying a high price per click as visitors were underwhelmed when they visited the site.

We worked with Pat to rebuild a website for him on the Wix platform so that he could manage it more easily and also ensured that the content reflected the personalised service that Malpass is known for. This rebuild has resulted in not only a better PPC rate for his search terms but also an increase in business – so much so that he frequently pauses his advertising to catch up on the work coming in.

Pat said:

in summary...

This post is not about ignoring Google Ads completely, but about ensuring that your website is ready to make the most of the money you spend on them. Don’t make the mistake of jumping too soon and spending thousands on adverts when your website is not designed to convert those visitors into customers. Unfortunately, it’s something we see all too often.

If you are not sure where to start then we’d love to help you get your website up to scratch and offer a range of services for existing sites from SEO Reviews to Website Rescue. Just get in touch to find out more.