There are a few simple steps that can dramatically improve your conversions. For many advertisers, the path to getting a conversion is not always clear. A good approach is to keep it simple. Avoiding clutter makes the entire process for your visitor smoother. Make it easy and clear for your visitor to complete the action you want them to take, whether that be filling out a lead generation form, signing up for a subscription or completing a sale.

Let’s start by thinking of the conversion process as a path. Each component in the path should be easy to follow and free of any obstacles; it should be precisely clear where the visitor should proceed next.

The first step in the conversion path is keyword selection. Keywords are the foundation for any paid search advertising campaigns. Choosing highly relevant keywords not only captures highly targeted customers, but also helps weed out undesirable prospects.

The next step along the conversion path is developing effective and targeted ad copy. It is crucial that ad copy correlates with the chosen keywords. It is important to have a strong call to action. Letting your customer know what to expect when they get to your website reduces confusion. For example, if the desired goal is to have visitors sign up for a free newsletter, your ad copy should reflect that.

Once you have selected keywords and written your enticing ad copy, where will your visitors land once they click on the ad? This is one of the most important steps to increase your conversions. If your visitor reaches your site and has no idea what to do, they may immediately leave or start to explore your site. However, if you have a clear call to action on your site, which was also reflected in your ad copy, the visitor will know exactly what they need to do. Landing pages or pages where your visitors are taken after clicking on your ad, tend to produce higher conversions in paid search advertising because they are more focused on exactly what the searcher is looking for.

Putting all three of these components together in a clear manner and making sure that the path to a conversion is free of road blocks will improve your conversions.

Google Adwords moved forward with the development of their new interface March of this year. The existing Beta interface offers new and improved ways of productively managing Google Adwords campaigns. The new interface may look intimidating, but it allows swift campaign, ad group, and keyword updates with analytical data.

When managing campaigns daily in the new Google Adwords Interface, you can now view Google Analytical data graphs. The data that would generally be obtained from Google Analytics to optimize campaigns is now readily available on all account levels (i.e. campaign, ad group, and keyword) in the new Google Adwords Interface. Like Google Analytics, you can manipulate the data and/or graphs by your specified dates or date ranges.   

The graphing options in the new Google Adwords interface can be maneuvered to view metrics by clicks, impressions, click-through-rate, average cost per click, cost and average position. There is even an option to view two metrics at once for comparison of data.  Having this data available in the Adwords interface immensely helps managing Google campaigns efficiently.
 
The new Google Adwords interface has a lot more tools than Google Analytics graphs. New reporting features have been added, account settings (geographical targeting and ad scheduling) can be done in bulk, and more optimization tools have been added to the platform. Google’s new interface should be used suitably to make instant campaign changes. The analytical data in the interface that is now there show immediately show and support up your reasons for campaign changes.

When looking at your search engine marketing campaign, are there too many keywords in your ad groups?  Recently, I have conducted several SEM audits for clients who run their own in-house pay per click efforts.  I was asked to provide suggestions on what could be done to improve the performance of their current campaigns.   

Quite often, the main factor which causes poor performance is the amount of keywords placed within an ad group.  Having too many keywords in an ad group can have many repercussions.  If the keywords do not have a common theme and are placed within the same ad group, it may start to affect the quality score for the campaign as a whole.  It can also make the campaign difficult to manage.

When creating a search engine marketing campaign, it is best to concentrate on smaller ad groups.  While ad groups consist of tightly themed keywords, try breaking the keywords out into more specific ad groups.  For example, an advertiser selling pet products may develop an ad group for leashes; which may contain many various types of leashes.  It is suggested to take that group and divide the keywords into even more tightly categorized keywords such as dog leashes, puppy leashes, retractable leashes and so on. 

Another suggestion is to create separate campaigns when choosing to participate in the content network.  By simply opting into the content network you are unable to control which part of the budget will be spent on searches and which part will be distributed to the content network.  When ad groups are of a substantial size, the budget can be used up quite quickly.  To avoid this problem and manage your budgets effectively, keep the search and content campaigns apart from each other.

It may only take one or two bad keywords to completely drag down the quality score of the entire campaign.  Try grouping your keywords in small, tightly themed ad groups to get the most of out your search engine marketing campaign.