Get More Bang for Your AdWords Buck

Anne Garcia - July 22, 2010

You can provide deeper, more relevant content to users searching for information by using Google AdWords Sitelinks Extensions within your AdWords ads. Sitelinks Extensions provide up to four extra links to pages within your website versus one link to one landing page from a regular AdWords ad — at the same CPC cost! With these extra links, you can direct searchers to account login pages, special promotions or any of your marketing goals.

Sitelinks are more relevant to users who are searching for information by providing more specific, additional content that is visible to searchers upfront.  The users get to pick which link is most relevant to their search and it steers them to the correct product or service page, thus shortening your conversion funnel.

See the Profound Beauty example below where Sitelinks Extensions are used to direct users straight to products, calls-to-action and special offers from a generic ad.

The URLs can be changed as often as you’d like, so you can coordinate with seasonal promotions and discounts.  You can add up to ten links per ad, but only four will show up per impression.  The links will rotate and are prioritized based on the rank in which they were entered. Even though there are four additional links within your AdWords ad, advertisers pay the same CPC cost as an ad without Sitelinks, regardless of where the user clicks.

Sitelinks improve the value of branded terms and other keywords to boost overall campaign performance.  According to Google, Sitelinks Extensions have increased advertisers’ click through rates (CTR) on average by more than 30%.  Advertisers still need to monitor bounce rates, time spent on site and conversion rates, since data is not available at the individual Sitelink level to gauge performance.

The extra real estate on the search results page, combined with richer content with more options for users can enhance clickthrough and conversion rates at the same price as a regular CPC ad — giving you more bang for your AdWords buck.