Did you know that there’s a 95% chance you might be wasting your money on Google Ads and setting yourself up for a negative ROI?
It’s relatively easy to create a Google Ads account and get your ads running. However, if you want to see sales coming to your bank account, there’s more to it than just writing a good ad copy and targeting relevant keywords.
There’s a direct correlation between your Google Ads click-through rate (CTR), higher Quality Score, better ad position, lower cost-per-click (CPC), and minimum bid. The higher your CTR, the higher your ad relevance, and no one appreciates relevance more than Google.
When trying to increase your Google Ads click-through rate, you should focus not only on the number of clicks but the specific actions you want every “clicker” to take. In this article, we take a look at five ways that can help you improve both your click-through and conversion rates for your pay-per-click (PPC) ads.
So, dive in if you strive to get more traffic, leads, and conversions on your website.
5 Ways to Improve Google Ads Performance
Google Ads click-through rate is the ratio between the number of impressions for your specific ad and how many clicks it has gotten. Several aspects impact your Google Ads performance, and here are some of the most important steps you should take to improve your Google Ads results.
Set Up and Track Your Goals
One of the first and most critical things you need to do is create your Google Analytics goals and import them into your Google Ads (AdWords) account.
And I really mean it. DO IT RIGHT NOW. Because if you don’t, you might as well buy yourself something instead of wasting your time and money on unsuccessful Google Ads campaigns.
Google Analytics goals have a direct impact on how well your ads are going to perform. Google’s Algorithm is the one responsible for rating your ads and optimizing them for better results. And to do so, it needs to be fed with data (aka your goals) to measure your campaigns accurately.
Do you want your PPC ads to convert and bring you more traffic, leads, and conversions? Then you have to link your Google Analytics account with set up goals to Google Ads and provide Google Algorithm with what it needs to make your ads work and bring money to your bank account.
Increase Page Speed
How willing are you to spend time on the website/page that loads slow, like really slow? I’d guess that you’re most likely going to abandon it if it doesn’t load right away. And there’s nothing wrong with that because millions of users would act the same way, including me.
When creating your ad campaign, you should think ahead of time and consider every little detail. That’s why when people click on your ad, you have to ensure it takes them to the page that doesn’t take hours to load.
Page load speed is integral to website performance, not least Google Ads performance. It is said that pages that load within 2 seconds have an average bounce rate of 9%, while pages that take five seconds to load have a bounce rate of 38% - that makes a huge difference when you're paying per click. It's also important to consider that page speed is a component of Quality Score, and Quality Score directly influences your Cost-Per-Click (CPC). So enhancing your load speed is not only likely to improve conversion rates, but it can reduce your CPC.
Before taking any measures to speed up your website, you should check out its speed first to be able to see whether those actions are improving it. You can easily do it on Google PageSpeed Insights.
Now that you know the speed of the page you link your ad to, here are some tips from Sarah Petrova, Senior Hardware Engineer at Intel, Techtestreport about the aspects that influence your page speed significantly and how you can improve it:
“Theme: This applies to WordPress users. A theme is the general design and layout template for your site. To optimize for speed, you should choose a lightweight theme, like GeneratePress. Badly coded themes can increase loading times significantly.
Web-hosting: Your web-hoster has a big impact on your site speed. Factors to consider are uptime (are the servers crashing all the time?), server location (is your audience mostly in the US, then you should choose the server location there also, as it decreases latency), scalability (can your web-hoster scale up your resources when traffic increases?), support (today the standard is 24/7 support, and you will need it at some point). A great hosting service, although it has its price, is WPX hosting.
Image optimization: The length of the text on your site does not influence loading. Images, however, can increase loading times drastically, especially if they are not optimized. The WP Plugin Smushit compresses images when uploaded to your website. Lazy loading (also known as asynchronous loading) also helps improve loading times. With lazy loading images further down on your website are only loaded when needed.
Optimizing HTML, JavaScript & CSS: The Plugin Autoptimize helps compressing HTML, JavaScript & CSS files, which improves loading times.
Caching: Last but not least, you should use a caching plugin, like Cachify or W3 Total Cache. Caching means that instead of creating the site dynamically, static versions of all pages are created. This improves the site speed significantly and should be standard practice for a modern website.”
Ensure Your Website is Secure
The main goal of advertising is to attract people and gain their attention, not scare them away. That’s why it’s essential to prove both to your visitors and Google that your website isn’t a scam and that they can click on your ad without worrying about being infected with malware.
Using an HTTPS and SSL Certificate with the URL registration is a proven way to establish credibility in the eyes of Google and your prospects.
“HTTPS secures the exchange of sensitive data. With the help of SSL (Secure Socket Layer), the data exchange between server and client is encrypted. This prevents hackers from reading or intercepting the transmitted data. The certificate can be purchased on several websites. With many hosting providers, the certificate is included in the web hosting package or is offered for an additional fee. Another plus: The visitor recognizes the website security certificate by the lock symbol in the browser and the https transport protocol - this creates trust with potential customers.”
According to Sarah, some other measures also include enforcing strong password policies throughout your organization, updating WordPress and WordPress plug-ins regularly, and doing regular backups.
Also, you should remember that different types of industries have different CTRs. So, here are the latest click-through rate stats per industry.
Enhance Your Landing Page Quality & Appeal
Since your Quality Score depends on your landing page, it should directly reflect your ad. What does it mean, and how can you assure it’s highly-relevant?
- Use the same keywords
Your landing page should include all of the keywords you’re targeting in your ad as well as it should also offer the same value. So, if you promise something to your prospective customers in the ad, make sure you keep that promise on your landing page too, and even better, – explain it further. - Conduct A/B tests
“Constant A/B testing will help you improve your landing page quality over time. Especially landing page copy is often overlooked here. My advice is to write down 2-4 killer headlines and split test them. Once you have a winner, move on and do the same for your remaining copy.”
Stefan Schwarzer, International Digital Marketing Manager at Roche Diagnostics - Be short and consistent
“Your landing page influences the quality score and the chance of your content being included in Google Ads. To ensure success, I make sure to consider the user’s intent— you should bridge that gap. I also make sure that once users click my page, vital information can be immediately accessible at a glance.”
Samantha Griffith, CEO, Loveys Baby Media Inc. - Match your CTAs
As I mentioned earlier, you should care the most about the actions you want users to take when clicking on your ad. To ensure they do so, you have to include the same calls to action both in your ad and landing page copies. The easier it is to comprehend your ad and act, the more likely you are to reach your goals. - Make it appealing
You want to lead your prospects to a clean and nicely designed page with high-quality images that would please their eyes and make them want to buy your products or services. It doesn’t mean that you should pay thousands of dollars to create just one good landing page (of course, you can if you have the ability.) Yet, you should follow the best practices to make sure your landing page is on par with your competitors.To do so, you can simply research the best performing ads and their landing pages to grab some inspiration. As long as you avoid stuffing your page with tons of irrelevant pop-ups and poorly written copy, then you have a chance to stand out and make users convert.
Make Sure Your Site Has Trust Signals
Apart from ensuring your website’s security, there are several things you can include on your landing page to convince both Google and customers that you’re trustworthy.
- Customer testimonials
As perfect as your copy can be, it’ll never be as convincing as your previous customers saying good things about your products and services. That’s why it’s crucial to include customer reviews on your landing page and throughout your website. Whether it’s Google, Amazon, Trustpilot, Clutch, or website reviews, as long as they’re legitimate, they’ll contribute to the quality of your landing page, and eventually, the performance of your Google Ads. - Case studies
Prove what you know and what you’ve done by showing how you did it. Showcase the best case studies on your landing page by providing colorful and understandable graphs with incredible results. It’s your most powerful weapon when establishing credibility as a brand or as an industry expert. - Mentions
Has any of the popular publications mentioned you or your company? Then don’t be afraid to brag about it by including that information on your landing page. If a media channel with millions of readers (e.g., Forbes, Business Insider, New Your Post) trusted you enough to write about your company, then why wouldn’t the prospects who saw it? - Clients
Have you worked with any “big” clients or brands? Again, let others know about it by including the company logos of those well-known customers on your landing page. It’s a huge trust signal to Google and your website visitors. However, if you have dozens of those, don’t go ham and show all of them, a few would be enough to convince buyers. - Copyright and privacy policy
Don’t ask me why and just do it. Since Google cares about user rights and privacy, it loves seeing up-to-date copyright and privacy policy on the landing pages to which you link your Google Ads. It’ll take you less than a minute to include those into your footer, so don’t lose a chance to get a few more points from Google for doing that. - Social proof
People tend to trust brands with social media presence. So, if you have well-established Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, or any other social media accounts, display them on your landing page. It will give you another chance to prove that your business is legitimate and you care about your customers.
Bottom Line
Improving your Google Ads click-through rate is a task that requires patience and determination. Apart from keeping your ad copy on point and using proper keywords, some other proven ways can also help you increase your Google Ads performance.
So, if you can’t wait to see your conversion rate grow, make sure you provide Google Algorithm with some good food for thought by setting up your Google Analytics goals, enhancing your page speed, securing your website, improving your landing page quality, and establishing trust.
And no matter what you do to help Google optimize your ads for better performance, always remember that it doesn’t take one night to reach the desired outcome. However, as long as you follow the pieces of advice I provided in this article, you’re already one step forward towards increasing your Google Ads results.
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