5 Easy Ways to Boost Your CTR

Some simple steps that will help you quickly boost your campaigns Click Through Rate (CTR), which will naturally help improve keyword quality scores and decrease your cost per click.

1) Theme Your Keywords Into Specific Ad Groups
To ensure that your keywords are reflected clearly in your ad content, it is best to segment your keywords into groups of 1-4 keywords only, all running on a specific theme. For example, if as a plumber you are available 24/7 for emergency jobs, an effective campaign would result in several ad groups:

• 24 Hour Plumber
• Emergency Plumber
• After Hours Plumbers
• 24/7 Plumber

This means that each ad group consists of a few key variants of each of the above (24 Hour Plumber, 24 Hr Plumber, 24 Hour Plumbing, 24 Hr Plumbing) and your ad text can be clearly written to include the Keywords contained within.

2) Use Sitelinks to Their Full Potential
Whether ad group specific or for the whole campaign, you want to make the most of sitelinks. Your call extensions, location extensions and navigational sitelinks all take up valuable real estate when shown, and can be used to further compound the message within your ad text. Using site link descriptions will really beef up your ad, as each description allows up to a further 70 characters to show beneath your sitelink. This will also help direct people through to the right part of your site easily. Using the earlier example of a plumber, if it’s an emergency, the viewer can click the call extension without having to go through to your site; the location extension will reassure them that you are nearby, and a sitelink such as “Parts & Repairs” with a description of what you specialise in can lead them through to the right page.

3) Capitalize the First Character of Every Word Within the Ad Text
This just works. It is a simple psychological trick that helps your ad stand out and works time and time again.

4) Be Cautious with Broad Match & Single Keywords
The longer tailed your keyword, the more specific it is. Phrase and exact matched keywords aside, a broad match keyword is often a loose cannon. A simple example is the keyword ‘Shoes’ – Google’s algorithm will recognise ‘Shoes’ as being related to ‘boots’, ‘sneakers’, ‘trainers’, ‘high heels’, ‘thongs’ and more, so your ad will show for all of these keywords. If you sell mens leather dress shoes for example, be specific with how you structure your keywords to ensure that you only show your ads to your target audience. I would introduce this via the following progression:

Keywords:
+mens +dress +shoes
+mens +formal +shoes
+mens +leather +dress +shoes
+mens +leather +formal +shoes

These keywords are specific enough to ensure that we are going to show our ad to the target audience only, and from the search query report we will quickly ascertain where the best phrase and exact matched keywords lie, allowing us to then build out new ad groups as themes emerge.

5) Negative Keywords are Crucial
Your search query report (mentioned in point 4) will be invaluable for determining when your ad is shown to the “wrong person”. When you see a search query that’s great news – you have spent your advertising dollar well. However, when you see something in there that has nothing to do with your advert you need to react instantly by taking the keyword component and adding it as a ‘negative’ to either the campaign or the ad group. Some classic examples of negative keywords are:

• Free
• D.I.Y
• Tutorial
• Review
• Template
• Video
• Second Hand

If you apply the above carefully and methodically, you will quickly see an improvement in your CTR, and ultimately your conversion rate.

Happy Advertising!

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