Once upon a time, Google AdWords was a treasure trove of opportunities for businesses. Pretty much the only thing you had to do to get results was create a functional ad and wait for your phone to ring. The reason it was so simple was because it was still a new platform, clicks were dirt cheap, and competition was minimal.

Times have changed. Unfortunately, those clicks are now a hundred times more expensive, competition is rife, and you need to be pretty savvy with your Google AdWords campaign for it to generate a return on your investment.

To be clear – there are still some fantastic opportunities for businesses to do extremely well through AdWords, but you’ll need either professional help, or a good amount of in-depth knowledge about the platform to get anywhere fast.

The biggest key to success on Google AdWords these days is optimisation. Optimising your account is all about researching, testing, and tweaking continually to get top results for your advertising dollar. With optimisation, there’s always another way you can improve your ad and get a better return on investment. There is no such thing as a perfect ad, only ads that work better or worse than what you’ve already tried.

The basic areas of AdWords that you should focus on improving are your cost per click (how much you pay each time a person clicks on your ad), quality score (a rating of how good your ad is based on a number of different factors), and click through rates (how often someone clicks on your ad compared to how often it is shown). All of these factors have an effect on your cost and return on investment, and are therefore well worth optimising.

Here are some of my tips for how you can optimise your Google AdWords account. The key to note here is that although it may look like a big job, you can actually get just about any of these tips rolling in just 5 minutes (which is great because optimisation is something you need to be doing continually).

1. Put Your Keywords into Separate Ad Groups

Often, the biggest missed opportunity in AdWords is Ad Groups. Businesses will set up a campaign, but keep all of their keywords in one Ad Group. This is not ideal, because it means that you can’t write separate ads, set up different budgets for clicks, and other settings like that for your keywords.

Chances are, you have at least 4 different keyword types sitting in your campaign that aren’t very similar. It wouldn’t make sense to run the same ad settings for all of those keywords!

To optimise your account, the best thing you can do is sort through your keywords into “like” groups, and make these separate Ad Groups in your campaign.

2. Write Specific and Relevant Ads for Each Keyword Group

Now that you have separate Ad Groups, it’s time to start writing unique ads for them! The content of your ads should be very specific and relevant to your keyword group. This will ensure that you get more clicks (people will be far more likely to click on an ad that relates to what they are searching for!), and your ad quality score will improve (lower cost per click and better ad positioning in Google).

3. Link Your Ads to a Landing Page

If you’re still sending all of your ads to your home page, you’re really missing out on an opportunity. You see, your home page is a very generic representation of what you do, at best. It probably doesn’t relate directly to all of your keywords, and it may not even have clear information and calls to action positioned near the top.

Creating at least one landing page for each of your Ad Groups is a good idea. Write specific copy for each of these landing pages that really sells what you are promoting. Include relevant images and testimonials. Ensure that there is a clear way that you can be contacted – either a phone number, email address, or a contact form or enquiry form. Or if your product is being sold online, ensure that it is shown clearly on this page with minimal distractions.

The quicker and easier it is for someone to find relevant information and complete their task (purchase, enquire, contact you), the better your conversion rate will be. That is why a landing page is much better than a home page! The fewer clicks it takes for your audience to find what they are looking for, the better.

4. Add Extensions

Google AdWords comes with heaps of extra little features that most businesses skim over. When you are setting up your ads, you have the option to include the following:

• Sitelinks – Adds a limited number of links underneath your ad to specific areas of your website, such as your contact page, about page, specific product pages, etc.
• Phone Calls – Adds your phone number to your ad which, if clicked on on a mobile device, opens the phone number in the user’s call app.
• Location – Adds a map pin with your address listed, which links to navigation assistance.
• Reviews – Shows positive third-party reviews from sources that are considered trustworthy.
• Call Outs – Extra descriptive text that you can use to show more information about your features and benefits.

Generally, if it is relevant to your keyword, it’s a good idea to include more information in your ad. This helps your ad stand out (it becomes a lot bigger than your competitors), and helps your audience trust you more. For more information on Google AdWords Extensions, take a look here.

5. Split-Test

The best advertising campaigns are refined continually through split-testing. This is where one ad is pitted against another ad to see which one will perform better with clicks through rates, cost per click, sales, and other metrics. As soon as it is clear which of your ads is performing best, the other ad should be switched off, and you should create another one in its place to split-test against the winner.

Never assume that you know what will work well. It’s a good idea to do your research on the kinds of copy, images and phrases that appeal to your audience, but back up your research with hard evidence in the form of split-testing.

Generally, there are two ways you can approach split-testing. The first way often works faster, but is less scientific. It involves pitching two completely different ads against each other. The second method is much more scientific. You only change one minor element in your ad to see what difference it makes to your results. You’ll often be surprised at how much the smallest change can affect your bottom line! Read more information on optimisation and split-testing here and here.