Solve a Problem
Sometimes people don’t search online for who you are – they search for what you do. This is especially true in stressful or crisis situations. For instance, someone looking to lose weight will likely search for “local personal trainer,” but someone who’s basement has ankle-deep water might search for “flooded basement” or “water removal and restoration.” That’s why it’s so important to bid on problem-related terms!
Brainstorm all the problems that your business solves and then turn those into keywords. Depending on your business, they may be cheaper and more targeted than just simply bidding on your occupation. Using the previous example, someone searching for a personal trainer might want to hire one or be looking for a job as one, whereas someone looking for water removal is almost certainly in needed of those services.
Tout Value Propositions
Use your ad text to describe why your business is better than the other guys. Work your value propositions into the title, main text body, and ad extensions. Price extensions, callouts, and structured snippets are great places to integrate your value differentiators. Price extensions allow you to highlight inexpensive service add-ons, whereas callout extensions give you an opportunity to brag about what makes your business great. Structured snippets are a way to display the different service levels that you offer to attract new visitors to your site.
Reduce Purchase Barriers
Including offers in your ad text that reduce purchase barriers are a great way to attract new business. Using verbiage like “money back guarantee” or “free, no-obligation quotes” reduces the purchase anxiety that searchers may have, preventing them from buying.
You can also use seasonal discount offers and promo codes within ads to bring in new business amongst price-sensitive searchers. Just ensure that all promotions have easy-to-enter codes (like “SIGNUP” or “NEWCUSTOMER”) to increase usage and reduce the need for visitors to search again.
Piggyback Off Competitor’s Branded Terms
If you have a competitor that’s really well-known locally, there’s no shame in bidding on their branded terms. Then use your ad text to provide a better offer for searchers to put your brand in front of consumers that aren’t brand loyal to your competitors. This is an especially helpful tip for small businesses that are trying to win customers in highly competitive industries because it allows them to piggyback off the success of their biggest competitors.
Kate Pierce is the owner of LionShark Digital Marketing LLC, a West Michigan internet marketing company. Her areas of expertise include Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Business Blogging and Web Copywriting. She lives in the Grand Rapids area with her husband and son and enjoys cooking, watching sports, and spending time together as a family. Like a true digital marketing expert (i.e. geek), she loves talking about current marketing trends… so don’t say you weren’t warned!