Ysmfree, i agree with JHardy_WV has said. Ad relevancy matter and having keywords in your ad text will increase your quality score. There are other things you can do to increase you CTR for example carefully placing you keywords in the ad copy text to increase ad visibility. here some tips i wrote last night... http://niche-affiliate-marketing.com/
I agree with increasing your relevance… For more info I wrote an article that might be helpful to you calledadwords strategies on how to increase your CTR here.
One thing nobody has yet stated - CTR is not the most important part of your stats - it's cost per conversion. With one of my keywords, which gets one of the most impressions, for me, I've purposely put some words in, to filter out people I don't think will result in a conversion - this has consequently effected my CTR as fewer people are clicking, yet my Cost per conversion is a lot cheaper than it would be, otherwise. Trying to raise your CTR is not always the best thing to do - instead, look more into the cost per conversion & ROI. However, one thing you should be doing - split testing. Ad A vs Ad B.
Your landing page must contain relevant content to the search term or your quality score will be negatively affected. #1- Include a relevant title Within the <title></title> tags on your web page, you should include the keywords that were used in the search query. If someone typed in "fix golf swing" and came to your web page, your title should include "golf swing" and ideally the exact phrase. #2- Relevant Headlines Headlines, in particular ones that are larger text or are included within the <h1> tags should be highly relevant and include the keywords from the search query. #3-Relevant Content Google searches the content within your webpage as well as the header and title. The content should be relevant to your title and content anyways, because if your trying to just optimize your website for Google, then you may be "missing the boat" on your actual customers. The higher the relevance, the higher the conversions -- never overlook this fact. Also I add my keywords dynamically to my landing page with Dynamic Page Optimization (DPO). You can do this with PHP or JavaScript depending on your server.
Ok most of them said the essential part about keywords, but I'm adding this for you. To higher your CTR, you can put 2 ad variations running for 1 AdGroup. Let them have equally impression. You can set this up in your account. Let's this run from 5 -10 days. Keep the one that has better CTR. Delete the one that has lower CTR. Then create a new one for testing. Keep doing this and your CTR will soar. You need to improve the ad variation to attract more people. This is the good technique to raise your CTR over your competitors. However don't forget to have the really relevant keywords in your AdGroup, and also put them in your ad variation. Cheers...
This simply isn't always the case. If you are only bothered about CTR and don't give a toss about ROI/Conversion rate/Cost per conversion, then you are heading for disaster. What's more - split testing is not as easy as it may seem. When you start with Ad A & Ad B, Google will give each Ad it's own hidden quality score - do reports and you'll notice that Ad A could be placed in a higher/lower position than Ad B. If you get weekly Ad Reports, you'll already have noticed this. Google might put Ad A in position that has been roughly position 1.3 for the last week - Ad B might have been placed in position 4.2 - now guess which might have the better CTR? Correct - Ad A. Ad A is also preferred by Google, yet what happens if Ad A has a Cost Per Conversion of 4.23 and Ad B has a Cost per conversion of 1.98? Now which is the better Ad? For me it's Ad B even though the CTR is lower and the ave position is lower. As I've said, if you are drawn into just CTR you are making a very silly mistake in my opinion.
I agree with muchacho - especially as when you create a new ad then for the first couple of days the QS of that new ad is lower anyway, so you'll end up with a lower position and CTR anyway - so something to be looked out for. CTR is obviously very important - but it's really not the be all and end all. You want to be getting good conversion rates before you really start to think about CTR - which usually means split testing your landing pages. Little changes can be a massive difference here - I recently tested a small change and conversion rates increased by over 200% (that's an in increase, so conversions are three times what they were) - when this is applied to the entire account it should equate to extra income in the £xxx,xxx range - with no extra spend
Following on from JHardy_WV's post, the testing of landing pages, I do that, but only once I've got an Ad that's actually working reasonably well. I create a new adgroup - create 2 ads and obviously have the landing page the same in both ads. When you find an Ad that has a reasonable (or very good) ROI/Cost Per Conversion, *then* go into testing the landing pages. Remember, only one part of the ad should be changed at a time. i.e the title, or 1 word of the title, description 1 or a bit of desc 1, and so on. You wouldn't test A vs B and then change the title *and* Description line 2 - because if the new ad improves, how do you know if it's the title or the desc line 2 thats made your ad better? You don't. Once Ad A or Ad B has been working well for X amount of time, then make an exact copy of the ad but change the destination URL and split test landing pages. As I've covered, the new ad may well be ranked lower, so even though the ads are exactly the same to the human eye, the positions may be very much different - take this into account. Before I figured this out I'd be often scratching my head thinking "Hold on, they are both the same ads, how can they have different CTR? - Answer: Because their average position were different. When I pick the best ad, the first thing I look for - ROI/Cost Per Conversion and Conversion Rate. If both are roughly the same, I then go to CTR. If the CTR is similar too, I then give the ads longer to run and make a note when to check it again.
Yes, you are right...but I didn't state that one should only focus on the CTR. I just mention it as one way to increase the CTR and lower the CPC. No, split testing is not the one ticket to AdWords succeed, but it's one of those essential things you have to do. Anyway, thanks muchacho now I have a very interesting topic to write on my blog. Thanks for your idea
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OK, I'll add this up for the other suggestions. Try "peel and stick". If you don't know what it is just search for it on google. Also try split testing your ads.
With regard to Google PPC...I'd like to get your feedback on which you prefer, the Search Network or the Content Network? Thanks.
The content network is rubbish - we're advertised on so many sites that we really don't want to be advertised on and going through them to remove the ones we don't want takes a very long time
The Content Network & Search Network are 2 very different ball games. If you are doing well on the search network, it doesn't mean you'll do well on the content network. The ads need to be written in a different way, for a start. My advice? Nail the search network first. In fact, nail Google Search and have your campaigns working well only on Google. Then move on and test the Search Partners - finally delve into the Content Network once you are in profit from the Google + Search Partners.