Six Google Search Ad Tips for Improving Your Conversion Rates

What better moment to reach new customers than when they are already searching Google and telling you exactly what they are looking for?

Google explains that businesses are making $2 for every $1 they spend on Google ads. On top of this, 75% of Googlers say search ads make it easier to find what they are looking for online.

With nearly half of internet surfers clicking on search ads, it comes as no surprise they are the most popular paid ad campaign to run.

Galactic Fed has an expert team of paid search professionals and has partnered with numerous companies over the years to run successful pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. We’ve secured impressive results when it comes to paid search ads. This year we helped Alma, who make it easy for people to find quality, affordable mental health care, increase their leads by 264% with a targeting Google search ads strategy. 

The key to improving your conversion rate through your Google search ads is in the title: search. People are searching for something. Your search ads should present solutions to the problems they’re attempting to solve on Google. From the best-practice ad copywriting tips to boosting your quality score with relevant landing pages, here are six tips for capturing and converting through Google search ads:

Enhance your ad’s readability

People read differently online than they do offline, and it’s essential to understand the differences to craft text ads that suit online reading. 

The truth is people read very little online. Instead of reading every word, they scan web pages for the information they need - including search engine results pages (SERPs.) 

Further, WordStream found that the average reading level in over 600 top-performing ads was written for a 9th grader.

Using clear and straightforward language will assist people as they scan your text-based ads with their eyes, looking for keywords that help them find a solution to their problem. 

Avoid using capitalization. Your ads’ readability is reduced with all caps because all words have a uniform rectangular shape, meaning readers can’t identify words by their shape.

Create a list of negative keywords  

Another powerful way to increase your CTR is by using negative keywords. By integrating negative keywords into your paid search strategy, you can bypass irrelevant searches on Google that don’t align with your product or service.

It’s best practice to build a negative keyword list that compliments your primary keyword list if you want to improve your conversion rate.

Preventing your search ad from showing up when you know the audience won’t be interested can not only increase your conversion rate, it can also boost your return on investment and reduce your cost-per-click (CPC.)

So how do you start to build a negative keyword list? 

Although mostly known for helping you find keywords to bid on, Google’s Keyword Planner can also be used to find keywords to exclude. For example, if you provide an online fitness class with a monthly fee, you could search using the keyword “online fitness class” and add “free” to your negative keyword list if you wanted to exclude people searching for free classes from seeing your paid ads:

 Optimize your CTA

Does your ad copy include a compelling and concise call to action (CTA) telling people what they should do and why? Does it also have a descriptive and meaningful action to take? 

Wordstream looked at over 600 of the top-performing text ads and found they all had similar words in their call to action - ads with the words “get,” “buy,” “shop,” and “try” performed best:

Source: WordStream

Improve your ad’s visibility with extensions

Boost your Google search ads’ performance with ad extensions and expanded text ads (ETAs) to give people more reasons to engage with your business. Ad extensions appear after the main text of your Google Search Ad.

What ad extensions to use depends on your unique business goals. Common goals that ad extensions support include getting customers to:

• Convert on a specific page of your website 
• Supply their information 
• Download your app 
• Call or message you 
• Buy from your physical business location 

Let’s take a look at the first Google Ad that appears when searching for “dog walker new york”:

Four additional links and description text is available through an expanded text ad, including “Services,” “How it Works,” and “About Us.” 

Google Ad extensions don’t cost more, so the cost per click remains the same, whether a potential customer clicks on your ad’s main text or your expanded text. As Google explains, “by adding more content to your text ad, extensions give your ad greater visibility and prominence on the search results page.”

It’s worth noting some text ad extensions require a high-quality score, which brings us on to our last tip for improving your click-through rate.

Raise your Quality Score 

Google rates the user experience or your ads and landing pages out of 10, with one being the lowest and then the highest. In other words, your Quality Score reflects how useful your text ads and site pages are to people searching Google with the keywords you’ve specified. 

Three factors affect your Quality Score:

• expected CTR

• ad relevance

• landing page experience 

• ad groups 

Choose and group keywords that mirror your landing pages, ensure you write ads that relate to your keywords and landing pages, and make sure your site pages you link to are as useful as possible for potential customers.

Want to know how to create high-converting landing pages? Check out our five building blocks that walk you through the process, step-by-step.

Test, test, and test again!

Split testing your ads can massively impact your conversion rate. If you’re entirely new to A/B testing, check out of recent blog on why it matters and what you can test.

Data from WordStream shows ad groups with multiple expanded text ads (ETAs) were much more likely to be successful and averaged a 21% higher click-through rate:

Data from WordStream shows ad groups with multiple expanded text ads (ETAs) were much more likely to be successful and averaged a 21% higher click-through rate:

Source: Wordstream

New in 2020, Google has introduced responsive search ads, which can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you when it comes to testing your search ads. You’re able to create flexible ads that adapt to screen width, giving you more space to engage potential customers. 

Responsive search ads work by submitting multiple headlines and description options related to your customer’s locations and letting Google figure out which combination is most relevant to your users.

Google search ads that increase conversion

By following these six tips, you’re sure to create high-performing Google search ads that convert more people into happy customers and quality leads. 

Ensure your ad copy follows readability guidelines so they’re accessible to the most amount of people. Building a negative keyword list and optimizing your call to action can help improve your conversion rate. 

Making use of Google’s Ad Extensions, tailored to your business goals, and raising your Quality Score with content and landing pages that are useful to potential customers can boost your conversion rate up and to the left. 

And finally, by testing your ads multiple times, you can perfect your offering to customers and engage more people online with tried and tested paid search ads. 

From writing the perfect Google Ad to getting the most out of your paid search budget, Galactic Fed’s paid media series offers expert advice and best practices to follow if you want to learn even more.