Adwords landing pages updated

Now that AOL's Broadband Wireless package is live, I have spent a few hours today updating my AOL Adwords landing pages.

I have two - one on 8Mb broadband, and one on wireless broadband.

I've updated my copy to push the price (£14.99 per month), created some new headings, and tweaked the copy around the new offer.

Within Google Adwords, I added a few new keyword phrases, and some new ad variations, particularly around the 8Mb price.

Both campaigns are now live again and getting some clicks.

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder

Adwords - again!

Time for a quick update on my AOL Adwords campaign - problems I encountered, and how I've set about fixing them.

Despite my previous work on my campaign, I wasn't getting the clickthroughs I needed and my tweaking wasn't having the desired affects. I also discovered that too much tweaking could affect my Adwords history, which could be detrimental to how Adwords judges my campaign, keywords, etc.

Sanj Mirchandani, the Publisher Manager at TradeDoubler, has been really helpful and came back with some honest advice about my original landing page - that it was:

1. too general - cluttered with lots of information about AOL packages, without really focusing on a core offer
2. designed for SEO, NOT for Google Adwords (Sanj pointed out I should design different pages for SEO and PPC)
3. text-heavy
4. unlikely to convert - with too few calls to action

So I tweaked my Adwords campaign to:

1. focus on only four Ad Groups, with each focusing on one particular aspect of the AOL broadband offer
2. get rid of non-converting keywords
3. focus on keywords and ads that would bring in people actually wanting to buy broadband
4. switch on Content Network on my campaign
   
5. put a lower limit than previously on the default maximum cost per click
   

And created four short new landing pages (one for each Ad Group - see one here) with:

1. new images relating to the offer - including the famous AOL free wireless router!
2. brightly coloured headings and buttons - calls to action that really stand out (and link) - using a package called Webstyle
3. content containing my best keyword phrases
4. AOL package details and Buy buttons above the fold
5. small, keyword-heavy AND relevant sections of copy below the fold

So far clicks are significantly higher, and my cost per click is going down.....

I think the main point I learnt from this exercise was that a Google Adwords page should be designed differently to an SEO page - it sounds obvious but it is easy to forget when you are in an SEO mindset with H1 and H2 tags, link text, etc.

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder

Driving sales with Google Adwords

My Google Adwords campaign has been running for a few days now and is driving traffic to my AOL landing page on my UK broadband comparison website www.ukbroadbandfinder.com.

I can't use AOL trademarks, but I have written loads of ads which are quite specific about AOL broadband and dial up package details - speed, downloads, free wireless router, free month, broadband with no minimum contract if you switch to AOL, etc.

Now the campaign is up and running I am tweaking it all the time - clearer Google ads, more popular keywords, keyword mis-spellings - and I'm also continually optimising the landing page (while I also work on the general SEO on the whole broadband site).

It is hard work but the person I really feel sorry for is Jason Henry at affiliate network TradeDoubler, who has been the recipient of far too many emails from me about Adwords functionality, keywords, and optimising. Sadly for Jason, there's more to come.

I'll be working with AOL and TradeDoubler later this week to fine-tune my campaign, and also to find out which areas of my broadband availability website need search engine optimisation (SEO) changes.

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder

Broadband Adwords campaign goes live

This week I finalised my new Google Adwords campaign and sent it Live.

I've used Adwords for broadband before but I had found it difficult to get good returns - so a few months ago I switched it off. Since then the sales have been building, but I know I need to make Adwords work alongside my SEO-driven organic search traffic and sales.

With Adwords, the obvious broadband keywords are, not surprisingly, expensive, and my previous landing pages were too generic (which meant I paid even more for my clicks).

So with my new campaign:

1. My new PPC (pay per click) campaign is more targeted - it goes to a revamped AOL landing page that has been optimised for SEO.
2. TradeDoubler sent me some good converting keywords
3. I used an application called KeywordConvert which is really useful for generating keyword phrases (add your keywords to three columns and it automatically comes up with all possible combinations for broad match, exact match and phrase match).
4. I have written targeted ads - four for each Ad Group. It will be interesting to see which of these gets the most click-throughs (and whether those clicks then convert!)

Now the campaign has been running for a couple of days I can already see where I need to add more keywords so I'll try to do that this weekend.

By Sarah, UK Broadband Finder