Your Website: Use Google Pay-per-click Ads To Sell Your Accounting Firm

The fact you can buy your website a great listing in the search results of Google has never been a very closely guarded secret.

When you have used Google to execute a search, you have probably seen the sponsored listings. They appear on the right side of the search results page, and often up to the first three listings on the left side. These websites are marketing their ads through Google Adwords pay-per-click (or PPC) platform. An ad incurs an impressions when Google displays the ad on the search results page. When you click a sponsored listing you are taken to the advertisers website and that advertiser will incur a charge from Google. In other words, that advertiser pays Google per each click their ad receives.

The final cost of the click that is ultimately payed to Google, is impacted by the landing page quality score. Quality score is determined by a lot of different factors, including the relevance of the content on the landing page to the search term, and the Click Through Rate, or "CTR".

Click through rate is the rate of clicks to impressions. If your ad is displayed 100 times, and receives 10 clicks, then your CTR is 10%. The higher your CTR, the more relevant Google will think your ad is for the search phrase. This will improve your quality score for that keyword

The higher your landing page quality score, the lower your final cost per click will be. Adwords is essentially an auction. You bid on keywords. In very simple terms, the more you bid, the higher your website's ad will be displayed.

Now there are a number of valuations and specific calculations Google makes to define where your ad will be placed. These calculations occur in real time when the search is being conducted. We'll explore the specifics of these calculations in a future article. For this article, it is just important to understand that your bid, is not what you will ultimately pay for a click. If you bid $5.00 for a click, and your quality score is 4, you will pay more for a click then if your quality score is 8, and you will never pay more then your bid, or $5.00, for a click.

Remember Googles first priority is to showcase relevant search results, even for the paid results. Certainly they could just give the first spot to the highest bidder, but that would only ensure the website willing to spend the most money would be listed first. The most relevant search result however may not be the highest bidder.

A great example of this is your company name. Lets say you are Adidas, and you want to bid on the keyword Nike. The most relevant search result for the keyword Nike, is obviously the Nike website. Google is going to give Nike a higher quality score for that keyword, in effect rewarding them for their relevancy for that keyword.

Before we look at tips to improving your quality score, its important to also understand match types. There are three match types you can and should bid on for each keyword. The three match types are broad, phrase, and exact.

Exact Match: Exact match is the best keyword to bid on. An exact match means the search phrase being searched on is an exact match for the keyword for which you are bidding. For example if you are bidding on exact match for Accounting Firms, your website's ad will be displayed only when someone searches for Accounting Firms.

Phrase Match: Phrase match means your keyword is a phrase within the search string. For example, if you bid on a phrase match of Accounting Firms, you ad will be displayed when someone searches on things like accounting firms for small business, or top accounting firms".

Broad Match: Broad match essentially lets the search engine determine if the search phrase is a match for your broad match keyword or not. It is imperative that you bid on broad match keywords, but it can also be dangerous. Its important because a broad match for accounting firms might be triggered when someone searches for accounting services. It also can be triggered when someone misspells a word, such as acounting firms. The danger is that Google may determine that Accounting Supplies is a close enough match to Accounting Services, and trigger your broad match keyword. This is why Google allows advertisers to declare "negative keywords". We'll talk more about negative keywords in a moment.

Now that you have an understanding about your keyword match types and website's quality score, here are some tips on how you can improve your quality score and click through rates.

Ad Copy

The copy in your ad should reflect the search phrase, or keyword you are bidding on. The person doing the search will be more apt to click an ad that has their search string. For example, if you bid on CPA Services, you want the headline of your ad to be something like Quality CPA Services. If your ad title says "Jim's Accounting Firm", the searcher then has to stop and decide... are they going to find what they are looking for if they click you sponsored link. Their decision is often made within a split second, so you dont want the prospect to have to stop and think. Give them exactly what they want. If that means having 50 different ad titles for 50 different keywords, so be it. Your work will pay off in the end.

Landing Page

The landing page is the page on your site that the searcher is taken to when they click your ad. Frequently this should not be your websites homepage. If someone searches for "Tax Preperation, they should be taken directly to the page on your website that explains your tax preperation services rather than a generic accounting related homepage. If the ad goes to your homepage, and they have to search through a big pile of CPA related content just to find what they are searching for, they'll probably just click the back button and go to the next advertiser.

If your website doesn't have a suitable landing page for the keyword, add one. It really is that important.

Just like the ad copy, you want to remove as much of the decision making out the process as possible. Make it as uncomplicated as possible for the searcher to find what it is they are looking for. Your quality score will be rewarded for having a landing page that is specific to the keyword, because it improves the search experience for people who find you through their search engine.

Negative Keywords

Defining what keywords you don't want to trigger your ads is just as important as knowing what keywords you do want to bid on. This is very essential because of phrase and broad matching. If you bid on "accounting services" as a broad match, you probably do not want your ad displayed if someone searches on accounting supplies, so you would want to have "supplies" added as a negative keyword.

Your ad will not be displayed, when a search phrase has one of your negative keywords.

Location Targeting

I've saved the best for last. Location targeting is extremely important, especially for firms that provide a service such as accounting or CPA services. CPA and accounting firms typically will want to be able to meet with their clients, and more importantly the client is very likely looking for an accountant close to their business. Having prospects 100 miles away clicking on your ad is going to become a huge waste of money.

There are two ways to target a location. The first is to target your ads to only be displayed within a certain radius, such as 10 to 20 miles from your business location. You can bid on more general keywords, like "accounting firm", within a very specific location.

The second way to target location is with very specific keywords in a more general area. For example, you might display your ads to anyone in California, or even the country, if they type in the specific keyword Los Angeles CPA or "Los Angeles Accounting".

Keep these basic principles in mind while you're setting up your websites with Adwords campaigns and you'll find the learning curve a lot easier and your initial results will be a lot more profitable!

by: Brian O'Connell

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