If you want to level up your website’s SEO performance, then you should start running a pay per click (PPC) advertising campaign on your brand name.

It might seem crazy to bid on the name of your own company or brand, especially if you already rank well organically on Google and other search engines, but there are strategic advantages to running PPC ads on your own brand name.

The best part is that it’s usually cheaper to bid on branded keywords due to low competition.

Here are the key reasons why you should bid on your own brand name in AdWords:

Take control of your message

Running search ads on your brand name allows you to run an alternative message or direct visitors to a campaign landing page instead of your home page.

Your website’s title, description and other meta tags should be optimised with the right keywords to secure the highest organic search ranking possible.

However, you can craft a more appealing and sales-driven message with an ad rather than depending solely on your keyword-heavy site listing.

You can also change your message in line with new marketing objectives or send visitors to alternative landing pages with ads.

For example, if you’re running a sale or special promotion, you might want to send visitors directly to a dedicated landing page rather than leaving it up to chance that your visitors will find the promotion on your home page.

Dominate your search results

When it comes to your online brand presence, those first page search results are prime real estate.

By bidding on your brand name, you can stake out more space at the top of those all-important first page results.

You can also use ad extensions to provide additional information about your business such as location information, links to specific parts of your website and even call buttons.

If you are worried that running ads targeting your brand name may steal organic traffic from your website, think again.

In 2011, Google discovered that the incremental ad clicks percentage across verticals was 89 per cent, meaning that 89 per cent of traffic generated by search ads was not replaced by organic clicks when ads were paused.

Protect your brand

Bidding on your own name also helps protect your business from savvy competitors.

Running search engine ads on your competitors’ names is a tried and tested way to scoop up new leads and improve brand awareness.

You particularly don’t want to lose new and returning customers who are searching for your business name to one of your rivals.

Anyone searching for your company name is a high-quality lead because they know about your brand and are probably further along the customer journey than regular website visitors.

Running search ads on your own brand name on Google and other search engines is an easy way to strengthen and protect your online presence.

Speak to the marketing experts

It’s important to set up your advertising campaign correctly, otherwise you could overspend or lose that top search results spot to a competitor.

Assemblo is a full-service marketing agency based in Melbourne and our team of digital marketing specialists can develop an effective search advertising campaign tailored to your needs.

For more information, give us a call on (03) 9079 2555 or drop us a note via the contact form below.

In case you haven’t noticed, Google has been displaying slightly different search results than what you’re probably (subconsciously) used to. Do you know what’s different?

Over the past few months, Google has been refining its AdWords taxonomy, testing changes to search ads within various niche segments. The advertising giant has been continuously experimenting with the number of ads that appear in the paid positions of search results.

Search results used to display three prime position ads and anywhere up to 11 right rail ads, like the below:

More recently, Google has rolled out new search results which display four prime position ads and no right rail ads. This change has had an impact on a number of searches, mainly for highly-competitive commercial queries such as hotels and insurance.

What does this mean for marketers?

Google’s job as a search engine is to provide users with the most accurate information and search results to help answer their questions. Google’s decision to reduce AdWords real estate means search engine marketers will need to revaluate their strategies and move towards providing an enhanced online experience for potential customers. So, how exactly does this change affect search marketers?

Provide a better experience for potential customers

With no right rail ads, only the four most relevant ads will be displayed, forcing marketers to more accurately target keywords and create ads that better resonate with searchers and their intent. Put simply, it means marketers will still need to be clever and creative with their messages while providing appropriate search results to the masses.

Cost-per-click to spike

When advertising real estate is reduced, demand increases, forcing prices to go up. Expect an increase in the average cost-per-click as marketers battle it out to keep their positions at the top of the Google results page. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Previously, if a search ad appeared anywhere between position 6 and 11 in the right rail, it usually meant the ad copy and associated landing page weren’t properly optimised for the keyword the user searched for. In this instance, if the ad received clicks, there was a good chance marketers may have been wasting ad spend because the content wasn’t quite what the searcher was after. If an ad gets displayed in the new format, any clicks it receives will be more qualified and will have a greater likelihood to convert as it means it targeted the searcher’s queries accurately.

More accurate reporting

With the removal of right rail ads it means marketers will be able to report more accurately on search ad performance. In the previous 11 ad format, the mean position would generally be lower than the mode position because there were so many ads skewing the results. Now with the reduction of ads, there will be a much smaller discrepancy between the mean and mode position of ads, providing a more accurate representation of how the ad has been performing.

A change for the better

Although there is now less search ad real estate to play with and a more competitive environment, it should be viewed as an opportunity to provide even better experiences for customers. The removal of right rail AdWords ads and the addition of a prime position slot should allow marketers to think more intelligently about what drives their customers. The competition will be fierce but it will challenge marketers to think outside the box and further develop their skills in AdWords and search marketing.