PPC professionals often use the term landing page and assume you know what that means. Even if you have some understanding of what a landing page is, you might ask, why are landing pages important? Why should I care about them? So let’s start at the beginning… what is a landing page?

What is a landing page?

A landing page is the page on your website where you send paid traffic, sometimes called your destination URL. It’s where visitors “land” after they click on your ad on Google, Facebook, or on a link through another channel, like email. A landing page could potentially be any part of your website, like your homepage or your services page. As a best practice, however, you should build landing pages specifically for your paid search campaigns, always keeping conversions in mind. This means that you almost never want to use your company’s homepage as your landing page.

Building landing pages that convert

Define the conversion goal

A high-converting landing page is purpose-built for a particular stream of traffic. Let’s say you’ve set up a Google Ads campaign around a valuable keyword theme. Once visitors have clicked on your ad, what do you want them to do? 

Example conversion actions:

• Downloading a file
• Watching a video
• Submitting an email address or phone number
• Making a purchase
• Signing up for a free trial
• Calling or texting your business

A strong landing page makes it dead simple for your visitor to take the conversion action you’ve defined. How?

5 features of a high-converting landing page

1. The vital stuff lives above the fold

The term above the fold originates in the newspaper industry. The paper is usually folded in half, with the most important news stories in the top half. Everything else requires a reader to open the paper up to read what’s below. On the internet, the “fold” is where the user must scroll to view the rest of the page. The most important information of your landing page should not require much scrolling.

With different monitor sizes, screen resolutions, browser setups, and sizes of phones and tablets, it is impossible to define a single fold placement for a website. However, for an average desktop placement, the fold line is at approximately 1,000 pixels wide and 600 pixels tall.

Take this example from Deluxe Logo Design. You understand immediately that you can purchase a logo package starting at $99. When you scroll below the fold, you get much more detail, including logo samples, information about the company, and customer testimonials. But the most important information (the headline, offer, and Get Started call-to-action button) all reside up top.

2. Limited navigation

Remember, you’re building a landing page for the sole purpose of getting visitors to take the conversion action you defined. Keep them focused on that task by limiting your use of links. This doesn’t mean you want to eliminate navigation altogether, however. Give your visitors the freedom to click around if they’re interested in learning more about you, but be purposeful in the links and navigation you include.

One of the links you provide should be your business’s contact information. This link might point to a contact page, your help center, or your company’s About Us page. If you create a landing page on a domain other than your main company site, include a link to your full site. This tip comes straight from the search engine. To improve landing page experience, Google writes, “Openly share information about your business and clearly state what your business does.”

Take this example from Gusto payroll services. On its landing page, you can click on Features, Pricing, and Integrations in the top left navigation, and Sign In and Free trial links over on the top right.

Meanwhile, over on Gusto’s full website, the navigation (highlighted by the red box) is more robust, with drop-down menus offering even more links. The landing page simplifies the navigation but still lets the user discover more about the company and its payroll services.

3. A valuable offer that focuses on the user’s needs

With each landing page you create, understand where the customer is in her decision cycle, and tailor your offer to meet those needs. For instance, if the campaign is targeting people early in the decision-making process, keep your offer educational and related to further research. You might offer a checklist or buying guide.

Then, create a compelling headline and craft your copy to explain what value you will deliver in exchange for the conversion action (e.g., submitting an email address). While you want to help visitors understand who you are and why your brand should be trusted, keep the focus on the customer, not on yourself. Talk to her, not at her. Address her needs, not yours.

I like this example from Barnes & Noble Press. The headline “Stunning Editions Made By You,” empowers the reader to print her own cookbook, photo album, or book. The copy further speaks to what you can do with your personalized printed books (give to family and friends, business, fans, etc). Even more compelling, further down the page, there is a nifty tool to estimate your printing cost. This personalizes the offer to the individual who’s thinking about printing a book.

4. A clear call-to-action (CTA)

Remember, your landing page should be purpose-built for what you want your visitor to do. Experiment with different buttons, text, or designs to make your CTA stand out.

Here’s an example from TaskRabbit. Even though TaskRabbit offers help for all kinds of household tasks, this landing page was built specifically for a furniture assembly campaign. The green CTA button says, “Find help now.” From there, you’re directed to fill out a form about the furniture you want to be assembled.

5. It gets the basics right

One often overlooked step in landing page creation is making sure your website is built correctly. That means your landing page is secure, mobile-friendly, includes a privacy policy, and loads quickly. Refer to my article How to Structure Your Landing Page for Better Google Ads Results for all the details, including why website structure is critical, and how it affects how Google judges your page.

How to Make a Landing Page

Oftentimes, building new landing pages within your existing website is inconvenient — especially if your full site isn’t already mobile-friendly or has universal navigation that is difficult to change. In that case, you can use software to build landing pages quickly. Some leading landing page providers include

• Leadpages
• Instapage
• GetResponse

These companies offer easy-to-use templates that make design and implementation of landing pages easy. In addition, you can set up A/B tests to experiment with different headlines or CTA buttons and see which works better.

Author’s Note: Bing Ads is now known as Microsoft Advertising.

There’s no question that Google dominates search traffic, paid and organic. As an advertiser, you might ask yourself, why use Bing Ads at all? Let’s weigh the pros and cons of whether Bing Ads is an appropriate channel for your business.

Who uses Bing?

Estimates of Bing’s share of the search market vary. Not surprisingly, Bing has been the most generous with itself. In 2017, Microsoft claimed that Bing accounts for 33% market share in the US. The claim was met with some deserved skepticism. Even if overstated, however, remember that the vast majority of new computer sales are for Windows devices that come preloaded with Bing-defaulting browsers (previously Internet Explorer, now replaced with Microsoft Edge).

If you’re fairly web-savvy, it’s hard to imagine computer users who don’t immediately download a different browser like Chrome or Firefox. But imagine it, because even if less than the 33% market share claimed, it is a sizeable chunk of web traffic. I think of it as an audience that’s less cynical than we might be. I don’t have hard numbers to back this up, but a non-cynical person who happily uses the pre-installed programs is also less hesitant to click on paid ads instead of organic results. And probably less hesitant to convert.

This tracks with Bing’s claim that its audience spends 34% more online when shopping from their desktop computers than average internet searchers.

I don’t want to box the Bing audience as a bunch of Luddites stupidly clicking around the internet and buying stuff. But it is true that they don’t suffer from browser snobbishness. And as you approach your paid search strategy, perhaps you shouldn’t, either.

Why advertise on Bing? One good reason is you need to meet your customers where they are. Even if you don’t use Bing, they might.

Where do Bing Ads appear?

Bing’s search network consists of three parts:

1. Bing Ads appear along search results on Bing.com, AOL.com, and Yahoo.com, as well as sites owned and operated by Bing, such as MSN.com.
2. Bing also operates a network of syndicated search partner sites. These third-party sites use Bing and Yahoo search results.
3. Recently, Bing introduced Microsoft Audience Ads to its search network. These non-search native ad placements are shown beside articles on sites including MSN, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Edge, and other partners. According to Bing,

We use consumer intent signals, which include search history, browse history, page content, and demographic information [to understand user interests]. These signals, combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, provide highly relevant content to users and determine which ads to display. Microsoft Audience Ads also conform to your search ads’ existing targeting and negative-keyword settings.

As an advertiser, you have the ability to set which of these three components within the Bing Ads search network your ads appear. By default, all three are included. (The Google search network is all-or-nothing, so this is an important difference between the platforms).

Are clicks on Bing Ads cheaper than Google?

Bing Ads has a reputation for lower costs-per-click than Google, in large part because of less competition. For one of my clients, the average CPC last month on Google Search was $3.96, but only $2.15 for identical keywords in Bing Ads, and Bing gave us higher ad positions. Similarly, Wordstream found that of its managed services clients, Bing CPCs were 33% lower than Google CPCs. However, depending on your keywords, you may find that Bing Ads CPCs are comparable to CPCs on Google Search. Overall costs will likely be lower simply because Bing Ads will bring you fewer clicks than Google Ads. Like I already stated, however, fewer clicks doesn’t mean worthless clicks.

To help you estimate CPC, Bing has its own Keyword Planner tool within the Bing Ads dashboard.

If you’re new to Bing Ads, you can get $100 in search advertising when you spend $25 through this link for even further savings.

Why use Bing Ads? Clicks might be cheaper than Google Ads.

How do Bing and Google differ?

Bing and Google are similar offerings. In fact, one of the best features of Bing is you can import your Google Ads campaigns and launch Bing Ads quickly. However, once your campaigns go live, the two platforms do behave differently.

For instance, you may find that the keywords that bring you the most clicks on Bing are not the same keywords that bring you the most clicks on Google. Each platform has its own algorithms to rank advertisers, so you may be surprised by what performs best.

I’ve also found that Bing is not as sophisticated with its language settings. One of my clients advertises in both English and Spanish. On Google, we see huge traffic on our Spanish keywords, but almost none from Bing.

The most important difference to note: if your traffic from Bing Ads is substantially lower than Google, a single conversion can have an outsized impact on conversion rates and performance data. I call these “onesy-twosy” conversions, and they can make it difficult to draw conclusions and make informed decisions. For instance, if you make a sale through Bing Ads and this month’s conversion numbers suddenly look amazing, you might not see that performance repeat itself next month. That one conversion was basically a fluke, and you need to be careful not to read too much into it.

Of course, the same can be said for any Google campaign that doesn’t gather a lot of data, so the disproportionate conversion issue is not unique to Bing.

As you advertise on both Bing and Google, you’ll surely find other quirks and differences between the two networks.

Why use Bing Ads? You can easily import your Google Ads campaigns so that your keywords, ad text, and targeting settings stay the same.

Should I advertise on Bing?

Bing Ads is one of those overlooked gems in an advertiser’s arsenal. Though the platform is smaller than Google, its users are often more engaged. Clicks may be less expensive on Bing than on Google. You can easily import your Google campaigns. And, by ignoring Bing, you may be missing out on customers looking for exactly what you have to offer.

If you’re new to Bing Ads, use this link to get $100 in search advertising when you spend $25.

And feel free to get in touch with Charles Ave Marketing for Bing Ads campaign management, an account audit, or PPC consulting.

Landing page optimization usually tackles content-related questions: Have I included the target keyword enough times? Is my call-to-action working? Which design layout performs better? Too often, however, advertisers jump to this phase before taking into account whether the structure of their website is ready for PPC platforms like Google Ads.

This article covers four critical questions you simply cannot overlook when optimizing your landing page. Start here before you address the content you want to test for your landing pages.

1. Is your site secure?

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, a website encryption protocol. An SSL certificate provides secure communication between your website and an internet browser, making it more difficult for a hacker to tamper with traffic or spy on your site’s visitors. It’s especially important to have a valid SSL certificate if you ask customers to fill out forms or share personal information. But in truth, every website should have one.

You can tell whether your website uses secure encryption if your URL starts with http:// (not secure) or https:// (secure).

Why it’s important

In July 2018, Google Chrome began to mark all HTTP sites as not secure. This prominent “Not Secure” message likely causes higher bounce rates. Starting in October 2018, Chrome will go a step further by explicitly warning users about insecure sites with a prominent red icon.

How to fix it

If your website does not currently have an SSL certificate, you can obtain one from your website host. For instance, HostGator packages now include a free SSL certificate, as do hosting packages from Yahoo for Small Business.

Alternatively, you can obtain a free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt, a non-profit organization supported by corporate sponsors, grants, and individual donors.

2. Is your site mobile-friendly?

Since 2015, Google has used mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. In 2016, it strengthened this signal, explaining that “Getting good, relevant answers when you search shouldn’t depend on what device you’re using.” This year, the search giant took it a step further with its mobile-first index.

Why it’s important

Without getting into the weeds about what all these changes mean, suffice it to say that if Google cares whether your site is mobile-friendly, then you should, too.

Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see whether your site makes the cut.

How to fix it

If your site is already built, you may need to work with your website designer to transition it to a mobile-friendly format. Make sure to choose a responsive design, which means your website automatically adapts to whatever device your visitors are using. If you don’t currently have a website designer, you can find a freelancer on sites like Fiverr or Upwork.

Does your site use content management software like WordPress, Magento, or Wix? If so, Google has created specific guides to help make your site mobile-friendly.

What if you’re starting from scratch? Most online website builders offer responsive website templates. For instance, using code WEBSITE 25, you can get 25% off a responsive Yahoo for Small Business website.

AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages, is another way to create lightning-fast mobile websites. AMP pages load more quickly than traditional HTML.

For WordPress users, you can easily create AMPs by installing AMP for WordPress. This free plugin is a collaboration between WordPress, Google, and others. You already have the AMP feature enabled if your site is a WordPress.com site, or you’ll see it already installed as a plugin if you use a WordPress.com account to sign into a WordPress.org self-hosted site. (What’s the difference?)

If you have AMPs, use them in Google Ads. Enter the AMP URL into the Mobile URL field of your ads or in the Mobile URL field of your keywords. (In WordPress, the AMP URL is your normal URL with /amp/ tacked on the end) This way, when a mobile user clicks your ad, Google will send them to your AMP landing page.

3. Does your site include a privacy policy?

As I explained in my post about Quality Score, Google values sites that are “transparent.” Google wants to make sure that its advertisers handle user data responsibly.

Why it’s important

In addition to an SSL certificate, one of the ways Google judges whether your site handles data responsibly is if your landing page links to your site’s privacy policy. This privacy policy should include any cookies you use (such as Google’s remarketing cookie) and describe how you handle any data you gather from your site’s visitors. It should also include how users may opt out of your use of cookies.

How to fix it

If your site doesn’t already have a privacy policy, use a free privacy policy generator, such as Shopify’s. If you advertise in Europe, make sure your privacy policy is GDPR-compliant. Then, make sure that any URL you use as a Google Ads landing page links to the privacy policy you’ve created.

4. Does your site load quickly?

Internet users are impatient. If your page takes longer than two seconds to load, most visitors will abandon it and find somewhere else to go.

Why it’s important

Pages with longer load time have higher bounce rates, lower average time on page, and lower conversions, all of which will negatively impact your Quality Score.

How to fix it

Measure your page load time with a tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom, or Webpagetest. I especially like Google’s PageSpeed tool because it separates its analysis of your mobile and desktop sites.

Whatever tool you use, you will see suggestions that have to do with your website’s code. Therefore, you will likely need a professional developer to help with implementation. If you don’t have a developer on staff, you can find freelancers on sites like Upwork or Fiverr.

Moz offers this practical guide to improving site speed. Working with your developer, implement each of these suggestions.

If your site is built on WordPress (like mine), some of the suggestions can be handled simply by adding WordPress plugins. Here are two that I use:

• WP Fastest Cache for browser caching
• Smush for image compression

In addition, Cloudflare is a free CDN (content distribution network) that makes your site load faster by storing copies of your website across geographically diverse servers.

Bonus idea

One of my clients pointed out that on his website,

• using http:// instead of https:// adds 150 milliseconds of load time
• adding www. to the URL adds 900 milliseconds of load time, and
• leaving off the trailing slash ( / ) at the end of the URL adds 600 milliseconds of load time.

These fractions of seconds add up quickly! (or should I say slowly?)

As you input your landing page URLs into Google Ads, make sure to use your website’s best URL formatting. (Keep in mind, proper formatting for your website may be different than the example given. Your developer should be able to tell you your website’s proper URL structure).

Okay, done. Now what?

Once your website has an SSL certificate, is mobile-friendly, includes a privacy policy, and loads quickly, you are ready to test the content and design of your landing page.

Using negative keywords is one of the most overlooked but effective strategies to optimize your Google Ads or Bing Ads campaigns. How do you make the most of this important tool? Let’s go over what negative keywords are, why they’re important, and the most efficient means to add them.

Negative Keywords

When you add negative keywords, you’re telling the algorithm that you don’t want your ads to show if certain words and phrases are included in a user’s search.

Let’s say your keyword is women’s bicycle, but your store only sells new bikes. Adding used to your negative keyword list means your ad won’t come up if someone searches for used women’s bicycle.

I can’t stress this enough: you have to include negative keywords and regularly check your search terms report to cut out irrelevant searches, especially if you use broad match keywords.

Remember — you pay for every click. Why would you want to pay for clicks that you know won’t work for your business? 

Like keywords, negative keywords have match types: negative broad match, negative phrase match, and negative exact match. There is no negative modified broad match. As Google states, “these negative match types work differently than their positive counterparts. The main difference is that you’ll need to add synonyms, singular or plural versions, misspellings, and other close variations if you want to exclude them.”

The taxonomy for negative keywords is a minus sign (–) followed by either “quotation marks” for negative phrase match or [piano brackets] for negative exact match. If you only use the minus sign, your keyword is in negative broad match, which I do not recommend you use.

Checking your search terms report

To see the search terms that triggered clicks on your ad, navigate to the Keywords tab and click on “Search terms.” Here, you’ll find the actual search terms that users typed into Google when they clicked on your ad. You can place a checkmark on an individual keyword to see how broad match, modified broad match, or phrase match expanded your keyword list.

The irrelevant searches you find in the Search terms report should inspire the addition of negative keywords. The next section discusses the most efficient way to add them.

Adding negative keywords

Sort your search terms by descending impressions, so you start with queries that most often triggered your ads. When you add a checkbox to select a search term that’s irrelevant, an option appears to Add as negative keyword. When you add negatives from this screen, the default match type is negative exact match, which you’ll see signified by piano brackets. In the used bike example, the word used would never be relevant, so it’s better to add -“used” as a negative phrase match keyword, rather than trying to add each exact match iteration of user queries. This way, you’ll filter out more junk in the future.

Of course, you don’t have to wait for irrelevant search queries to add negative keywords. Negative keywords should be an integral part of building your keyword list at the outset of campaign creation.

Shared Negative Keywords Lists

If negatives will be shared across several campaigns, you can save time by creating a Negative Keyword List in your Shared Library.

To do so, navigate to Tools in the upper right-hand corner of your dashboard. Under Shared Library, click on Negative keyword lists. Click the blue + sign to create a new list. Give it a name, add your keywords (using the appropriate negative keyword taxonomy) and save the list. You can then assign this negative keyword list to any current or future campaign.

Common negative keyword scenarios to consider

Below is a list of negative keywords to consider. As every ad campaign is different, they won’t all apply to your business. In fact, you may find that you explicitly wish to target some of these keywords. Take this as a list of idea starters, not gospel.

• Free: queries that include “free” or “for free.”
  • Example: Let’s say you sell a paid software solution, but you don’t think it’s worth it to advertise to people who include “free” in their queries. Add -“free” as a negative phrase match keyword.
• Geographical: any geographic areas that you don’t serve or that don’t apply to your products.
  • Example: I had a previous client who sold international toll-free phone numbers. If we didn’t offer numbers from certain countries, I added those countries to our negative keywords.
• Informational (as opposed to transactional): queries that include “what is,” “what are,” or “definition”
  • Example: Let’s say you sell a Bluetooth device, but find people are clicking on your ad after searching something like “what is bluetooth.”
• Acronyms: queries that include “what does” or “stand for”
  • Example: If your keyword includes an acronym like PPC, you might want to cut out queries such as “what does PPC stand for.”
• Competitors: the names of other businesses or domains
  • Sometimes it’s strategic to bid on your competitor’s name. However, if you find these clicks result in high bounce rates or low ROI, you might want to consider adding their names as negative keywords.
• Comparisons: queries that include “comparison,” “vs,” or “difference between”
  • Users may still be in their consideration phase if they’re comparing your product or service to another.
• Discount codes or coupons: Are people ready to buy your product, but go to Google in the middle of checkout looking for discount codes? Consider adding relevant negative keywords so you don’t pay for these clicks.

Negative keywords are a positive for your PPC campaigns

Adding negative keywords is a smart way to optimize your budget so you don’t pay for clicks you don’t want.

For more money-saving ideas, check out my book 3 Expensive Google Ads Mistakes (and How To Avoid Them).

Keywords are the heart of any PPC campaign. But confusion surrounds the concept of keywords. In this article, let’s discuss what keywords are and how they’re different from search queries. Then, let’s begin to understand how ads are matched to search queries using keyword match types.

What is a keyword?

As it relates to PPC, a keyword is a word or phrase that is used to match your ads with the terms people are searching for on a search engine like Google.

Keyword and search query are sometimes used interchangeably, but they’re not exactly the same thing.

A keyword is actually an abstraction; it’s a reference point to find related words and phrases. A search query, on the other hand, is the phrase a user types into the search bar to find information.

As an advertiser, you target keywords. Your target keywords are the phrases that you think will match with search queries from potential customers interested in your product or service. How these ads are matched is explained by keyword match types below.

Long-tail keywords

Keywords can be extremely general, like shoes or cameras. While it’s sometimes beneficial to target keywords with a high volume of search traffic, it’s usually better to target people searching specifically for what you have to offer.

For instance, rather than targeting a general keyword like shoes, you could get more specific and target men’s shoes. But this is still a broad term that could describe any men’s shoe. Men’s brown loafer size 12 is more targeted.

This kind of targeted and specific keyword is known as a long-tail keyword. Long-tail keywords usually contain three or more words. While a long-tail keyword may not receive as much search volume as a general keyword, its specificity means you have a better chance of making a sale or creating a conversion. Why? Because the user knows exactly what he’s searching for (that is, a size 12 men’s loafer), and you, the advertiser, can point him directly to a size 12 men’s loafer on your website.

Keyword Match Types

How your target keywords are matched with a user’s search query is determined by the keyword match type.

There are three main keyword match types: broad match, phrase match, and exact match. There is also a fourth match type, modified broad match, that is a derivation of the first.

Keyword match type #1: Broad match

When you type a keyword by itself, without any special punctuations, it is set to broad match. And as the name applies, broad match will match each keyword to the broadest set of queries that users type into Google.

Broad match keywords enable the Google algorithm to display your ad when someone types

• the phrase you typed in,
• similar phrases,
• singular or plural forms,
• misspellings,
• synonyms,
• stemmings (such as floor and flooring),
• related searches,
• and other variations that the Google algorithm considers relevant. And that considered relevance can often become problematic.

Here’s a real-world example: an elite tennis camp used the phrase tennis camp as a broad match keyword. Its ad appeared when someone typed in the plural, tennis camps. That’s a good match. But the ad also appeared when someone typed in weight loss camp. That’s not a relevant match at all.

Keyword match type #2: Phrase match

Phrase match keywords show your ad to customers who search for that phrase with additional words before or after the phrase. For example, if your phrase match keyword is “high heel shoes” your ad might show when someone typed in any of these:

• high heel shoes size 7
• women’s high heel shoes
• women’s high heel shoes size 7

The taxonomy for phrase match keywords is “quotation marks” at the beginning and end of the keyword phrase. The easiest way to remember phrase match is that the user must type what’s inside the quotes in the exact order that it appears, but the user can add more words to the left and/or right of the quotes. Therefore, if the user query was high heel women’s shoes, your ad would not be eligible to show.

Keyword match type #3: Exact match

Exact match keywords mean pretty much that: the user must type in exactly what the keyword is, and nothing else.

The exact match keyword taxonomy is [piano brackets]. Your ad will show only when a user types a query that exactly matches what’s inside the piano brackets.

Keyword match type #4: Modified Broad Match

Modified broad match offers the flexibility of broad match but gives you, the advertiser, a little bit more control.

With modified broad match, you specify that certain keyword terms or their close variants must appear to trigger your ad. Close variants include misspellings, singular/plural forms, abbreviations and acronyms, and stemmings. Variants do not include synonyms or related searches.

So let’s say your keyword phrase is violin teacher, but you put a broad match modifier, signified by a plus sign (+) before teacher. This means that some close variant of teacher must appear to trigger your ad. Your ad might appear on searches for violin tachers (a misspelling), violin teachers (plural), violin teaching (stemming). However, your ad would not appear for a synonym such as violin lesson.

Quick Review of Keyword Match Types

• Google defaults to broad match, which gives the algorithm the most leeway to match your ads.
• If you add a broad match modifier, signified by the plus sign, you’re telling the algorithm that certain terms or a close variant must appear in a user’s search.
• If you add quotation marks, your keyword is now in phrase match. What’s between the quotation marks must appear, but the user can add more words to the left and/or right of the quotes.
• Finally, exact match, signified by piano brackets, means that the user’s search must match exactly in order to trigger your ad.

There are appropriate uses for all match types, so you’ll need to do some experimentation to see what works best in your campaigns.

Once you have a good feel for these match types, make sure to understand the importance of negative keywords.

Is Yelp advertising worth it? For many local business owners, Yelp is an essential marketing tool to connect with potential customers. A 2016 Nielsen study commissioned by Yelp shows that 74% of consumers searching online for a local business turn to a review site at least monthly. The consumers who used online review sites ranked Yelp as the most trusted, most influential, and most useful.

I am one of these consumers. While best known for restaurant reviews, Yelp has helped me personally discover my business accountant, my landscaper, and my moving company.

Should your business advertise on Yelp? I asked several business owners to share their experience to understand whether advertising on Yelp is worth it. Let’s delve into what’s good, what’s bad, what’s ugly about Yelp Ads.

What Yelp Ads look like

Advertising with Yelp vs. free Yelp listings

Any business owner can create or claim a listing on Yelp for free. A free business listing on Yelp enables the page owner to

• update your information, such as business hours, phone number, and website URL
• upload photos to your listing
• add categories and service offerings
• respond to reviews via direct message or public comment
• respond to requests for appointments or quotes
• create a Yelp Deal (similar to a Groupon voucher, shown) or check-in offer (example, “Check in on Yelp for a free soda”)
• access the Yelp for Business Owners dashboard or mobile app, which shows statistics such as pageviews of your Yelp listing, number of phone calls generated from your listing, and clicks to your website from your Yelp listing

In addition, Yelp offers paid page upgrades (called a Yelp Enhanced Profile) that enable you to

• add a call-to-action button on your listing (shown)
• remove competitor listings from your Yelp page
• create and customize a photo slideshow
• access Yelp customer support

Finally, Yelp offers a self-service pay-per-click (PPC) platform, by which you can

• create and manage PPC campaigns on Yelp
• customize your Yelp ads with photos and text (shown)

There’s almost no downside to claiming your free business listing (except for the solicitation, which we’ll discuss), so this article pertains specifically to Yelp’s paid offerings.

Free Yelp Ads: Yelp’s $300 advertising credit

Often, business owners experiment with Yelp upon being offered $300 in free Yelp Ads.

This offer may come from Yelp’s sales team, which has a reputation for being aggressive. Kathlena Rails, publicly known as The Allergy Chef and owner of Free and Friendly Foods bakery in San Bruno, CA, calls Yelp’s sales efforts “borderline harassment.” Still, she does occasionally use Yelp’s advertising platform, but only, she says, “when it [is] discounted or when they send an email with a promo code.”

The $300 of free Yelp Ads is a smart way to see whether the platform is right for your business. But if your intention is not to continue after the credit is exhausted, do not forget to cancel, or you will be charged.

Yelp Ads: the good, the bad, and the ugly

The good

Yelp Ads can be effective

Zach Hendrix, co-founder of GreenPal, says that his company has “tested Facebook Ads, Google AdWords [now called Google Ads], Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram Ads. However, we have found that our best return on investment has been with our Yelp page sponsorships.”

As a self-funded startup, he says, “we have to be very cautious with where we allocate money for paid customer acquisition. We find the traffic we get from Yelp page ads converts 67% of the time into a paying customer, and we simply cannot top this on any other paid channels.”

Is Yelp advertising worth it? For GreenPal, absolutely. “Traffic we get from Yelp is solely people at the bottom of the purchase-making process,” Zach says. “They have read your reviews, they have read about your business, and they are qualified and ready to buy.”

Kathlena agrees, but only to some extent. “For the right type of business,” she says, “Yelp Ads are great. If you need a boost in local foot traffic, and your products cater to the Yelp user base, it’s fantastic.” She reported a dramatic increase in her bakery’s customers, especially those seeking vegan and gluten-free foods.

Yelp Ads is easy to manage

In addition, Kathlena says, “I found [the platform] to be rather easy. In a few clicks, the ad was live.”

You set your own daily budget

Like other PPC platforms, Yelp Ads enable you to control your budget. You can advertise on Yelp with as little as $5/day.

The bad

Yelp Ads can be expensive

Even though Kathlena reported a spike in her bakery’s foot traffic, “we don’t feel it’s worth it for us… Our cost of goods is quite high. For us to keep up with Yelp Ads, it would eat up most of our profits.” She recommends Yelp Ads only for companies with the profit margin to support it.

Yelp’s targeting options are limited

Earl White, co-founder of House Heroes LLC, experimented with Yelp in 2017. “I signed up for a yearly plan at $1,000 a month,” he says. “I was drawn in by the feature that my ads would show on competitor Yelp listings.”

Ultimately, however, Earl discontinued advertising on Yelp. He describes his business as a “fix and flip” company that targets property owners who want to sell. The problem with Yelp Ads, he says, is that “anyone searching about real estate services would see my advertisement and contact me — often about real estate services I don’t provide.”

“If your business has general services,” he says, “it’s probably not a problem, as a broad array of industry-related search terms can yield business.” However, he cautions, “if your business has a narrow focus, Yelp’s general approach to search terms may not be the right fit.”

Managing the effort takes time

Nick Leffler, owner of Exprance, has tested Yelp advertising for his own business, as well as for clients his agency manages. Is Yelp advertising worth it? For his own business, Nick says, “I received one paying customer that barely paid back the initial investment. With all the time involved, it ended up not being worth it.”

The ugly

Yelp’s reporting is questionable

Geoffrey Radcliffe, CEO of PostLaunch, manages online marketing for companies, often including Yelp Ads. He finds Yelp’s reporting to be inflated and unsubstantiated. Yelp’s analytics, he says, “can’t be validated by any other tracking software (Google Analytics or Host account analytics).”

He offers this example: “I have a dentist client that was paying almost $3K per month for Yelp Ads.” Yelp’s reporting showed 40-50 calls generated per month, “but the reports from the phone company couldn’t even validate this.” In addition, “Yelp was reporting 1,700-ish click-throughs to that client’s website,” he says, “but total traffic was less than 300 monthly.” 

Yelp’s sales team is aggressive, and its support team less than helpful

Business owners report numerous solicitation calls from Yelp’s sales team. Nick describes Yelp’s support as “extremely responsive when they’re trying to get you to spend money.” However, “After you are with them, then they become significantly harder to get a hold of and get answers.”

So, is Yelp advertising worth it?

Like so many answers in PPC, the best answer is “it depends.”

As the business owners interviewed here show, Yelp Ads can work but don’t always. In Nick’s experience with his agency clients, Yelp Ads “has worked well for some businesses, while others pay dearly and get little return.”

Is Yelp advertising worth it? The TLDR conclusion:

Yelp Ads may work if your business

• has an adequate budget to support it
• offers general vs. specialized services
• is willing to invest some time in managing the effort

Yelp Ads may not work if your business

• does not have the profit margin to afford it
• requires specific customer targeting rather than general search terms

The best way to know is to experiment for yourself. Claim your business page with Yelp and get $300 in free Yelp Ads, then see whether it’s a good fit.

This article contains some affiliate links. This means that I may make a small commission (at no extra cost to you). All opinions are always 100% mine and I don’t work with any product or company that I don’t use and love. 

Does PPC affect SEO? 

The simple answer: No.

The better answer: No… and yes, sort of.

The detailed answer:

Running a PPC campaign on Google Ads does not directly affect your Google organic ranking. However, there are several indirect ways that running paid search ads may help your SEO efforts.

The separation between PPC and SEO

Google is committed to keeping its paid and organic teams separate. Engineers, product managers, program managers, and the Search Quality team will not allow paid search to impact how a site ranks in the organic results.

Google has talked about the intentional divide often, but Gary Illyes, a webmaster trends analyst at Google, provides us with one explicit example on Twitter:

Despite Google’s repeated insistence of this wall of separation, conspiracy theories among marketers persist. It usually goes something like this: “Does PPC affect SEO? Well, we started spending a lot on Google Ads, and our organic performance improved, so it must.” Ta-da!

If it were that easy, you could simply pay your way to better organic rankings. The cynics among us might believe that to be the case, but Google has unequivocally stated that its “first responsibility is to provide Search users with the most relevant possible results. If businesses were able to pay for higher rankings in the search results, users wouldn’t be getting the information they’re looking for.”

So once and for all:

Does PPC affect SEO? No. But even so, running PPC campaigns may lead to better organic rankings.

Here are four ways how:

1. Ads can improve organic CTR

In 2011, Google researchers published a study that showed that when users saw an ad and an organic listing for the same website, they may be more likely to click on the organic listing, or they may be more likely to click that ad upon seeing a high-ranking organic listing. In other words, the ad and the organic listing reinforce each other, improving the click-through rate of both.

As Rand Fishkin explained it on Moz, 1+1 equals 2.2.

“…let’s say I’m running Seattle Whale Tours, and I search for whale watching while I’m in town. I see an ad for Seattle Whale Tours, and then I see an organic result. It could be the case, let’s say that my normal click-through rate, if there was only the ad, was one, and my normal click-through rate if I only saw the organic listing was one. Let’s imagine this equation: 1 plus 1 is actually going to equal something like 2.2. It’s going to be a little bit higher, because seeing these two together biases you, biases searchers to generally be more likely to click these than they otherwise would independent of one another. This is why many people will bid on their brand ads.”

While your paid CTR won’t affect your organic page ranking, that incremental improvement of your organic listing could.

2. Ads are a gateway to organic engagement

A user who has been exposed to a company via a PPC ad may be more likely to revisit the company’s website in the future, often via its organic listing.

A common scenario: I click on a paid search ad for Brand X. I’m not quite ready to buy until I do some further research. Some time passes, but on my next Google search, I click on Brand X’s organic listing. I might even search Brand X by name.

A higher click-through rate and higher on-page engagement can both lead to a higher ranking. Seeing that first ad strengthened my association with the brand, so upon seeing the organic result the second time around, I’m more likely to click it, more inclined to engage with the site, and more inclined to convert or click that Buy button.

3. Ads can encourage links and shares

When someone visits your website and your content meets the needs of what they were searching for, they might then do any of the following:

• share your site via social media
• link to your site on their own website
• provide media coverage
• mention your brand elsewhere online

Any of these amplification actions might increase your site’s CTR, on-page engagement, and conversions, further improving the signals your site is sending to Google.

4. PPC encourages good SEO practices

As you are building PPC campaigns, you put a lot of thought into optimizing your landing pages (at least we hope so!). You create relevant content around a tight keyword theme. You link to other helpful parts of your site. You optimize the site for mobile. You build the page with speedy page load time in mind.

This purposeful page-building is usually done in the pursuit of a high Google Ads Quality Score. But these tactics and best practices are also useful for improving organic rankings.

Google even touts how its PPC tools may be used for SEO:

“Google Ads comes with a suite of tools that you can use to figure out how to optimize your site. For example, the Keyword Tool can help you create a list of terms related to your business that generate a lot of searches, which you could then integrate into your site’s content. You can also use Google Ads tracking tools to measure whether changes to your site and ad campaign are leading to more visitors or conversions.”

Building your site well for PPC also helps build it well for SEO.

PPC and SEO working together

The best scenario for most brands is an integrated approach. PPC campaigns will give your site exposure almost immediately, whereas organic listings take time to earn. However, over the long term, users often put higher trust in the organic results (not to mention these clicks are free of charge to you).

Pursuing both PPC and SEO success increases your overall share of search traffic. By attaining the highest level of visibility and presence in search results, you maximize your traffic and lead generation opportunity, particularly around the keywords that are strategically important to your business.

Of all the Google Ads metrics, Quality Score (QS) might be the most misunderstood. Let’s debunk the myths and discuss the realities of Google’s Quality Score and what you can do to improve it.

A brief history of Quality Score

As I explained to Brandpoint, before the introduction of Quality Score, advertisers with big budgets could simply outbid everyone to achieve top positions on the search engine results page (SERP). Google introduced QS to make sure it was delivering high-quality, relevant ads to users while leveling the playing field for advertisers.

But over the years, Quality Score attained almost mythic status. Advertisers obsessed over it because ads with a higher QS generally pay lower CPCs. In an attempt to clarify QS, Google gave greater visibility into how it judges ad quality.

Because Quality Score has changed so much over the years, much of the information you find online is either out of date or incorrect.

What is Quality Score?

According to Google, Quality Score “is a helpful diagnostic tool, not a key performance indicator. [Your score] is like a warning light for a car’s engine that shows how healthy your ads and keywords are. It’s not meant to be a detailed metric that should be the focus of account management.”

Your Quality Score is a number between 1 and 10, based on three specific components:

1. Expected click-through rate (CTR): the likelihood that your ad will be clicked
2. Ad relevance: how closely your ad meets the intent of the user’s search
3. Landing page experience: how relevant, transparent, and easy to navigate your page is for the user

Each of these three components is assigned a status of above average, average, or below average.

If you achieve a high QS, Google Ads rewards you with lower costs-per-click, better ad positions, and eligibility to display Ad Extensions. Ad Extensions give your ad extra real estate on the SERP with the addition of information such as your business address, pricing information, phone number, or online ratings.

What Quality Score is NOT

Many sites contain outdated information that your Ad Rank is calculated by multiplying your CPC bid by your Quality Score.

Quality Score is NOT used to calculate your Ad Rank. 

According to Google,

The quality of your ads is calculated for each auction they enter. But this is the important point: the Quality Score you see in your account is not an exact representation of those real-time ad quality calculations—there are just too many factors that are taken into account for every auction to allow one figure to fully capture your quality. Instead, the Quality Score you see is a more general metric presented as a diagnosis of your overall performance in those auctions.

It’s easy to think that the Quality Score number of 1 to 10 is connected directly to the auction. But during a real-time auction we also consider many additional factors, like the user’s exact query and the context of that query (for example, their device, location and the time of day.) The Quality Score you see in your account is an average value calculated over a sample of your ads, and doesn’t reflect the variation caused by such factors.

In other words, your score is an aggregated estimate of your overall performance, but it is not used at auction time to determine Ad Rank. But those three components above? They DO factor in your Ad Rank and are recalculated with every auction.

And, just in case you read something about this elsewhere on the web, know that Google has stated flatly, “There is no such thing as ad group-level, campaign-level, or account-level Quality Score.”

Why does Quality Score matter?

Quality Score helps you see if Google believes your ads are delivering quality to users. In doing so, your ads are given more prominence. As Google says, “give your users what they need, and a great Quality Score should follow.”

How to check your Quality Score

In your Google Ads dashboard, click on Keywords. Choose Columns > Modify Columns, and ensure that Quality Score, Landing page exp., Exp. CTR, and Ad relevance are checked. If you are interested in comparing your current status to past performance, you may also add a checkmark to the historical components (abbreviated hist.).

Once your columns have been modified, you will be able to see your Quality Score for each keyword, as well as each component.

How to improve Quality Score

1. Optimize your site for mobile

Google factors in the user’s device in each auction. While you don’t need to have a separate mobile site, your site should be easy to navigate on any device.

One way to achieve mobile-friendliness is to build your landing page to AMP standards. AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages, is an open-source standard to load pages faster than traditional HTML. If you have an AMP, enter the AMP page URL into the Mobile URL field of your ads. This way, when a mobile user clicks on your ad, they’ll automatically be sent to your AMP landing page.

Even if your page isn’t an AMP, Google does judge your landing pages by how fast they load, so optimize your code and images with speed in mind. Use tools such as Pingdom or Webpagetest, and aim for a load time below two seconds.

2. Deliver what the user needs

The content of your landing page should help answer the user’s search. In other words, you don’t want your landing page to be a single page with a lead form but without any content. You should deliver information to the user, not simply ask for information from the user. 

Even if your landing page isn’t part of your main site, keep your site navigation available so the user can click around freely.

Write copy that incorporates your keyword theme, but never engage in keyword stuffing. Use subheads to break information into easily digestible chunks.

3. Treat data responsibly

When Google says that quality landing pages are “transparent,” this translates to “the page handles user data responsibly.” In other words: make sure your landing page links to your site’s privacy policy.

This privacy policy should include any cookies you use and describe how you handle any data you gather from your site’s visitors.

If you don’t already have one, use a free privacy policy generator, such as Shopify’s.

What won’t impact your Quality Score

The following myths will not improve your Quality Score:

• Raising bids to try to increase your Expected CTR: Raising your bids might increase your Ad Position and therefore your CTR. However, Google normalizes its expectations for your existing Ad Position. So, if your ads are averaging position 3, Google already knows to expect a lower CTR than positions 1 or 2. Instead, focus on improving your ad copy and adding Ad Extensions to help improve expected CTR.
• Restructuring your account: Moving your keywords around will not by itself change your QS. However, if you’re re-organizing your account to make your keywords more relevant to the ads in the ad group, this will help.
• Running ads on the Google Display Network or Google Search Partners: Advertising on Google’s other networks will not impact your QS. However, doing so might align with your other PPC goals, such as getting more clicks.

Pay-per-click platforms like Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) can be overwhelming. You can easily get lost in the numbers and graphs. But don’t let the analytical nature of PPC scare you off. This guide will explain in plain English what these eight PPC metrics are, how they are calculated, and what they mean for your campaigns.

Clicks

Clicks indicate the number of times a user clicked on your ad to visit your website. A PPC platform like Google Ads charges you a fee (see cost per click) each time this happens.

A high number of clicks may seem like a worthwhile goal, but it’s not necessarily a good thing. Read what I mean by that here.

Impressions

Impressions indicate how many times your ad was served.

Note that I said how many times your ad was served and not seen. An impression doesn’t necessarily mean a human user saw your ad. Your ad might be placed below the fold, meaning the user would have to scroll down the screen to see it. Even if he never scrolls, it still registers an impression. Read more about Average Position below.

Click-through Rate (CTR)

Click-through rate, abbreviated CTR, is the percentage of times your ad is clicked.

CTR is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions. So if your ad was served 100 times and 2 people clicked on it, your CTR would be 2%.

Average Position

Ad Position describes where your ad is displayed on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), relative to the other ads.

The first ad displayed on the SERP is in position 1, the second ad at position 2, and so on. Lower positions may mean your ad only shows when a user clicks on the second or third page of Google results. Each time your ad is served, its position is averaged to calculate your Average Position.

It’s important to note that Ad Position is not absolute. Google research showed that if the SERP always looks the same, users’ eyes become trained to ignore the ads. In response, Google serves a dynamic layout that changes with each search. Sometimes the SERP shows only one ad at the top of the organic search results, with the other ads served below. Other times, two ads show up top, or maybe three. Sometimes it won’t display any ads on the top, only on the bottom. Suffice it to say that the closer your Average Position is to 1, the higher on the page your ads were served. A higher ad position will generally bring more clicks to your ad.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

The cost per click, or CPC, is the amount you pay when your ad is clicked. This price is determined by factors such as competition, relevance to the user’s search query, and your maximum CPC bid.

The maximum CPC bid (sometimes called max. CPC) is an amount you set as the highest you’re willing to pay for a click. Your actual CPC (meaning the final amount you pay for an individual click) may be less than your max. CPC bid. You have the option to choose manual bidding, where you set the maximum bid amounts, or automatic bidding, where Google sets the bid amounts for you to try to get you the most clicks within your budget.

Cost (Ad Spend)

Cost is how much you’ve spent on your ads. You might look at cost across your whole account (sometimes referred to as ad spend), in a campaign, or for an individual keyword. To calculate your cost, multiply your average CPC by the number of clicks.

Conversions

A conversion is an action a user takes after she has clicked on your ad. This action is defined by you using a tool called conversion tracking. Conversions might include an e-commerce sale, a newsletter subscription, a file or app download, or a phone call.

Cost per conversion

The cost per conversion is calculated by taking your cost and dividing it by the number of conversions.

Cost per conversion is an important PPC metric to ensure your campaigns are delivering a return on investment (ROI). However, remember that conversions are not always direct sales. Take into consideration how much a conversion might be worth to your business. When you set up conversion tracking, you have the option to assign a value to a conversion, such as collecting an email address.

PPC metrics: Just the beginning

These eight PPC metrics only scratch the surface of what you can analyze in your campaigns, but they are an important place to start.

As you examine your PPC metrics, try not to look at any single metric in isolation. Rather, take these eight insights together and piece together a fuller picture of how your campaigns are performing. For instance, you might see a high CTR and think that’s great. But if that CTR only brought your campaign a few clicks, you may need to re-evaluate.

What is PPC? In this article, let’s define basic concepts and understand how they could help advertise your business, especially on Google.

How does Google Ads work?

The relevant parties: advertisers and users

When you use Google Ads, you become what we’ll refer to as an advertiser. Every advertiser bids on a set of keywords. Keywords are terms you think your potential customers might use when searching for your products or services. If an advertiser is the owner of a sushi restaurant, for example, she might bid on a keyword like sushi restaurants nearby.

Whenever a user (someone who visits Google to search for something) enters a query that matches your keyword, Google automatically runs an auction of all the advertisers targeting that keyword. Google judges the auction based on how relevant the ads are to the search query and a number of other factors. Google awards the “winners” higher ad placement on the SERP, or Search Engine Results Page.

Cost-per-click

The advertiser is only charged a fee when a user clicks on the ad. The cost per click (CPC) varies with each auction based on factors such as relevance to the search query and competition. Due to these variations, you’ll generally look at your average cost per click across a certain time frame. CPCs vary widely across different verticals, so you’ll need to do some research to get an idea of how much paid clicks on Google may cost you.

What are the benefits of using Google Ads?

Targeted customers

If you’re old enough to remember, it used to be vital for businesses to have an ad in the phone book. Anyone going to the phone book to look up the number for a sushi restaurant, for example, was likely motivated to eat sushi. You wanted your business to be considered at that critical moment when they’re looking.

In the same way, Google is the internet age’s phone book. It’s where people go for information, and these people are the most qualified customers to target because they’re looking for what you’re offering and are the readiest to buy it.

As an advertiser, you can control the geographic regions (down to the ZIP code) where your ads show, adding another dimension to customer targeting.

Budgeting controls

Another benefit of using Google is there is spending flexibility built into the system. This enables your business to advertise on Google even on a tight budget. Using various settings, you can control how much you want to spend. For instance, you might only want your ads to run during business hours, or only advertise to people using certain devices like smartphones. You also set a maximum CPC bid that, in essence, tells Google that this is the most you are willing to pay for a click to your website. You also set a daily campaign budget to help make your ad spend predictable.

Advanced reporting

Online advertising with Google Ads offers many valuable metrics to help you evaluate the success of your campaign. Conversion Tracking is especially powerful to see whether your ads are driving online sales, phone calls, file downloads, email subscriptions, or other goals. Google Ads may also be integrated with Google Analytics for even more detailed reporting.

What is PPC? – Takeaways

• PPC stands for pay-per-click, a pricing model when an advertiser only pays when his ad is clicked on.
• The most popular PPC platform is Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords).
• Google Ads show alongside (or more specifically, on the top and bottom of) organic search results.
• Advertisers target keywords that potential customers might use.
• When a user types a search query that matches your keyword, you are entered into an auction of advertisers. The winners are judged based on several factors and are awarded higher placement.
• The advertiser is only charged when the user clicks on the ad. The cost per click is determined with each auction.
• Some of the benefits of using Google Ads is that customers are highly targeted, many flexible options help you control your spend, and detailed reporting can help determine how your campaign is performing.