A common mistake made by many marketers is to get lost in the convention. We learn that there are certain ways to do things and prefer to obey these laws to the letter, instead of forging our own paths. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all, these traditional methods have been proven to work, aren’t they?
Google is renowned for its algorithms and for keeping things equal in the best interests of its users. However, as a business battling for rankings, it’s not all fair in a digital battle. Here are a few effective ways to distinguish yourself from the crowd by using less traditional approaches on Google Advertising.
1. Keep Tabs of Other Brands
It might seem crazy to suggest that you include the name of your competitor in your keywords, but is it? Most of the searchers have a brand name because their search has a little more meaning. They know what they want, and they may be at the end of the testing process and closer to the purchasing point. Get away from the trap of relying on industry keyword bids, and instead use the brand names of your most popular competitors.
Why it works:
What happens when you want to bid for brand names is that you insert your business or company into the search, whether or not they like it. That’s a particular search, and you are probably going to be one of the few competitors to be so brazen.
While you might find that people looking for a particular brand have already made up their minds, there will always be those who are making a final quest to make a decision. They are the fence sitters who may always be tempted to come your way.
How to do it:
You can place an ad that pop-up and give customers a little food to think about clicking on your competitor’s link. It might ask a question, it might plant a seed of doubt, or it might even make them laugh to inspire curiosity. The key thing here is to get them away from the obvious connection and choose yours instead. Get them to a landing page where you can make a point-by – point claim against your competitor, and you could just get a conversion.
The disadvantage:
You could find it more costly than you thought if other businesses are taking the same sneaky approach.
2. Leverage On Typography Errors
This one is in the same lines as the diversion of rankings from your competitors. This technique relies on the old fat finger of typos. You are calling for the possible misspellings of a brand or product to catch the attention of people who are making typos in their search.
Why it works:
It’s sort of self-explanatory, so you are going to get to the top of the search and spend less money doing that.
How to do it:
There is a free tool that lets you enter keywords to generate the most popular typos.
The disadvantage:
While you are likely to get top rankings, search engines do know that typos are made and have an alternate search to click.
Read Also: How Many Words Do You Need To Rank A Webpage
3. Find Your Way To The Top Of The Funnel
The sales funnel provides opportunities on both ends when it comes to searches. Most people who are bidding on keywords are searching for terms that concentrate on the buyer’s intent. These higher commercial purpose keywords can also be very costly. However, you can also use keywords to get people to visit your site, even though they are less likely to be conversions right off the bat.
Why it works:
It also gives an opportunity to bring your products and services to new customers. It works well as long as you have got a way to trap these visitors so that they can be nurtured along the funnel.
How to do it:
To capture this end of the funnel, you need to use broader term keywords.
The disadvantage:
You’ve got to have a strong nurturing mechanism in place to get them to convert.
Read Also: How To Use Visual Search Engine To Boost Sales
4. Take Advantage of Negative Keywords
Search engines do their utmost to have the best fit for each search. Unfortunately, this can also mean incomplete matches. If you pay per click, you really want to avoid being thrown into the rankings when the person doing the search does not actually meet your needs. If you choose to click on your ad, you still pay for it.
How to do it:
For instance, if you specialize in running shoes for adults, you don’t want parents to come to your site looking for runners for their children. In this case, you can select negative keywords such as “girls,” “girls,” or even “small sizes.”
Why it works:
You will stop revealing your links to people who will never use your services. This saves money as it reduces the amount of dead-end clicks. As an added bonus, Google appreciates it when you use negative keywords and gives you a higher score for your ads. This strategy gives you higher rankings, and not only do you avoid paying for dead-end clicks, but you will also pay less for your PPC rate.
The disadvantage:
Apart from taking a little longer to set up the keywords, it’s not really a pitfall to use negative keywords.
5. Dont Give-Up On Organic SEO
Organic results are simply unpaid rankings. You need to maintain a solid SEO strategy to help you get high quality organic rankings. You will need to make sure that you use the best keywords to help you get up in the rankings. Working hand-in-hand with your PPC ads, you will slowly create momentum as Google begins to see the importance of the content you offer between your organic content and your ads.
How to do it:
Build appropriate, high-quality content that is completely optimized with the right keywords. You can use Google Ads to identify the best keywords to include in your content and use it to try to attract free clicks as you step up the rankings. Use the results of your ads to find the winning keywords and phrases and apply them to your content.
Why it works:
According to Zero Limit Web info, 85 percent of clicks go to organic results in 2017.
The disadvantage:
It may take months or longer to get up in rankings this way, and writing content takes time and costs money.
6. Make Attempt To Go Viral
Your Google ads don’t have to be boring. You can get imaginative, and you can create advertisements that might go viral.
How to do it:
Either use hyper-targeted and longer-tail keywords that see less search volume, or do your homework and look for something like an event or a conference in the industry. You are going to get the right crowd, and you are going to have your chance to impress and amaze them with your imagination.
Why it works:
Going viral helps increase brand awareness and also offers more ROI for your PPC advertising.
The disadvantage:
It’s not an easy feat. You can compete with advertisements that are more important to the very high volume keywords that you may end up using. Due to the high volume, you are more than likely to miss out on Google’s search for a low-quality score.
7. Use Ads Extensions
Google provides a range of ad extensions to help you have more detail on your text ads. Many advertisers ignore these extensions, but they are worth using as they don’t take long to set up and can take the advertising to the next level. They appear immediately below your definition and don’t cost anything extra.
How to do it:
First, you can use price extensions to emphasize the prices of some goods or services. The link to the items on your site, while also offering a fast view of what you are selling. You may also use price extensions to illustrate a free deal or discount.
Next, you can add message extensions to provide a simple way to send a message to you. This method costs the same as a click when someone chooses to use it, but it’s worth a lot more because it’s an immediate contact.
Use the scheduling option for your callout extensions. It works well if you are running a limited offer or even want to try different wording for your callout extensions. You may also set it to fit messages such as approximate delivery dates depending on the day of the week the searcher sees your ad. If you mention a live chat that is only open during the week, this extension may disappear on the weekends.
Why it works:
They provide additional details on a glance at no additional expense. They fine-tune your advertising while making it easy to get in touch with you.
The disadvantage:
Maybe you don’t want to reveal the price, which is alright. You don’t have a tracking system to see how many people use the Google Analytics messaging option. Not everyone in callouts will have applications for the scheduling option.
Closing
Introducing a few less traditional strategies as part of your Google Advertising tactics will help you conquer competition without actually costing too much.