5 Steps for Using Paid Internet Advertising to Drive Conversions

5 Things You Must Do Before Jumping Into Paid Internet Advertising

Paid advertising is a great way to guide more traffic to your site and increase business, but it can become expensive quickly — especially if you aren’t careful. How do you make sure you are getting the most out of your paid ads?

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a business owner in my community. They recently started an aggressive Google AdWords campaign that was working, sort of. They getting tons of new leads, but the leads were for services they didn’t offer! The problem was their campain was way too broad, and they were paying tons of cash for useless leads.

Don’t let that happen to you. Here are five simple things you can do to make sure you are getting the most for your paid ad dollars.

1. Understand (and Use) Long Tail Keywords

Longtail keywords are keywords that are several words long. Rather than targeting “plumber,” you might target “emergency plumber near me” or “plumber to unblock a drain.” These are critical because they are more likely to match the words searchers use and they also indicate the searcher is ready to hire or buy.

Ubersuggest is a great resource for discovering keywords in your industry.

When using Ubersuggest, remember that you aren’t necessarily looking for the highest-traffic keywords. You are looking for the words your customers use to look for you.

Be on the lookout for long-tail keywords that are longer, more specific keywords that make up the majority of search-driven traffic.

Here’s a simple system you can use:

Step #1: Enter Your Head Keyword and Click “Search”

paid internet advertising tool ubersuggest

Step #2: Click “Keyword Ideas” in the Left Sidebar

paid internet advertising tool ubersuggest 2

Step #3: Analyze the Results

paid internet advertising tool ubersuggest keyword ideas

In the example above, the term “social media marketing” is considered a “head” keyword, which means it is searched for very frequently. The much less popular term “social media marketing strategy” receives fewer searches, but indicates the searcher is looking for something more specfic.

You might go even further and try something like “the best social media marketing strategy.”

To find even more keywords, click the “Related” tab next to “Suggestions.”

For this particular keyword, doing so gives you nearly 16,000 more keywords, the majority of which are long-tail. For example, here’s what you see as you scroll down the results: