Patience Hurlburt-Lawton
Got five minutes? Good.
This is going to be a quick and dirty explanation about why you should absolutely, definitely, always be bidding on brand keywords as part of your Google Ads strategy.
Brand keywords, also called branded keywords or brand terms, are keywords (or phrases) that contain your company name—for example “Ralph Lauren” or “Ralph Lauren black dress.”
Right now your mind is probably forming a question along the lines of, “Why the heck would I waste the money to bid on my brand when my organic ranking is already high?”
First and foremost, it’s actually really inexpensive.
We’re talking maybe a third of your average cost per click, so why wouldn’t you bid on your brand keywords? Plus, your click-through rate will be higher because people are already searching for your company (and likely further along in the sales funnel), and the same goes for your Google Quality Score. As a result, your quality score for all of your Google Ads campaigns will increase—and the higher your quality score, the lower your cost per conversion.
Second, it looks bad if you aren’t the first result on the search page for your own brand.
Not only that, but you want to monopolize as much of the search engine results page (SERP) as you possibly can. Which means, yes, you want your website at the top of the organic search results, but you also want your branded ad in the block of ads at the top of the page, which is considered the most valuable position. And hey, if you can take over the sidebar too? Even better. In other words, the more real estate you occupy, the less room there is for your competitors.
And speaking of your competitors, if you’re not bidding on your brand keywords, they will.
It sounds odd; why would your competitor bid on your business name? But think about it: It’s cheap, it’s totally legal, and it’s a clever way to lure valuable traffic away from your brand. So, even if you rank #1 in organic search results, your competitor is probably going to steal your potential customers if their paid ad appears above you. And quick tip: Even misspelled brand keywords count, and these are often overlooked by competitors, so it may be worth it to bid on the top typos for your brand. You can find them using a keyword typo suggestion tool like this one.
Bidding on brand keywords also gives you more control over your messaging.
Instead of just sending visitors to your home page, which is what Google normally does with organic search results, bidding on your own brand terms allows you to send customers to a higher-converting landing page of your choosing. Plus, you can customize your ad messaging as often as you want to capture more attention than a generic organic search result.
Finally, if people do find you using brand keywords and you’re not bidding on them, you won’t be able to see that data because you aren’t paying for it.
And any marketer worth their salt will tell you that the best way to continually optimize your campaign and maximize ad spend is to gather as much data as possible about your potential customers. In fact, the more data you have—like who’s searching for you using your company name—the more effectively you can adjust your strategy and messaging to get more conversions.
One last thing: With branded search ads, you should be making use of ad extensions.
Why? Because a.) they take up more space on the search results page, b.) they offer even more information about your business to people who are searching online, and c.) they’re completely free. It’s pretty much a no-brainer.
Like the name implies, ad extensions extend your ad, giving people even more enticing reasons to click on it. That includes your business phone number, important callouts, sitelinks, and even customer testimonials—all of which give your ad more value. Well-crafted ad extensions can even give you a competitive edge in terms of ad ranking and placement.
Want to learn more about brand keywords and how they benefit your ad campaigns?
Here at Solutions 8, we know everything there is to know about Google Ads, including how to optimize your keyword strategy so you get the most bang for your buck. Bidding on your brand keywords is a cost-effective way to gain more real estate on search results pages and get a better return on your overall marketing budget.
Call us today at (480) 908-8609 or email info@sol8.com to learn more. And be sure to check out our Google Ads YouTube video series, which features dozens of how-to and quick tip videos including An Advanced Overview of Google Ads Bidding Strategies and How to Identify Your Best Performing Landing Pages.
