Google Ads, formerly known as Google AdWords, is a powerful tool that can significantly enhance the visibility of your educational institution. The platform allows you to list advertisements at the top of Google’s search results for specific keywords, subsequently attracting prospective families. However, to ensure you’re leveraging Google Ads to its maximum potential, it’s essential to devise a well-thought-out strategy. This article provides a comprehensive guide on how to optimise your Google Ads campaign for your school.
1. Understanding Google Ads
Google Ads is the most popular form of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. It allows advertisers to bid on keywords and audience types, effectively enabling them to purchase visits to their website rather than relying solely on organic search traffic.
Google Ads are particularly beneficial for educational institutions, such as private schools, as prospective families often research for up to two years before making a decision. Therefore, a solid PPC strategy is crucial for success.
2. Defining Clear Objectives
The first step in creating an effective Google Ads campaign is to define clear objectives. These should align with your overall business goals and advertising goals. For instance, if your institution aims to increase enrolment by 10% in the upcoming academic year, your advertising goal could be to attract a larger number of prospective parents to your website.
Having a clear objective will guide your campaign’s targeting, budget allocation, and ad formats, ensuring they are effective. It will also help you set realistic expectations for the campaign’s outcomes.
3. Identifying the Right Keywords
Identifying the right keywords is critical for the success of your PPC campaign. Start by compiling a list of topics, programmes, features, and pain points that prospective students might be interested in. Include both broad terms, narrow terms, and branded terms.
Use a variety of PPC keyword tools to analyse your list and determine the most valuable terms based on search volume, competition, and cost per click. The effectiveness of your chosen keywords can be measured by monitoring your click-through and conversion rates.
4. Structuring Your Campaign
Set things up thoroughly from the beginning to ensure the success of your campaign. This entails curating everything from campaigns to keywords to ad groups to targeted locations. The more relevant and organised your campaign is, the better your chances of attracting your target audience and achieving a high conversion rate.
5. Optimising Your Bidding Strategy
Your bidding strategy should be efficient and powerful. Google’s Keyword Planner gives you a rough idea of what you’ll spend on any given keyword, which can inform how you distribute your budget across various campaigns. You can choose between automatic bidding, where Google bids for you, or manual bidding, where you bid on the keywords yourself.
6. Creating Dedicated Landing Pages
Rather than directing potential students to your institution’s homepage, it’s best to send them to a dedicated landing page that’s clean, concise, and offers relevant information about what they were searching for. A well-optimised landing page will help prospective students understand who you are quickly, navigate to additional resources, and provide a seamless user experience.
7. Leveraging Extensions
Extensions can be added directly to your ad to specify your location, products, features or sales promotions. These can significantly enhance your ad’s visibility and click-through rate. For instance, a phone extension can allow prospective students to easily click and call to inquire about your institution’s programmes.
8. Using Negative Keywords
Google Ads also allows you to input negative keywords, or words that you don’t want your ad to be associated with. This can help prevent your ads from appearing in irrelevant searches, saving you money and ensuring that your ads are only shown to the most relevant audiences.
9. Implementing Automation
Automation can help maximise your conversions. For instance, Smart Bidding and Responsive Search Ads use machine learning to increase or decrease bids on your behalf. This takes into account various factors, such as funnel stage, relevance, keywords, and competition, ensuring that your bid is increased when your ad has the best chance of success.
10. Testing and Optimising Your Ads
Monitoring and optimising your ads is essential for the success of your campaign. This involves analysing your ad’s performance and making necessary adjustments to your ad’s keywords, copy, design, or landing pages. For example, if your ad has a high click-through rate but a low conversion rate, the problem is likely your landing page.
11. Measuring Your Campaign’s Performance
It’s important to measure the performance of your Google Ads campaign to understand its effectiveness. Google Ads provides metrics that can help you understand why your impressions, click-throughs, or costs might have changed. By analysing this data, you can refine your strategy and improve your campaign’s performance.