What Are The Three Most Common Golf PPC Mistakes?
We thought identifying the three most common golf PPC mistakes would be pretty simple when we came up with the topic for this article. Identifying the mistakes is the easy part. Deciding an order of importance was tougher than anticipated. These are, short and really sweet, the most common blunders starting with what we think is the worst.
Poor Keyword Selection
I think this is the place where most people get off track early. Choosing a keyword that is too general for your purpose could spend your budget on users looking for something completely different. Yes, you might increase site visits, but keep in mind, the idea is to get a conversion….not a bounce. An example would be using the keyword like “golf packages” instead of “(your location)+ golf packages”. Unless it is your job to compete with the world for golf packages in your area, you’ll be wasting some valuable clicks with this common mistake. The same issue happens with the term “Tee Times”. It’s too broad to be effective for selling tee times at your course, or for your association. We recommend starting with the top ten or twelve keywords for your campaign, and carefully add other relevant keywords as you monitor results.
Poor Landing Page Strategy
Perhaps the most common of PPC mistakes is to land ads on the home page, or any other page without a clear path to conversion. Anytime we hear that a PPC campaign is not working, we immediately look to see where the ads are landing. Sure, you can spend some dollars and generate traffic to your site, but most of it will bounce if the user doesn’t immediately see the path to his intended search. This issue is compounded with the advent of smart device use. Every click should land on a conversion opportunity. Many of us in the golf industry are using PPC to to sell golf rounds. If we spend the money for the click and the visitor then has to determine how to navigate the site to find our booking engine, or our offer, we’ll most likely waste that click. The bad news…it’s never just one click wasted. In many cases entire campaigns are a waste of money. A properly designed PPC strategy should yield conversion.
Poorly Designed Ads
Of the three most common golf PPC mistakes, this one is the easiest to get right. Yet many people place poorly designed ads. Using Google AdWords makes this one tough to screw up. Some folks just don’t pay attention. There are tutorials, examples, and you can even get help from google if you need it. The important message here is to use all the tools available and be sure the ad is relevant. Use one of your best keywords in the title, make it clear what you’re selling, and make sure you include a call to action like buy now, or book now, or something that lets the user make an informed click. Then refer to the previous example above, and make sure you land that click on a page that allows the user to buy or book with out searching your site for further instruction.
An effective PPC program has to include attention to all these items. There are millions upon millions of dollars wasted every year on these three most common golf PPC mistakes. We will get into budget and bid strategies in a future article, but correcting these mistakes will generate significant results.