Google is always trying new things with their ads in order to test the effect on click through rate, apparently to benefit the end user – but probably also to make more money. There are now ‘call extensions’, ‘sitelinks’ and Google also move the description line up to the headline in some instances. They are all good and I endeavour to get all the new features live across as many accounts as possible, as quickly as possible. It gives you a really good presence and sets your paid apart from the other ads.
They have just released a new change which is pretty big – it’s one that is really going to alter how the ads look on the search result page. I am going to explain how it works, why it’s good and what we should do to take advantage of it.
Google has just lifted the lid on “Enhanced Sitelinks”, it is basically a way to make the paid ads even more like the natural listings. At the moment when you search for something on Google there is a chance that the natural listing will have sitelinks in addition to their main advert, the sitelinks link to content that Google deems as really popular on your site. This usually only occurs on brand searches, but can also appear elsewhere.
These new “Enhanced Sitelinks” will allow us to turn our paid ads into this type of natural listing, it’s a great way to pedal all kinds of USP’s or offers and be hugely dominant on the top of Google.
Google says it will work by bringing in adverts that are closely related to the sitelinks that you have set up. The exact criteria, apart from the usual – (decent QS and in the top 3), is that the adverts that you want Google to pull in have to have the same destination URL as the sitelinks that are already setup (if that makes sense)! So it is now important to think more carefully about how your sitelinks match the other adverts in your account.
To take advantage of this new feature, I would recommend you make sure that the sitelink text is included in the other adverts that you want to be pulled in as well as making sure the URL’s match.
Unfortunately it is still only available in the USA, but I’m sure that it will help to improve CTR’s and will get rolled out to the rest of the world very soon…
Insights
