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Everyone is competing for popular keywords, and artificiell intelligens is changing content creation.
It can be a bit daunting, especially if you’re new to content writing.
So, how can you cut through the noise and write more effective content in 2023?
We’ve asked 17 industry professionals to share the wisdom they’ve learned over the years, their advice to those trying to find their way into content marketing, and their favorite tools for writing and optimization.
Julia McCoy, VP of Marketing at Content at Scale, would have told her younger self to realize the opportunity.
“It was hard to see it back then since I was at ground zero,” recalls McCoy.
“But the industry of content marketing itself had ballooned by billions of dollars since when I started. This would have given me more hope and excitement that what I did truly mattered to building not just income, but a legacy.”
Without further ado, here are their top tips:
1. Focus On Your Audience
Jamie Press, Digital Marketing Specialist At Eurisko
The best tip I can give a copywriter is to think “audience first.” This advice is straight from Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger.
Sometimes, we go straight for the keyword tools when we’re brainstorming a piece of content; however, if we don’t know who we’re writing for, our copy won’t resonate with the reader.
Dialing into our target audience and their pain points (specific problems our audience needs solving) is the first step.
Carlijn Postma, Brand Strategist, Speaker, and Author of “Binge Marketing”
One: Start bingeing.
Really? Yes. The first educational go-to database is your streaming service.
The best writers and content creators are the creators of films and series. They know how to attract and retain an audience by creating a compelling story.
And bring your notebook.
Two: Know the difference between a target group and an audience.
In content marketing, your goal is to communicate through text, video, or audio. Therefore, you need readers, viewers, and listeners. That is an audience.
There is a huge difference between a target group and an audience.
A target group is pointed out by you as the sender of the content (whether this target group likes it or not).
An audience decides for itself if it wants to be your audience. I prefer to reach and engage an audience over a target group.
Focusing on an audience will make you a better writer.
Image credit: Carlijn Postma, January 2023
Three: Always create content in series.
Now, if your goal is to attract and retain a loyal audience, you have to start creating content in series.
With only one episode, one piece of content, you just won’t be able to build an audience.
And if you are creating a series, learn from the masters: use cliffhangers at the end, and recaps at the start of an episode.
Ask yourself: “What does my audience need to know about what I wrote in previous episodes to understand this one?” This signals your audience to consume the other episodes, too.
Linda Pophal, Founder At Strategic Communications, LLC
Focus on your audience and their needs and interests – that’s all that really matters.
If you write for your audience and work to address the questions they might have, you will automatically create SEO-friendly content, because that’s what SEO is all about.
Even when my clients have specific SEO requirements, I first write the copy as I had always written it, long before SEO existed – to meet my audiences’ needs.
Then I’ll go back and “retrofit” the keywords that clients have requested; often, they’re already there and may just need to be tweaked or added to a bit.
Always write with the user in mind, even when optimizing for search engines.
You can optimize an article by using keyword tools, like KeywordTool.io eller AlsoAsked, to find what queries people are searching to help you mold your article – but don’t let the quest for optimization undo the quality of your writing.
If you’re writing content to sell something, then embrace copywriting formulas to create compelling statements.
If you’re writing articles of interest, then write in a way that the end user can relate to and explain the subject as fully as possible.
Most of all, write for your audience.
If your end users are teenagers, write in a style that will appeal to them without sacrificing the image you want to present.
If the website’s main customers are business owners, then opt for a more professional, formal tone.
Making sure your content is search engine optimized doesn’t necessarily mean you have to write thousands of words.
The key is that it needs to be as long as required for you to explain your point clearly and comprehensively. This means that content can be just as effective by writing concisely.
3. Build Out Your Content With Search Intent In Mind
This means writing with more details and facts to provide context, as well as aiming for greater semantic richness.
For example, instead of simply stating a fact or opinion, try elaborating on why it’s true, or how others may feel about it, to draw readers in.
By taking this approach, I found that readers were more likely to connect with my content and leave feeling enriched by the experience.
Joe Karasin, CMO At CircleIt And Head Of Growth Marketing At DigitalWill.com
One: Don’t let the new focus on AI-driven content deter you.
AI content may get technical points and be produced more quickly, but creating compelling content is something that is still a human endeavor.
At the end of the day, the search intent of most users will favor the content that holds interest, which as of right now, AI hasn’t shown it can do.
Two: Balance is key.
You might be able to craft a beautiful story with your content, but if it isn’t written with SEO in mind, it won’t rank.
However, if you write a bunch of SEO-friendly content that is boring, no one will want to read it, and it won’t rank.
Being focused on the balance is the way you will gain readers and traction in your career.
Three: Write about what people want to read.
If you are writing content for a company, you want to look at the real-life applications of the company’s products and services.
By putting the customer or reader in the central piece of your narrative, you will get others to read it and identify with the “hero” of your story.
For example, if you have created a new technology, don’t just write a post about the features. Talk about the users and how the features you want to write about are improving their lives.
If you are just starting in the writing industry, I first recommend following Ann Handley and getting a copy of her “Everybody Writes” book.
Ann is an amazing writer that gives you writing tips that you can use whether you’re tasked with writing blog posts, website content, email newsletters, social media posts, ads – or anything in between. Plus, she has a great sense of humor – so she’ll make you laugh as you learn to be a better writer!
Now, when I began my writing career, I was very lucky to have a solid SEO foundation under my belt.
But looking back, I focused too much on writing for individual keywords when I should’ve spent more time writing about the topics people were searching for.
As a writer, create content about the topics people are searching for and then do more extensive keyword research about the questions people ask about the topic (and subtopics) you’re writing about.
Make sure you answer those questions thoroughly in your content. That’s the way to make your readers – and Google – happy!
4. Consider Using AI Writing Tools, But Use Them Wisely
We live in a completely new era versus the one I started in.
Today, the baseline of human content production can be assisted, if not nearly replaced, by AI tools built on top of OpenAI’s game-changing GPT language releases to write and create content.
Med GPT4 on the horizon and about to launch, human content production will shift forever into an AI-assisted one.
That said, if you’re considering a writing career, don’t think there’s no need for the human. There’s a huge need for your writing skills.
It will just look different than when I started – when it was solely human-based.
My tips for you: Learn how to incorporate AI writing tools into your process. Learn how to edit, cut the fluff, and make the content that AI produces better. Learn strategy.
These skills will put you in a place where you cannot be replaced by AI.
Now is not the time to completely move over to AI writing tools.
Although Google hasn’t come out and said that AI content is bad, we know that it prefers content that’s written by people for people.
With that said, it wouldn’t hurt to learn how to optimize AI content so that it’s a skill you can call on as and when needed.
We will likely see this as something that’s specifically needed from marketers in no time.
You could have a trial run of ChatGPT at home, focusing on the creation of content that’s helpful and user-first using the tool’s text as a starting point.
Other than that, the number one lesson for any new writer would have to be not to put themselves under too much pressure.
It takes time to learn how to craft the typer av innehåll that will engage and persuade.
It’s advisable to keep writing as a side hustle until you’re confident of meeting and exceeding client expectations.
Shubham Bajaj, Founder And SEO Scientist At Netsurge Technologies
With the onset of various AI writing tools and ChatGPT, it’s important for content writers who are just getting started to be able to write in a way that differentiates them from machines.
Adding your personality and character to your write-up and telling engaging stories that can keep the reader hooked are important aspects.
It is also important to note that, while it’s good to be quirky and conversational, make sure you have an NLP-friendly section that defines or provides an exact answer for the query in a format that Google or other search engines can directly use to display as a snippet.
If I could give my past self a piece of advice, it’d be to brush up on grammar and style rules.
For style, there’s nothing better than reading works by your favorite authors. How do they describe everyday things and situations? How do they craft sentences? What about their storytelling that hooks you in?
Like so many other things, we get better at writing the more that we do it (and reading).
It allows us to learn new things, experiment with new processes, and expand our skills for everything from creativity to accuracy and even speed and efficiency.
For those just getting started in their writing careers, reading widely can help you develop a strong writing style.
By reading various authors and genres, you can learn about different writing techniques and styles and find inspiration for your own writing.
Practicing regularly is also important, as it allows you to improve your skills and become more proficient in your craft.
Networking with other writers can also be beneficial, as it can help you learn about the industry, find potential collaborators or mentors, and stay informed about new opportunities.
And it’s also important to be open to constructive criticism because it helps improve your writing.
If I could go back to the beginning of my writing career, I would tell myself that I need to spend more time reading and practicing different types of writing.
Even if you only write one specific style of writing, practicing different styles and formats of writing will strengthen your primary style by association.
It is a great mental exercise to sharpen and use the other “tools” in your writing toolbox.
For example, if you only write B2B long-form keyword-rich blog content, practicing creative writing every so often might be useful.
By doing so, you can combat writer’s block, gain additional perspectives, and have more engaging and dynamic content.
Never forget that writing is (seemingly) one of the most basic ways for humans to communicate.
Of course, like most everything in life, there are good and bad examples of it.
Be mindful of the foundational guidelines we’ve been told most of our lives but also do not lose out on creativity to do so.
I often think back to something one of my favorite journalism professors taught me (and of which he claimed one of his favorite professors taught him as a budding journalist): “Write like jazz.”
It should have rhythm, but also irregularities and improvisation that allow it to stand out. It should be enjoyable and digested with ease.
7. Learn To Overcome Setbacks And Imposter Syndrome
Kaitie Frank, Digital Marketing Copywriter At Page One Power
Imposter syndrome is real. Kick it out the door and have confidence in your writing!
Read examples of great work, then put your spin on it.
Also, triple edit:
Edit on-screen.
Print it out and edit.
Have another set of eyes look at it.
Don’t let people bully you into submission. I spent too much time at a job where I was told I wasn’t good enough, and that made me lose confidence in my writing.
Instead, find a place where mentors help you grow and develop your skills, not knock you down because you don’t write exactly like them.
The advice I would now give myself at the start of my career would be to connect with other copywriters and content creators. Ask them to be my mentor for a week or two.
Also, I would tell myself to develop thicker skin and persistence, as rejection and criticism are a normal part of the writing process, which I learned, sometimes the hard way, along the way.
You’ll want to start collecting samples of your work as soon as possible; these will be invaluable when applying for jobs or searching for opportunities.
Make sure each piece is polished and showcases your best writing ability.
Experts’ Favorite Tools For Content Writing And Optimization
Grammarly And Hemmingway
Alex Valencia’s top writing tool is Grammatiskt, and he says that “every professional should use it (#notanad).”
“It’s taught me a lot about my writing style and how to improve it. For keyword research, I use Semrush,” Valencia shares.
Shubham Bajaj suggests Grammarly and Hemingway “for avoiding grammatical errors and ensuring that your content is structured properly, especially when starting and you have a low to zero budget to spend on tools.”
“Once you have some budget to spend, consider subscribing to advanced tools like ProWritingAid,” Bajaj recommends.
Surfer SEO
“When it comes to writing tools, there are oodles of SEO tools out there that have content tools built in. (Some are definitely better than others.) One of my favorite tools for optimizing content is Surfer SEO,” says Sherry Bonelli.
“Surfer SEO takes the keyword you’re trying to optimize your content for and analyzes your content against the top-ranking webpages.
Then it shows All words and Natural Language Process (NLP) words so you can see if you’re overusing some words – or not using words that you perhaps should use. (Like maybe you didn’t even think about including a word or topic in what you were writing!)
Surfer SEO can really take your writing optimization to the next level. I’d highly recommend you play around with it.”
Screenshot from Surfer SEO, modified by author, January 2023
“Don’t be afraid to use tools to your advantage,” advises Rudy Mawer.
“You are writing search engine-centric content; the internet has many resources and tools to help make your job easier and your writing more effective.”
Mawer loves using Surfer SEO as well. “Its content editor gives you a real-time score of your content’s strength for the keyword you are trying to rank for, NLP keyword suggestions, and a competitor analysis.”
Yoast SEO
Dvir Ben-Aroya’s favorite tools for content writing and optimization include Grammarly, Hemingway, Yoast SEO, and Google Analytics.
“Grammarly and Hemingway are writing tools that can help you improve your grammar, style, and readability.
Yoast SEO is a plugin that can help you optimize your content for search engines, and Google Analytics is a tool that allows you to track the performance of your content, including pageviews, bounce rate, and conversion rate.
These tools are very helpful in making your content more effective and engaging for your target audience,” explains Ben-Aroya.
Content At Scale
Julia McCoy saves up to seven hours per piece by using Content at Scale, “a long-form AI content writer that does everything for you – even SEO research and optimization.”
“It’s utterly insane to realize we’re here in an era where AI can replace hours and hours of grunt work at a fraction of the cost,” McCoy notes.
She also loves KWFinder for easy, simple, enjoyable keyword research and enjoys having ChatGPT for writing email outlines, topic ideas, and lists.
Otter.ai
Linda Pophal does a lot of interviews with subject matter experts and sources, and Otter.ai helps her accomplish the task.
“Otter.ai is great for recording and transcribing these interviews automatically so I can focus on what the sources are saying without worrying about missing anything,” says Pophal.
“I also like Grammarly, Hemingway App, and AP Styleguide online, and have begun experimenting a bit with ChatGPT, not to actually write my content but to help with outlining and getting a head start in fleshing out ideas,” she adds.
“If you’re writing on a niche topic, diving into that Subreddit is the best way to get authentic and unique insight quickly,” Ellis recommends.
Joe Karasin also uses Reddit and Quora for topic research and to learn what people are talking about surrounding your topics.
“There are probably questions your audience has that you haven’t even considered. Write about those topics, and you’ll experience success,” Karasin advises.
Google Search And Suite
Jamie Press goes for a simple Google Doc for writing and collaborating with colleagues and clients.
Kaitie Frank uses good ol’ Google for research and optimization.
She believes that the “SERPs (search engine results pages) will tell you all you need to know about which headers to use and which information to include.”
Sam Hollingsworth shares a similar outlook.
“Like many old-school journalists, I don’t rely too heavily on many tools to help me optimize content or even come up with ideas to write about, but it’s nice to have them when needed.
It’s amazing how much direction and ideas we can get from free resources like Google sökordsplanerare, as well as traditional Google Search.”
“For help optimizing content, MarketMuse och Frase are great tools to have available in your efforts,” Hollingsworth adds.
Editor’s note: All interviews have been lightly edited for clarity, brevity, and adherence to our Editorial Guidelines. The views expressed by the interviewees in this column are theirs alone and do not necessarily represent the view of Search Engine Journal.
Performance Max campaigns are the pinnacle of automation in PPC, so it’s no surprise they continue to be a major topic of debate for PPC professionals looking to balance time savings with peak campaign performance.
The primary goal of Performance Max campaigns is to drive conversions, such as sales, leads, or sign-ups, for your business while maintaining a competitive cost-per-action (CPA) or return-on-ad-spend (ROAS).
By utilizing Smart Bidding strategies and dynamically adapting ad creatives, these campaigns help advertisers reach a wider audience and boost the results obtained from traditional, single-channel campaigns.
But their high dependence on AI doesn’t mean these are set-it-and-forget-it campaigns.
Automation can still benefit from the touch of an expert PPC manager. But because they are so different from traditional campaigns, there are unique ways to optimize Performance Max (PMax) campaigns.
PMax optimization broadly falls into three categories:
Setting them up for success.
Monitoring that the AI is driving the right results.
Tweaking the campaigns to further optimize their performance.
Read on to learn how to get the most out of your PMax campaigns by addressing each of these three areas of opportunity.
How To Set Up PMax Campaigns For Success
Let’s start with what can be done to set up Performance Max campaigns to be successful out of the gate.
Remember that one big risk of automated PPC is that machine learning algorithms can eat up a significant amount of budget during the learning phase, where it establishes what works and what doesn’t.
Many advertisers don’t have the patience or the deep pockets to pay for machines to learn what they already know from their own experience.
1. Run It In Addition To Traditional Campaign Types
“It’s designed to complement your keyword-based Search campaigns to help you find more converting customers across all of Google’s channels like YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps.”
And while running Performance Max as a stand-alone campaign is better than not advertising on Google at all, for professional marketers, it should be seen as a supplement to existing campaign types.
Running PMax campaigns in conjunction with traditional search and display campaigns offers advertisers a more comprehensive and diversified marketing strategy.
This approach allows businesses to capitalize on the strengths of each campaign type while mitigating their limitations, resulting in a more balanced and effective promotional effort.
Traditional search campaigns are particularly effective at capturing user intent through keyword targeting, ensuring ads are shown to users actively searching for relevant products or services.
Traditional display campaigns, on the other hand, are excellent at raising brand awareness and reaching audiences across a vast network of websites and apps.
PMax campaigns complement these traditional approaches by utilizing machine learning to optimize ad targeting and placement across multiple Google platforms.
This broadens the reach of advertising efforts, tapping into new audience segments and driving conversions more efficiently.
Combining these campaign types allows advertisers to cover all stages of the customer journey, from awareness and consideration to conversion and retention, while maximizing their ROAS.
2. Exclude Brand Keywords From Performance Max
One keyword-targeted search campaign you should always have is a brand campaign.
Then, ask your Google rep to exclude your brand keywords from all PMax campaigns so they don’t cannibalize traffic from your brand campaign.
Brand traffic should be inexpensive because it’s leveraging the power of your own brand. When users search for that, your ads will be the best match with the highest Quality Score and hence should be discounted significantly.
But because Performance Max’s mission is to generate more conversions, it may actually end up bidding on really expensive brand-adjacent queries.
For example, if I bid on the keyword “optmyzr,” I’ll pay around $0.10 per click when someone searches for exactly that.
(Disclosure, I am the co-founder of Optmyzr.)
But if I show ads for the keyword “optmyzr ppc management software,” I’m competing against every advertiser who bids for ‘ppc management software,’ my brand discount disappears, and those clicks will cost several dollars each.
In a branded search campaign, I can control exactly which traffic to target using positive and negative keywords. But in Performance Max, there is no easy way to manage keywords, so Google may use the really cheap brand traffic to subsidize the much more expensive brand-adjacent traffic.
Ultimately, you will get results within your stated ROAS eller CPA limits. And while that may be acceptable to some, many advertisers prefer to manage their brand campaign separately from everything else.
3. Create Multiple Performance Max Campaigns To Target Different Goals
The same reasons why you would run more than one campaign in an account without Performance Max apply to why you should consider having multiple PMaxcampaigns.
For example, online retailers often set different goals for different product categories because they have different profit margins. By splitting these products into different campaigns with different ROAS targets, advertisers can maximize their profitability.
Image from author, April 2023
Maintaining multiple campaigns also supports seasonal advertising plans that may require different budgets at different times of the year.
Google supports up to 100 Performance Max campaigns per account, so that indicates that it, too, agrees there are many different good reasons why an advertiser would want to maintain more than one campaign.
4. Manage Final URL Expansion
When you create a PMax campaign, you tell Google what landing page to send traffic to. But you also get to decide if Google can expand to other landing pages on your domain.
Think of it a bit as dynamic search ads (DSAs), which automatically match your site’s pages to potentially relevant searches and automatically generate the ads to show.
Final URL expansion should be used cautiously.
At the campaign’s onset, consider focusing all your budget on the landing pages you care most about. If the results are good, then expand to more final URLs automatically.
And always be sure to use rules and exclusions to ensure Google doesn’t show your ads for parts of your site you don’t want advertised. For example, exclude your login page (assuming that one is ranked high in SEO).
You can also exclude sections of your site that are the focus of other campaigns. A retailer could exclude all pages that include the path ‘electronics’ in their apparel campaign to ensure consumers interested in electronics are served ads from the most relevant campaign.
5. Add Audience Signals From The Start
Adding audiences to a Performance Max campaign helps enhance the targeting and performance of your marketing efforts.
While PMax campaigns already utilize machine learning to optimize ad targeting, incorporating audience information provides additional context that can further improve the campaign’s efficiency.
Adding audience information enables the machine learning algorithms in PMax campaigns to make more informed decisions when optimizing ad targeting and placements. This can lead to better campaign performance and a higher ROAS.
By specifying particular audience segments, such as in-market, affinity, or remarketing audiences, advertisers can tailor their campaign messaging and creative to resonate better with their target users. This enables more personalized and relevant ad experiences, resulting in higher engagement and conversion rates.
Advertisers should also attach their own audiences to Performance Max campaigns. For example, by attaching a list of all their existing customers, they can choose to have the PMax campaign prioritize new user acquisition.
Because it is generally harder and more expensive to find new users than to convince existing users to make another purchase, adding this setting can better focus the ad budget on what is most valuable to the business.
How To Monitor Performance Max Campaigns For Success
Even when campaigns are well set up, monitoring AI is always a smart idea because it can sometimes make questionable decisions.
When I accidentally turned on automatically applied recommendations from Google, I found that my brand keyword ‘optmyzr’ was removed by Google because the AI felt it was redundant to some other keywords in my campaign, particularly some misspellings of our brand name.
I investigated and found the keywords Google preferred delivered fewer conversions and had a higher CPA than the keywords it removed. So not only was AI semantically wrong, but it also made a bad decision for my bottom line.
So let’s look at some ways to monitor Performance Max campaigns.
6. Report Where Your Performance Max Traffic Is Coming From
Just like you may have monitored clicks and impressions by device types or from different geographic areas, in PMax you should care about the performance of the various channels where your ads are shown.
If you only look at the overall performance of a PMax campaign, you may be falling into the trap of averages.
Relying solely on averages can be misleading and might not accurately represent the true nature of the underlying data.
Averages can oversimplify complex data, reducing it to a single value that may not capture important nuances or patterns within the dataset, and this can mask the variability or range of values in the dataset, leading to false assumptions about the consistency or homogeneity of the data.
Image from author, April 2023
For example, is low performance on the display network made up for by the great performance of ads on YouTube?
On average, the campaign drives the results you want. But by eliminating some wasteful portions, results could be even better than what you asked for.
Even if the campaign is delivering the desired results, knowing about possible inefficiencies puts you in a better position to address those and tilt the playing field back in your favor.
Tools like Optmyzr make it easy to see where your budget is spent in PMax, and there are also Google Ads scripts that will add this type of clarity to your data.
7. Monitor For Cannibalization
Because PMax campaigns don’t include the traditional search terms reports and only include part of that data in insights, it can be difficult to know when it is cannibalizing the other campaigns you’re running in parallel.
When it comes to standard shopping campaigns and PMax for retail (which replaced Smart Shopping campaigns), the PMax campaign always takes precedence over the traditional shopping campaign. For this reason, it’s important to segment products to avoid overlap.
For example, you could advertise shower doors in one campaign and bathroom vanities in another. But if there is any possible overlap, even segmenting campaigns may not lead to the desired result.
For example, shower wands advertised in a traditional shopping campaign may be closely enough related to shower doors and get mixed into the PMax campaign for shower enclosures.
Regarding keyword cannibalization, Google says if the user’s query is identical to an eligible Search keyword of any match type in your account, the Search campaign will be prioritized over Performance Max.
But if the query is not identical to an eligible Search keyword, the campaign or ad with the highest Ad Rank, which considers creative relevance and performance, will be selected.
And even a keyword that is an identical match may be ineligible due to a variety of factors and still get cannibalized.
The best way to monitor for cannibalization is to monitor campaign volumes and look for shifts. Does an unexpected drop in a search campaign correspond to an increase in traffic to the PMax campaign? If so, dig deeper and use our optimization tip for managing negative keywords that we’ll cover in the next section.
Optimizations For Performance Max
While PMax promises to optimize itself on an ongoing basis thanks to AI, there are some proactive ways you can still help the machines deliver better results.
8. Use Account-Level Negative Keywords
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to add negative keywords to a PMax campaign without the help of a Google rep. And even then, they will generally only add negative brand keywords to help prevent cannibalizing a brand campaign.
But PMax campaigns can work with shared negative keyword lists if you email Support and ask them to attach one of your shared negative lists to your PMax campaigns.
From that point forward, you can simply add negative keywords to the shared list, and they will instantly take effect on the PMax campaign that is associated with the shared negative list.
While Google doesn’t share full search term details for PMax the way it does for search campaigns, it will show keyword themes under insights. This is one good source for negative keyword ideas.
You should also leverage data from traditional search campaigns you’re running in parallel to PMax.
So mine your traditional search campaigns for negative keyword ideas, for example, when users search for things like ‘free’ ‘login’, etc., that never convert well. Add these as negative keywords to the shared negative list that is attached to your PMax campaign.
9. Use Account-Level Placement Exclusions
When it comes to placements, Google has a predefined report that shows placements where your Performance Max ads were shown.
Skärmdump från Google Ads, april 2023
This is a great starting point to find ideas for placements to exclude.
To exclude placements from PMax, you’ll need to exclude them at the account level, since it’s not possible to add negative placements to individual PMax campaigns. You’ll find this ability under the “Content” section of the Google Ads account.
Skärmdump från Google Ads, april 2023
Just like with negative keyword discovery, consider using your account-wide placement data from all campaigns to find placements to exclude in PMax.
And if you run multiple Google Ads accounts, you can get even better results by finding money-wasting sites and apps in the display network to exclude across all the accounts you manage.
Or when working with a tool provider, they may even be able to help you find negative placement ideas from their own vast network of data.
10. Exclude Non-Performing Geo Locations
Even though PMax uses automated bidding, which doesn’t support geo bid adjustments, you can still leverage geo data in two ways.
You can either exclude locations that don’t drive conversions or use conversion value rules to manipulate the value you report for conversions from different regions so that the bids will get adjusted accordingly.
For example, if you report conversions as soon as someone fills out your lead form, but you know that people in Munich become paying customers at a higher rate than people who fill out the same form from Berlin, you can set a conversion value rule to value conversions from Munich more highly.
This helps automated bidding make the right decisions about what CPC bid will likely have the desired ROAS.
And that leads to our final optimization tip, which is a big one.
11. Feed Correct Conversion Data
AI can only do a good job for your account if you tell it what the goal is.
And the goal should be precise.
It shouldn’t be to get the most conversions possible if your real goal is to drive profits.
Or to get as many leads as possible if you want leads that turn into customers.
Setting up goals correctly can make a huge difference in how well PPC automation will perform.
Updating goals with margin data or with data from your sales team can be a significant effort, and that’s why I’ve listed this as an ongoing optimization strategy rather than an up-front setup task.
Get PMax up and running with the conversions you’ve already been operating with, and then work to constantly enhance that conversion data.
Slutsats
With these 11 tips to optimize your Performance Max campaigns, you can expect better results while also benefiting from the time savings promised by automated campaign types.
There are many more tips I didn’t cover here that you can discover by joining the dialogue online.
And there will be many more tips to come as PPC automation continues to evolve.
You set them up with your name, address, phone number & hours. Maybe you embed a Google Map for driving directions.
Perhaps you write some copy that no one will read, and if you have multiple locations, you repeat the same copy on each page and just change the location name.
If you’re feeling cocky, you put a call to action on it – maybe.
You set it, then you forget it.
And guess what? That actually works pretty well for local SEO.
I mean, what more does a potential customer want from a location page? Maybe an appointment scheduler?
But who cares about the customer? We smug SEO types all know Google is our #1 customer.
So, what does Google want from a location page? Let’s start with the basics.
1. What Is The Purpose Of A Location Page? (PAA FTW)
I can’t believe I have to explain this, but ChatGPT isn’t going to train itself. (At least, I don’t think it will.)
For retailers, location pages come in four basic types:
1. Location Detail Page
This typically represents the physical location of a business (e.g., SideTrack Bar & Grill at 30 W. Angela St. Pleasanton, CA 94566,).
2. Location Service/Department Page
This typically represents a specific service or department category available at the physical location (e.g., SideTrack Bar & Grill Catering).
3. City Page
This typically represents the city (#duh) where various physical locations are located (e.g., Pleasanton, CA),
4. State Page
This typically represents the state (#duh2) where various physical locations are located (e.g., California).
Depending on your industry, you may also want to consider County Pages (or Boroughs, Provinces, Prefectures, or whatever nomenclature your particular country uses).
For example, attorneys specializing in the laws of a specific county may find it useful to set up a page for that county.
There are likely infinite other options, but these are the main ones that 99% of you with location-based businesses need to consider.
For service area businesses (aka “SABs”), it’s basically the same setup, except you will typically want to create additional City Pages for the various areas you serve (e.g., Plumber in Livermore, CA, Plumber in San Ramon, CA, etc.).
This will help you target these queries in the Local Organic search engine results pages (SERPs) – those results that typically show up below/above Local Packs – and they can help your Google Business Profile (GBP) be more relevant for queries for those areas.
2. Why Do Location Pages Matter For SEO?
Despite their simplicity, location pages can play a big part in SEO for brands.
There are two basic types of search queries these pages are tailor-made for:
Brand Queries
These are perhaps the most important queries to show up on Google for.
When a searcher queries [Starbucks], [Starbucks near me], or [Starbucks Pleasanton], Google typically wants to show a location page for that brand.
If you don’t have a page for the specific location, Google may show your homepage, a nearby City Page, or perhaps a page for a third-party site like a local business directory that uses your brand name, plus the location for SEO purposes.
And, of course, there are all sorts of related queries like “Starbucks hours,” “Starbucks address,” etc.
Non-Brand Local Queries
These are the money queries where you can attract potential customers who may have never heard of you – or thought of you for the specific query.
Consider queries like [pizza], [pizza near me], [best pizza in Pleasanton], etc. Single-location businesses can often rank for these queries with just their homepage, which basically acts like a location page.
But multi-location businesses will typically need a page for that specific location to rank for these high-value queries in the organic results.
Links
Outside of the homepage, location pages are typically the best source of a site’s external links. Numerous local business directories link to these (aka “local citations”) and they tend to accumulate backlinks from local media sites and others over time.
They can then spread the link mojo throughout the site.
3. How Do Location Pages Affect Local Pack Rankings?
This is pretty straightforward. If you have a Googles företagsprofil (GBP) linking it to a location page for the area in which you are trying to rank is a critical ranking factor for Local Packs.
I have done plenty of tests where we changed the link to go to a page that did not target the city we wanted to rank in, and the Local Pack rankings suffered. When we switched it back, the rankings recovered.
It’s important to note: your homepage may have more location mojo than your location page for a given location, so you’ll want to test which one works better for GBP.
And as mentioned above, having a page for a given service area can help you rank for queries for those service areas.
4. What Are the Basic Elements Of A Well-Optimized Location Page?
Your location’s business name, address, phone number, and hours. Make sure the name, and all other info, you use on this page matches the info on your business’s GBP.
Last year we looked at 100,000 SERPs and found that pages on local directory sites that exactly match the business name and other info of the relevant GBPs tended to outperform those that have partial or no matches.
Structure Your Data
Mark up all of the NAP elements i LocalBusiness schema. There are a number of specific business category schemas, so if there is something more targeted for your business, you’ll want to use that.
For brands with multiple related brands (e.g., IHG, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, etc.), you’ll want to acquaint yourself with Organization schema to help our robot overlords sort things out correctly.
And don’t forget breadcrumbs linking up to parent City/State URLs marked up with Breadcrumb schema.
Use Targeted Meta Data
The page’s title tag and H1 should ideally target the business name and location (e.g., “Starbucks Pleasanton, CA”).
You can certainly test adding additional targeting to see how it affects performance (e.g., “Starbucks Coffee in Pleasanton, CA,” “Starbucks Coffee Near Pleasanton, CA”).
Our research suggests that outside of the target category (e.g., “coffee”), the city is the most important element to be included in the title tag for “near me” searches – then the state.
Using the word “near” appears to help, but at the margins. Still, an extra 1-2% clicks couldn’t hurt, right?
Image from author, May 2023
5. Engagement Intangibles
“Engagement” is one of the fuzzier of the many fuzzy SEO factors.
So think about what else a potential customer might need to find a location page useful.
Calls-to-action (CTAs), like the ability to make online appointments, order something online, etc., likely send positive signals to Google about the usefulness of the location page.
6. Advanced Location Page SEO
This isn’t rocket science, so when I say “advanced,” I really mean “SEO tactics for someone who somehow got buy-in from the rest of the org to prioritize updates to the location pages that everyone forgot we even had.”
Here are some things we have seen work over time. Your mileage may vary, of course:
Optimized Copy
It’s perfectly fine to start with a basic copy block with a find and replace for the location name/city that explains what your business offers.
It’s relatively cheap and easy, and you can always go back and update the copy later. See what that gets you before spending more time or money on it.
That said, we tend to see more targeted copy outperform instances of using the same copy on each page. I recall a client site not moving in rankings for six months until we updated the copy on the location pages to be unique.
As with everything SEO, try to test this at a small scale before you make a bigger investment.
Hopefully, it goes without saying, but I’ll say it: using phrases relevant to the topic you are targeting in your copy couldn’t hurt.
Certain businesses may also benefit from adding “Points of Interest” (aka “POIs”) to the copy. For example, people often search for hotels with modifiers like “near the airport.”
So adding those phrases and POIs to your location pages can make your page more relevant for these queries while also improving the relevance for the target city “entity.”
That’s a fancy way of saying that because you mention JFK Airport, Google may think you’re relevant to the great borough of Queens, NY. Mentioning the neighborhoods you serve is also a good one.
Link To Nearby Locations
Multi-location businesses should link to nearby locations (the distance depends on what you think is best for customers) from their location pages.
There are two good reasons besides customer convenience to do this:
The more locations you have, the harder it is for Googlebot to find them, so linking to them from these pages creates more reasons for Googlebot to crawl them.
Adding the other location names to the copy of the location page may make it more relevant for Google. For example, if there’s a link to “Starbucks Livermore” on the “Starbucks Pleasanton” page, the phrase “Livermore” might give Google more confidence about the Pleasanton location, since Livermore is the next town over.
Use Topically Relevant Images And Videos
Since these lowly location pages get no respect to begin with, they often are launched with copy only.
But check this out: We have found that for some niches, merely adding relevant images to the pages can help with ranking improvements.
For example, if you have a truck driver school, consider adding a picture of a person driving a truck (#duh3). If you are a remodeler, maybe add some shots of recent projects.
A good rule of thumb is to look at the top-ranking pages in the Local Pack for your query and make sure you have just as good, if not better, images and/or videos on your location page.
Använda sig av Google’s Vision API to ensure it understands what your image is about.
Link To Product/Service Category Pages
Last year we looked at Local Packs across 10,000,000 keywords for 40 ecommerce categories in 5,000 U.S. markets (the things we do for SEO…).
One of our key findings was that location pages that linked to category pages (e.g., Target.com’s Dublin, CA page linking to its Video Games Category Page) tended to outrank those sites that didn’t do this.
This simple tactic can have a significant impact.
Pick the categories you want to prioritize and link away.
Add Local Reviews
Adding a feed of customer reviews to these pages, particularly if the reviews are from the page’s target area, can often improve performance.
One of my theories is that a regularly updated review feed gives Google a good reason to visit the page often and prioritize it.
“Any time someone goes into a client’s house, car, or business, I advise putting employee faces on websites, confirmations, and reminders.”
The Kitchen Sink
Other items that could make sense on your location pages and improve engagement include:
Philanthropy and community connections.
Local sponsorships.
Hiring and careers info.
Pricing info (marked up with Price schema, of course).
Business license/insurance info.
Social proof and trust signals like BBB accreditation for each location and/or “Voted Best Boba Shop in Pleasanton!”
Use Google Merchant Center Data To Increase Conversions
If you are running product listing ads (PLAs) you likely have a ton of data in Google Merchant Center that can give you hints on how to improve conversions on your location pages.
The TL;DR: Check your Google Merchant Center (GMC) to see what products get the highest impressions and click-through rate (CTR) when they are connected to your GBP in the SERPs.
This can be found in the “Local Surfaces” report. These products should be featured on the relevant location page.
Screenshot from Google, May 2023
Google is showing you that people are already interested in them.
Over the past decade or two, we have tried pretty much everything you can think of with these things. Here are a couple of things you’ll want to be wary of:
Unnecessary Location + Service Pages
We’ve seen many brands launch location + service/department pages linked off the location detail page. For example, Home Depot has these pages for Home Services, Truck Rental, and its Garden Centers.
There are plenty of good non-SEO reasons to have these pages. If you are looking to rent a truck, having a specific page about renting a truck in your city might be helpful.
But be clear that this will often not be a net-new traffic play.
Why do I say this?
Because, after looking at organic traffic data to tens of thousands of location + service pages, we have observed that most of the time, 90% of the organic traffic to these pages is brand traffic, and they are likely cannibalizing searches you were already getting.
Image from Semrush, May 2023
This is not the case in every situation, and it may be worth it to roll these out merely to improve conversions.
But you should be aware that these may not be a net positive in terms of organic traffic, and they may even have negative SEO effects due to increasing the number of “thin” URLs on the site.
Image from Semrush, May 2023
In one case, we had a client with about 100,000 URLs launch these pages, which created about 1,000,000 new URLs. Guess how well that went.
Our rule of thumb is that if a department or service can get a GBP, it may be worth creating a local page for SEO purposes. This doesn’t apply to all cases, of course.
Location Pages With No Location
We recently worked on a retailer site that created pages for cities that were near their locations, but where they had no locations.
The pages looked like every other location page, but instead of presenting NAP info for a relevant location, it linked to the nearby locations.
This was a national site, so they had over 130,000 of these. And, of course, they were getting virtually zero organic traffic.
For SABs, this tactic is necessary if you want to rank outside of your physical location’s area (more on that in a moment). But it seems that, for queries that imply a searcher is looking for a physical location, Google doesn’t want to show you these types of no-location pages.
Oh, and don’t add insult to injury by creating local pages for every brand you carry (e.g.,/ca/pleasanton/flaming-hot-cheetohs). This client had about 500,000 of those and, you guessed it, virtually no organic traffic.
Beware Thin Content Location Pages
A common tactic for service area businesses or SABs is to create a ton of location pages for the areas they serve.
They may even make the content on them super unique.
Screenshot from Google Search Console, May 2023
The challenge is that we are starting to see these types of plays get manual actions for thin content.
Of course, Google does not seem to apply this across the board. I still see plenty of “thin” location pages for various queries.
So what can you do? It’s the same challenge every other SEO has.
Look at what type of content is doing best for a particular query type and create a better page. Let’s face it: when it comes to location pages, the bar is pretty low.
Only Create Pages When There Is Clear Local Intent
Vi har precis avslutat ett projekt för en advokat med praktiker i 30+ städer. De har 54 övningsområden och har skapat plats + övningssidor för varje. Det är 1 620+ sidor för Google att räkna ut.
Det första vi gjorde var att fastställa hur mycket "lokal avsikt" det fanns för sökresultat för varje övningsområde.
"Lokal avsikt" kan bestämmas av vilken % i en SERP som har "lokalt" innehåll (t.ex. lokala paket, städer eller delstater i titlarna, föreslagna eller relaterade sökningar, etc.).
Du behöver ingen platssida för en fråga med relativt låg lokal avsikt. Denna speciella advokat hade 300+ platssidor som riktade in sig på frågor som inte hade någon lokal avsikt.
I dessa fall skulle det vara bättre för SEO att omdirigera dessa sidor till en enda "nationell" tjänstsida.
Så innan du investerar mycket i att skapa platssidor, kolla först efter lokala avsikter. Det kan spara mycket tid och pengar.
Jag kunde fortsätta.
Dessa bedrägligt enkla sidor har nästan oändliga möjligheter för SEO, men min gissning är att om du har kommit så långt har du nu massor av JIRA-biljetter att prioritera.
Gunga galunga.
Speciellt tack till Carrie Hill, Amy Toman, Mike Blumenthal, Joy Hawkins, Brandon Schmidt och Will Scott för att ha lämnat feedback.
Speciellt tack till LSG-teamet för att de skrek åt mig som om de vore min mamma när jag skjutit upp när jag skrev den här artikeln.
Web.com, destinationen för allt-i-ett-webbtjänster, tillkännagav två nya AI-baserade verktyg som hjälper användare att välja ett domännamn och ge innehållsidéer.
Medan AI Writer-verktyget är till för kunder, använder du AI Domain Name Generator är gratis och tillgänglig för alla att använda utan att behöva registrera sig för någonting.
Web.com AI-verktyg
Web.com är en leverantör av hosting, domän, webbplatsbyggande, SEO, säkerhet och e-posttjänster.
Det är också en ecommerce plattform, i huvudsak en enda destination för allt som behövs för att lansera en webbplats.
Så det är en naturlig passform att introducera ett AI-baserat verktyg som hjälper kunder i början av deras webbresa när de väljer ett domännamn.
Innehållsidéer för produktbeskrivningar, artikelutdrag och innehåll för bloggar är också ett användbart tillägg som bör hjälpa deras användare att utnyttja OpenAI-tekniken.
AI-författare
Web.coms AI-skribent är ett verktyg som är exklusivt för deras kunder.
Verktyget fungerar med ett lättanvänt steg för steg-gränssnitt.
Först väljer en användare vilken typ av innehåll som behövs och sedan uppmanar den att välja kontextuellt relevanta alternativ som viktiga nyckelord eller tonen i innehållet.
AI-författaren arbetar också på följande tolv språk:
arabiska
engelsk
franska
tysk
hindi
italienska
japanska
Mandarin
putsa
ryska
spanska
ukrainska
Jag frågade Web.com om verktyget automatiskt kan infoga produktbeskrivningar och metabeskrivningar.
De svarade:
"Inte än, funktionen AI Writer i produkten genererar kopian åt dig, du kan anpassa den efter eget tycke och sedan kopiera och klistra in den.
Men den typen av integration inom webbplatsbyggaren kommer i nästa fas av produkten."
Så här fungerar verktyget:
"Den utvecklades för entreprenörer och småföretag som letar efter ett enkelt sätt att skapa innehåll för sina webbplatser, sociala sidor, bloggar, produktbeskrivningar och digitala marknadsföringskampanjer utan att behöva skriva det själva.
Det AI-drivna verktyget erbjuder en mängd innehållsuppmaningar och gränssnitt beroende på innehållsbehov, vilket gör det enkelt att skräddarsy innehåll efter specifika behov (t.ex. emojis för sociala inlägg).
Andra anpassningsbara element inkluderar designtoner, nyckelord och flerspråkig innehållsgenerering på över 10 språk, inklusive engelska, spanska, franska och mandarin, så skapare kan skapa webbplatser även på ett språk de inte behärskar flytande.”
AI Writer-verktyget är baserat på OpenAI, så det är ett bekvämt sätt för kunder att komma åt dessa verktyg i sitt arbetsflöde.
AI-domännamnsgeneratorn är ett offentligt verktyg som hjälper användare att bolla idéer om domännamn.
Det utnyttjar OpenAI-teknik så att alla som är bekanta med att uppmana ChatGPT omedelbart kommer att känna sig bekväma med att använda det här verktyget.
Men verktyget är så enkelt att använda att någon som är ny på generativ AI borde kunna använda det.
Det som gör det här verktyget intressant är att AI-domännamnsgeneratorn är öppen för användning av vem som helst, du behöver inte vara registrerad användare eller kund för att dra nytta av den.
Jag gav det ett försök och genom att beskriva vilken typ av verksamhet domännamnet är till för och det genererade några ganska bra sökordsbaserade domännamn.
Mina preferenser tenderar mot varumärkesdomäner.
Så jag uppdaterade uppmaningen genom att lägga till "Använd inte nyckelord för domännamnet utan ge mig hellre ett suggestivt varumärke."
Och det fungerade!
Web.com beskrev deras verktyg:
"Traditionellt brainstorming och manuell sökning efter tillgängliga domännamn kan vara tidskrävande och arbetskrävande.
Genom att kombinera AI med vår expertis och erfarenhet som en av de största domännamnsleverantörerna i världen, erbjuder Web.com småföretag ett mer effektivt, kreativt och skräddarsytt tillvägagångssätt för att hitta de bästa tillgängliga och relevanta domännamnen.
En kund kan ge några ord för att beskriva sin verksamhet, och den AI-drivna domännamnsgeneratorn ger de bästa idéerna om domännamn, vilket avsevärt minskar tiden och ansträngningen som krävs för att hitta ett relevant domännamn.”