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Google announced this week that they are rolling out Enhanced Sitelinks - meaning that even more additional text can be shown with the Sitelinks in AdWords ads. Here's how you can take advantage of the new feature without breaking the bank.
2/16/2012
Google's new Enhanced Sitelinks are a big change to AdWords. It's going to positively affect some advertisers, but some advertisers will be negatively affected. First we'll examine the details of the change, and then we'll look at how to make sure you fall on the positive side.
Until now, AdWords advertisers had the option to add Sitelinks to their ads in the form of a word or short phrase that would link directly to content associated with their primary ads, but to content with a different user intent or more specific content. Usually, 4 Sitelinks would be displayed. For example, an eCommerce clothing site might list Women's Clothing, Shoes, Memorial Day Sale, and Store Locator. Each of those phases would be a link displayed under the ad, and would display as long as the ad showed in the top section of the Sponsored search results. Clicks on the Sitelinks are charged the same cost per click as the primary ad, and while click counts on the Sitelinks tend to be relatively low, there is almost always a Click Through rate benefit associated with the perceived relevance and extra screen real estate that displaying Sitelinks offers.
Now, Google is actually pulling in description text along with each of the Sitelinks displayed, as long as the advertiser has active ads (and therefore descriptions) that associate closely with the Sitelinks being displayed. See this example from Google:
This increases the screen real estate devoted to the ad even more, and initial reports show a corresponding increase in Click Through Rate.
Sounds great, right? Sure, if you have the top displaying ad. This change will actually place a higher premium on showing your ads in the top position, in order to take advantage of the even greater screen space allotted - which will mean higher cost per click in competitive areas. It also means that advertisers must maintain active ad groups for anything that they want to display as a Sitelink - even links like Store Locator and Contact Us must now be active ad groups, if you want them to be also used as Sitelinks.
There are a few simple steps you can follow to make sure that you're getting the most out of Enhanced Sitelinks without increasing your costs substantially.
First, make sure you do your research to decide which search queries are important for you to display Sitelinks on. No need to get into bidding wars for keywords that aren't that important or profitable for you.
Second, make sure you select the right Sitelinks. Most popular categories and Sales typically perform well and are almost certain to have associated ad groups already. It may be time to ditch that "Contact Us" sitelink.
Third, create ad groups specifically to set up Sitelink descriptions, if necessary. If you want a Store Locator Sitelink, but don't have an active ad group for your Store Locator, create one using very specific exact match keywords - this will keep your costs down, but give Googl the information they need to display an Enhanced Sitelink.
As always, keep a close eye on your results and make optimizations when necessary. With a bit of planning, Enhanced Sitelinks can give your site a boost in Click Through Rates, traffic and profitability.
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