Better Search Ads with AdWords Ad Extensions

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I was recently listening to Seth Godin give a talk atGoogle where he said that the internet is the first medium that wasn’t inventedspecifically to carry ads (unlike magazines and television). So to become successfulas a company, Google had to figure out a way to make ads just as useful astheir search results and that’s exactly what they did with AdWords. After some10 years where the look and feel of the ads didn’t change much, now Google hasstarted offering all sorts of ways to make the ads more interesting through adextensions.
Ad extensions are a way for advertisers to enhance theirtext ads with additional information that the user might find interesting likea location, a phone number or additional links to a website. Because extensions make ads bigger, they draw moreattention and because they make the ads more specific, the people who click arebetter prequalified. And just as with AdWords in general, creating an extensionis free and you only pay for clicks.
Here are some of the available ad extensions:
Sitelinks extensionsThe sitelinks extension is great if you're trying topromote multiple parts of your business through a single ad. You can add up to10 extra links in addition to the main destination URL of the ad. This helpsyou tell potential customers about the different products or services youprovide and lets them go to the section of your website that talks about thosespecific things. When a customer lands on a page that is exactly what they werelooking for, chances are better they will convert.
Location extensionsThe location extension adds your business address to thead and also shows it with a blue pin on the map. You can manually add youraddress but I recommend adding it automatically from your Google Local page.The Google Local page is a one-page website for your business that's hosted byGoogle and that is shown to people who use Google Maps to search for abusiness. It's free to set up and it's a good way to give potential customersanother way to find you.
Call extensionsSome businesses would rather get a phone call than avisitor to their site and that's what call extensions enable. Rather than usingvaluable space in your ad text to put in a 10 digit phone number, you can nowuse the ad text to tell people a good reason to call you, and then the numberappears below the ad. If your business is local, showing a phone number on amobile device is a no-brainer... it lets potential customers call you whenthey're ready to walk into your business. Rather than getting a lead throughyour website, a phone call lets you connect with that prospect in real time.
Social extensionsSocial extensions let you show potential customers howpopular and trusted your company is by including the number of users who havegiven your site a +1 on Google+, Google's social network. If you don't yet havea Google+ page for your business, you can set that up for free and use it toshare posts, photos and videos that your customers and fans might findinteresting.]
To read more about setting up a campaign with theseextensions, check out my step-by-step guide to setting up AdWords.




Frederick (“Fred”) Vallaeys got involved in onlinemarketing in 1998 when he ran search ads out of his dorm room at Stanfordselling VHS cassettes of popular movies. After graduating in 2000, he joined atech company that went under in the dot-com bust and to make ends meet, hebecame the Bay Area’s first digital wedding photographer. While placing ads forhis small business, he noticed a small search engine company called Google thathad some innovative ideas in the online ad space, and he joined in 2002.
At Google he helped grow the AdWords search marketingsystem and served as Google’s AdWords Evangelist, teaching advertisers aboutwhich Google products are best to support their marketing goals.
In 2012 he left Google to start his own business, Top Tier,because he saw an opportunity to make online marketing more accessible to smallbusinesses through education, tools and services. He speaks at numerous events,including the annual ASBDC conference, helping businesses get their businessonline and grow it through online marketing and online tools.
You can read Frederick’s blog at http://www.toptier.usTwitter: @SiliconVallaeysFacebook: http://tptr.co/toptier-on-fbGoogle+: http://tptr.co/toptier-on-plus