What is Relevance?
In PPC terms, relevance is the relationship between an ad and its keywords, the landing page they point to, the customer's demographic characteristics, and the advertiser’s overall website. For example, the keyword "transmission" might be relevant to both a radio station and a car repair shop, but a customer seeking one result is likely to find the other irrelevant. A relevant ad is one which closely reflects the user’s likely intent when searching on that keyword; ads must be relevant to the keyword that it serves for.

 

Why is Relevance Important?

· Highly relevant ads mean users find the results useful, find what they are looking for and are more likely to create a conversion for the advertiser (purchase, sign-up, etc.). The quality of the ad reflects on the advertiser’s brand. Furthermore, the user is more likely to become a returning customer.

· Relevance impacts ad click-through rate (CTR) and return on investment (ROI) – an informed user is a buying user!

· Making your ads highly relevant is an inexpensive way to improve their position and increase their click-through rate. High CTR = Good Ranking + Low CPC

· An irrelevant ad - one where the user has not specifically requested the product or service - will be perceived as unhelpful and a ‘push’ not a ‘pull’ sales approach

· If irrelevant ads were to appear across the system, advertisers would compete for ad positions against companies that they are not in competition with, which would lessen the value of the auction to them.

· The more vague an ad is, the more clicks will occur where the user does not understand the offering and clicks back without purchasing – this wastes advertising budget.

 

Guidelines to Help Set Your Web Site Up for Relevancy Success 

The first step in ensuring highly relevant ads is to make sure your web site is set up in such a way that it enables visitors to find what they're looking for quickly and easily.  Doing so serves a double purpose in that it will also make setting up your PPC campaigns easier -- there will be no confusion in regards to which ads should point to which landing pages, which keywords to use with those ads, etc.  Below is a quick list of do's and don'ts when it comes to your web site:

Do...

o Limit content on your web site's pages to a reasonable length.

o Ensure that you're addressing one specific topic per page.

o Make sure HTML pages without any pictures are less than 150 kilobytes (KB).

o Make each page accessible by at least one static text link.

o Use text to dispay your company name (in addition to any logos or graphics); text that is embedded in an image cannot be crawled by search engines.

o If you're using images or flash on your landing pages, use Meta and Alt tags for relevant keywords and content categories that relate to your site. 

 

Don’t...

· Load pages with irrelevant words in an attempt to increase a page’s keyword density.

· Pad your page with ALT tags that users are unlikely to view.

· Use hidden text or links that are invisible to users.

· Use unacceptable optimization techniques, such as link farms, to artificially increase the number of links to your page.

 

Guidelines for Ad Relevance

While creating the ad copy please keep the following best practices in mind:

· Do not use inappropriate language -- review the adCenter editorial guidelines on relevance for more detailed information.

· Do not advertise illegitimate or illegal products or services, which you can find listed in our editorial best practices.

· Use specific and accurate language:

o Ad title and content should be a clear and accurate description of your site.

o Ad content should be as specific as possible, ideally using the keyword itself.

· The landing page must provide clear and direct access to content related to the keyword.

· Geographically targeted ads should include the targeted location within the ad.

· Ads should be truthful.

· Ads should not be misleading or create the wrong impression with the user.

 

 

More Tips on Creating Highly Relevant Ads

· Organize your keywords and ads into ad groups. An ad group is a grouping of individual advertisements. Separate ad groups within a campaign help to distinguish ads in meaningful ways. For example, a "Holiday Toy Promotion" campaign might contain ad groups named "Toy Plane Ads" and "Doll Ads". When you group your ads into ad groups, try organizing them around lists of highly related keywords. This technique lets you write ads that are appropriate for a single set of keywords and that send your customers to landing pages that are optimized for those keywords.

· Include your customers' search keywords. Add your customers' most popular search keyword to the ad title and first line of ad text. Alternatively, you can use dynamic text -- a word, phrase, or other information that is inserted into the title or text of an ad to customize it in response to a specific search query -- to make your ad's title, text, or display URL show keywords that match, or closely match, the text that customers type for their search queries. It’s a good idea to have one static ad and a dynamic text ad in an ad group to test performance.

· Link to the most relevant landing page. Each of your ads needs to send customers to a relevant landing page.  If your landing page isn't relevant to your ad, you risk having customers abandon your website, and your ad conversion rate will be low. You'll also risk having your ad disapproved by adCenter.

· Use the exact match option for your keywords. Exact matches are the most focused keyword matching option. When you choose exact matching for a keyword, your ad will appear only when that exact keyword is entered with no other keywords.  Exact matches tend to be more relevant than broad matches.

· Add negative keywords to your keyword list. A negative keyword is one that might ordinarily trigger the display of your ad but for which you know your product or offer is not relevant. Adding negative keywords to your keyword list saves you from having to pay for clicks that have a low probability of conversion.

· Target your customers by their demographic characteristics. Research the age and gender, geographical location, and other characteristics of your potential customers. Use that knowledge to display your ads either exclusively to or more frequently to your target audience.