4 Tips to Maximize Returns from a Modest Paid Search Budget

Paid search campaigns can be an excellent way to get people to your website, but if you don’t have a ton of money to spend, it can be difficult to figure out how to maximize your returns. After all, many of the big companies that use paid search do so with a much larger budget than you may have – at least at the moment. However, paid search can still be useful to you if you’re tight on money.

Make Sure You Use Negative Keywords Negative keywords are something that many small companies misuse. While including them is optional, negative keywords are extremely valuable. In essence, they are keywords that you can add to your search terms so that users will not see your ad or content when they include a certain word in their search. Doing this will help you cut down on pay per click charges in most cases.

For example, you could make the word ‘free’ a negative keyword. After all, if you’re selling a product, it won’t do much good for people looking for free items to find your company.

Get Dimension Reports Understanding how your search is working is essential if you have a small budget. Use your Google Dimensions tab to see what day of the week, what time and geographic stats on a regular basis.

Skip Broad Matches Broad matches are basically what happen when you don’t specify a match type like exact match, phrase match or negative match. Broad matches are generally less beneficial to your company because almost anybody could find you. As an example, somebody could be looking for dry cleaners in Los Angeles. However, if you simply use ‘dry cleaners’ somebody may click on your page – even if you’re in New York City. They obviously won’t be doing any business with you, but you will be paying for that click.

Focus on Profit To maximize your earnings, focus on pushing products that will earn you the most. Let consumers find products with lower margins other ways.