First of all, I should apologise for the lack of content recently. There’s been nothing fresh on the PPC blog since the start of the new year. This is my promise to do better.

There are a few reasons why. The main reason…I have a full schedule of clients as a Google Ads Consultant, so my day-to-day is taken up servicing the associated accounts, as well as juggling all the other hats you have to wear when running your own business. I’ve also had no motivation to write. Stuck in a bit of a creative rut. Opening your laptop in the evenings becomes even more difficult.

But it’s also been an exciting and busy time at Tom Holder PPC HQ since we last spoke. I say HQ, I’m a freelance PPC consultant, so that’s my house. My girlfriend and I have recently bought our first home together.

We received the keys around 8 weeks ago, and have since embarked on a bit of a renovation and home improvement mission. Only officially moving in just recently.

Whilst in the process, I was amazed how home renovation crossed over so much with the work that I do as a PPC consultant. Digitally building and restructuring, or bricks and mortar building, the principles remain the same and there are huge benefits in working towards the long game, rather than quick fixes.

 

Preparation Is Key

Naïve is the perfect word. I was very naïve thinking the house works would take just a couple of weeks to complete.

Knock some stuff down. Slap some paint on the walls, lay a carpet. That’s all that featured on my to-do list.

Truth is, preparation is key. The better you prepare, the smoother the process.

That means, sanding down until the skin on your hands is gone, filling in endless amounts of holes, sugar soaping, rubbing down walls, concreting and levelling floors, fixing all of the little niggles. The list goes on.

The same applies to building a Google Ads account, planning and preparation are equally as important as execution of the manual tasks.

  • Agreeing a monthly budget breakdown
  • Learning about market trends for product/service you’re advertising
  • KPI and goal setting
  • Keyword research and cost forecasting
  • Campaign and ad group structure plan

The more elements you can get prepared, the less chance there is for hiccups to occur along the way.

 

Start Small & Expand

With the house, our plan was to do everything on our to-do list before moving in. And that’s pretty much what we did. Long days working our day jobs and long evenings on the DIY.

Would I do it that way again? Probably not. In hindsight, perhaps we should have started small, moved in and then tackled things room by room.

This echoes advice I regularly give to anyone building a Google Ads account – start small, cover the low-cost specifics, low hanging fruit and then expand from there if there’s budget available.

It might be that you want to introduce a couple of generic “top of funnel” campaigns, a remarketing campaign, Google shopping or even a Bing Ads account.

“Drip feeding” content into an account this way also benefits quality score, which you can read in the blog post linked.

 

Take Your Time, Mistakes Are Costly

With anything in life, there’s always a temptation to blitz through things quickly. And sometimes the task calls for that.

Generally, taking your time and concentrating on what you’re doing eliminates silly mistakes and saves you money and time in the long run.

One of the first things we did at the house was paint over some hideous shiny blue walls in one of the bedrooms. No sanding, nothing, just slapped a load of white paint over it. That was a mistake. Even after a few coats of white and a couple of coats of the finished grey, we now have scaly and cracked walls.

If we’d have taken some time beforehand to treat and research what to do with the shiny blue paint, we might have perfect walls now.

Mistakes in PPC are costly in time, performance and most importantly for you or your client, money. Wrong match type choice, incorrect location setting, bids, budget, keyword choice can all have huge implications.

We’ve all done it right, added negative keywords as positive keywords? I once added “apple” as a positive keyword for a client offering proofreading services. Yep. Luckily, I spotted my mistake promptly and minimised the damage.

Just take your time. Triple check before pushing any changes live.

 

End Results Are Worth The Effort

Following the three points prior should stand you in good stead for building or restructuring.

It’s easy to fall into the “let’s get this done ASAP” mentality when the finish line isn’t in sight. Set yourself some mini wins and goals to make the full project more manageable.

And remember, the end result always makes the graft and effort well worth it.

We’re now in our lovely new home and it feels all the sweeter looking around at the result, knowing how much effort, patience and time we put in.

 

That’s me. I’ll speak to you here again soon.

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Optimisation doesn’t always have to be super complex and lengthy. If your time is limited, don’t write off or devalue the impact of small, focussed optimisation. Completing a few of these concepts every couple of weeks is far more beneficial than a stagnant account receiving optimisation every few months.

Like anything in life, learning and progression, consistent small wins can compound into major improvements over time