Social Media Marketing

How to get the most out of Google’s new Sitelinks

AdWords ads are changing all the time. There have been a few changes in the last few months alone. The latest change is to Sitelinks and callouts. Sitelinks have become a swipeable carousel, while callouts and structured snippets now appear in the same area of the ad as the description text. The only exception to the change are the ads above the search results.

What does this mean for the advertiser? In theory, the change should result in more clicks on the Sitelinks and possibly more conversions. When the visitor swipes through the carousel of Sitelinks, you know that the intention is correct.

Segment your reports by Click Type to see how many of your clicks are coming through Sitelinks. Some publishers see increases of 15%, although that could be the extreme end of the spectrum.

Since clicks to Sitelinks are more qualified, make use of that traffic by sending the traffic to the right landing page. Also, optimize that landing page for the Sitelink. You can sue campaign drafts and experiments to find the right page and then use Google Optimize to refine the selection.

The Sitelink that a visitor sees is a chosen dynamically based on the context of the search. Ensure that you have at least eight to 10 Sitelinks per campaign to take full advantage of the changes. As always A/B test the messaging so you have ten quality Sitelinks.

Almost everyone sees the new changes as a positive step by Google to increase the consistency of how the ads look and increase conversions. Take this to heart and make the most of the new Sitelinks.