Google AdWords: Upgraded Sitelink Details

We love Sitelinks. We’ve seen the boost they can give to a campaign’s CTR by giving a user the option to navigate directly to certain pages on your website. They give the user a little bit more information about what it is you do and, most importantly, they take up more space above the fold, pushing your competitors further down the page.

In February, things got interesting...Back in February, along with the arrival of Enhanced Campaigns, we saw the introduction of Sitelink details. These were two lines of text, which were pulled from other ads within your Adwords campaigns that were shown below the normal Sitelink extensions that we all grew to know and love as part of the old Legacy campaigns. This was a fantastic idea as far as we were concerned and made our ads even more eye-catching and engaging.And just when we thought things couldn't get any better...Well Google has just gone one better. We now have the ability to fill in these Sitelink details ourselves. We are now given the option of filling two description lines for each Sitelink extension, allowing advertisers even greater flexibility and control of our AdWords campaigns, as well as opportunities for more detailed reporting and mobile-specific Sitelinks.Of course, there are a few (very reasonable) conditions:

• Each Sitelink must link to a unique URL on your website (i.e. you can’t have 2 Sitelinks linking to the same page of your website). Clicking a Sitelink must never initiate a download; it has to go straight to a landing page.
• Keyword insertion is not allowed in your Sitelink text and, as always, strict punctuation rules apply.
• The text in your Sitelink description must be relevant to your landing page and cannot be the same as the text in another Sitelink in that adgroup.
• In addition to these, all of the usual AdWords policies apply to the upgraded Sitelinks.

We’re excited about this latest development and look forward to the improved optimisation and measurability opportunities they offer us.Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some Sitelinks to get cracking on!Rob