Sitelinks have been available in Adwords for a little over three years. Since they were introduced in 2009, sitelinks have helped many companies improve their overall pay-per click performance. In testing, Google has found that the clickthrough rate is 30% higher for ads with sitelinks than those without. [1]
The Power of Enhanced Sitelinks
When Google came out with enhanced campaigns last June, they took sitelinks to the next level. The enhanced sitelink’s feature provides you with the ability to treat each sitelink as its own individual ad. It completely changes the appearance and function of your sitelink extensions.
Benefits of enhanced sitelinks:
- Greater level of control
- Schedule when you want your sitelinks to appear
- Two description lines that can be 35 characters each
- Add further detail to your ad
- Improve user experience
- Increase the relevance of your ad
- Incorporate additional call to actions and promotions in your ad
- Gain extra real estate on the page
Sitelinks without enhancement:
Enhanced sitelinks:
Keeping all of these benefits in mind, why are many advertisers still not taking advantage of this feature?
Google tests show users have reported that sitelinks with additional detail were more useful and relevant, and clickthrough rates were significantly higher than the same ad with traditional 2- and 3-line sitelinks. The only negative side I have found with enhanced sitelinks is that Adwords Editor has not yet created a feature to bulk add/edit these sitelinks. With the constant growing demand for this, hopefully Adwords Editor will be releasing this function shortly. [2]
If you have not yet implemented enhanced sitelinks, take this opportunity to reconsider. Use the extra description lines to get even more creative with your ad, highlight specific products, reemphasize promotions or deals, and gain greater exposure than your competition.
[1] http://adwords.blogspot.com/2012/02/introducing-enhanced-ad-sitelinks.html
[2] http://adwords.blogspot.com/2013/06/give-your-sitelinks-additional-detail.html