Writing Content

Now that we have our images dialed in, it's time to focus on our content and review some options related to our link.

We are going to keep using the Ads Create wizard. Let's walk through how we got here again.

Go to Create ads. Then go to Send people to your website, Enter your website, and scroll past where you edit your image to where it says, "What text and links do you want to use?"

The first thing you want to do is connect this advertisement to a Facebook page. Doing so will enable the newsfeed ads, which have a strong performance advantage over the sidebar ads. That is because the newsfeed ad is in the center along with the content people typically want to look at, while as a sidebar ad tends to be off to the side, not in line with the reader's vision.

On the top left-hand side, you have the ability to turn on and off newsfeed ads.

You can select your page from the drop-down if it isn't already. If you're an admin of multiple pages, you'll see them all appear on this list. In this case, I only have access to the "Bob the Agent" page, so that is already selected, as it is the only option.

Right away we get a preview of our advertisement on the right-hand side of the page. You can use that to verify your content, but let's focus on the information in the left column for now. First up, we have our headline.

You may see some content there by default. Typically you are not going to want to use the default. It is best to delete it and start from scratch. Since this is a link ad, our headline will appear below the image.

Think of this like an intriguing statement-the title of the page they're visiting or a short clickable call to action. Take your time to craft something meaningful. I've already gone ahead and come up with a headline, so I'll type that in now.

Bob is a great agent

You can see on the right-hand side where that headline appears. Now, back up to the headline section. The number in the upper right-hand corner indicates how many characters you have remaining. If I delete this text really quickly, you'll see we have 25 characters available.

I will put in some new text that is a little bit longer, so you can see what happens if we've exceeded our character count.

Bob is a great real estate agent

As you can see we get a red box, a red alert, and a negative number in the upper right-hand corner. That means we're seven characters over, so I will put back the original text.

Bob is a great agent

Next up, we have the text. Again, it shows how many characters I can use in the upper right-hand corner. On this section, it indicates that I have 90 characters available.

Now, this is the text at the top of the advertisement. You will use it to create the main content of your ad. This is the sales pitch. I'll go ahead and type one in that I've created, and we can see it appear on the right-hand side.

List your house with Bob because not only is he a great agent, but he is the greatest.

Bob is not very modest.

At this point, our ad is really taking shape.

In fact, you could call this complete, but there are two more features I want you to be aware of. Below the text we have this option called Call To Action.

From this drop-down, you can select from some predetermined options. When you find the one you want, select it. As a real estate agent, the one you will more than likely want to use is "Learn More".

What it does is add a button in the lower right-hand corner of the ad. I highly recommend using this option. In my experience, ads with a call to action outperform ads without them. It not only gives another indication to the user to click it but also increases the overall visibility of the advertisement. But as with everything, test and see what works for you.

Last but definitely not least is this hidden ability to add a description to your link. Essentially, this adds more text to your advertisement. To show you what I mean, we'll click the Show Advanced Options tab here on the left. In this dialog box, we can include up to 200 additional characters. Facebook will shorten this text on a mobile device, and this section will not be displayed for a sidebar ad. This describes the page they are about to arrive on. For this ad, I'll include a tiny snippet about why people should visit Bob's website. I'm going to go ahead and paste in one that I've copied.

Bob does a spectacular job of getting homes sold. Check out his web page for a list of testimonials and a list of his recent sales.

Now, again, this section is optional. While I normally argue that less is more, you do gain quite a few extra characters and a more visible ad when you include some text. Try it out and find what works for you. Once you're done, you'll be able to see the preview of your advertisement in the window on the right.

I'll be talking in more detail about this preview section in a following video. As with the images, take your time crafting your messaging. Be concise, but relevant. Use attention-capturing headlines and clear copy. We'll be talking more about how to write a really great ad in a later video; this video was intended to cover the basic functionality of the process.

Bob's current copy still has much left to be desired.