The following article lists some simple, informative tips that will help you have a better experience with Google AdWords.
1. Target products or services that are highly needed:
If you're just starting and don't have your own specific product, then you need to look for good affiliate program to join. I recommend picking those products that are trending which you are also interested in marketing. You'll then be given a unique affiliate link, which you can promote and start making money instantly once those leads you referred buy from the merchant's site through your own affiliate link.
2. Create a Website or Blog to serve as your landing page:
The most important thing is to promote your product or service effectively, by driving highly targeted visitors to your website or blog, a very essential tip when trying to make money with Google AdWords. For those just starting simply use a blogger or WordPress platforms which is basically free to create your landing page, but if you can afford to buy a domain name and host it the better your success to making money online. Of course, your website or blog is to function as a base where you simply put your affiliate links, and remember to offer your site or blog visitors the right product.
3. Write a good highly rich keyword ad campaign:
Start by selecting those keywords that are strongly related to your products or services you want to offer your site visitors, note that you really need tons of targeted visitors that will subscribe to your offer. So, if what you offer does not correspond to your chosen keywords, you'll just be wasting your hard earned money simply because those visitors will not buy from you. Remember that Google charges your account once they clicked your ad. Your ad should have an attention grabbing headline, a brief description of your product or service that will compel your site visitors to buy from you, and a domain name that is closely related to your product or service. Your effort to succeed using Google AdWords includes and not limited to the above tips.
Friday, January 21, 2011
New Adwords Tricks and Tips 2011
Guidance For Adwords Campaign
This is what I did so far:
set up location
selected only to be shown on computers
23$ daily budget with focus on clicks
selected that the ads would be shown in any position, accelerated delivery method
no ad extensions – don’t know what that is…..
start date 6/09/2010 – end date 10/09/2010 and to run between 7 am to 10pm
1000 impressions cap per ad group – should i use this??
no demographic settins
added 37 keywords, only positives
selected to show ads on content network
This is what i have not done so far:
did not enter negative keywords
did not eliminate websites
did not make images and texts for ads – i have no graphic skills
This is what I did so far:
set up location
selected only to be shown on computers
23$ daily budget with focus on clicks
selected that the ads would be shown in any position, accelerated delivery method
no ad extensions – don’t know what that is…..
start date 6/09/2010 – end date 10/09/2010 and to run between 7 am to 10pm
1000 impressions cap per ad group – should i use this??
no demographic settins
added 37 keywords, only positives
selected to show ads on content network
This is what i have not done so far:
did not enter negative keywords
did not eliminate websites
did not make images and texts for ads – i have no graphic skills
Friday, September 3, 2010
2010 Google Adwords Best Kept Secrets
The higher up the search ladder you go, the more potential clicks you will receive since the searcher will see your ad first. This means that you will make money online. This creates an upward spiral which if you can get on the right side of with relevant ad copy from the beginning, you’ll end up paying less per click, and getting more clicks on your ad for the same daily budget.
Click Thru Rate is one of the determining factors to quality score, and hence the success of your campaign. As you can tell by now, writing the best and most relevant ad copy to achieve such high clicks is key. The most important part of writing a good Google Adwords ad is the headline.
The most important part of your Google Adwords ad copy is the headline. A poor headline can make or break an adwords campaign and leave you way out of pocket. Five times as many people read the headline than they do the description lines and display URL, so unless your headline captures the browser, your adwords ad won’t get clicked on.
The simplest way to write headlines is to include the keyword in the headline every time.
When you know every adwords tips and how adwords works you may ask “How the hell I can write a successful ads that clicks and make a sale”. That is one of the most important factors in Adwords, having a good headline that clicks and the most difficult one (for me at least!). Testing and researching over the net I have found many good tips that most affiliate marketers will not reveal.
Use questions that arouse curiosity or interest. For instance, you can say Want to make $10,000 in one hour?
You can also offer instructions.. Cure the cold in five simple steps, or How to keep your PC virus clean, would be interesting.
Tell a story. There’s nothing better to spark interest than to appeal to your audience’s sympathy or empathy. Tell them a story like How I made $10,000 in one hour, or I lost 50 pounds in two weeks.
Divulge information. Claim something that only you know, such as The Mystery of Google AdWords. People will notice this, especially if they want to learn more about what you have to offer.
Claim unbelievable stuff! People will be intrigued with Make $10,000 in one hour or Keep thin without exercise. You can make it as absurd and unbelievable as possible, and people will surely notice!
Create (and maintain) trust. The web is all about trust these days. Recommended by the Queen, would be good.
Compare People love to go for what’s better. You can say cheaper than Wal Mart or better than Coke. If you are promoting a product that their competition is a big well known company compare it in your ad. For example you are selling a book from a bookstore that is not well-known in the market compare it saying something like this: Amazon vs X name, and say in a few words the one key comparison why x-name is better than amazon
The Three Dots: Mindvalley Labs found this and was the first to publish it. They made a comparison about adding three dots in the final phrase of each ad, and it worked very well. Why it worked so well this method? it naturally tells people that there is more information waiting behind the add.
Tiny changes: Small changes can make a huge impact in CTR. Even a word can make your ads to boost in CTR. Again, Mindvalley Labs found this they had the word “Changes” into their ads and they changed to the word “Change” and that tiny change alone resulted in a 180% increase in the Click-Through-Rate.
Mindvalley folks explained why “Change” and “Changes” can cause such a big conversion difference:
The word “changes” insinuates AUTOMATIC change. The word “change” implies the act of doing something yourself. For example, if you were advertising a tool for cleaning for your dog:
“Dog-Clean-O-Matic Washes Your Dog Spotless”
Makes the reader see the machine as an automatic tool. Toss your dog into it and voila – the animal’s now spotless. You don’t have to do any dirty work.
On the other hand:
“Dog-Clean-O-Matic: Wash Your Dog Spotless”
Makes it seem like the machine requires YOU to do manual labor. Perhaps it nothing more than a fancy new kind of fur brush.
This distinction is important depending on the product you’re selling. In the ad above, we’re selling a relaxation CD: perhaps this is why the word “Change” relates better to the audience. They want to be in control when they go through this relaxation process. The word “changes” perhaps implies something where the participant losed control – as in hypnosis. It could be intimidating.
For other ads – in the case of software for example – I have seen the word “changes” work better. This could be because, for software, we want stuff that does the work for us automatically.So try testing both phrases on your ad.
The Power of The “Secret” Keyword: One of the power headlines keywords is the word : Secrets and this resulted a huge boost in CTR +200%!
“You Need To” a powefull keyword: Another powerfull keyword is “You Need To” it usually makes people clicks less (people don’t like to be ordered) but the convertion is higher because you are visitors what to do. If they want to do it they will click on your ad.
Keywords in Different orders: If you have an ad group X and a keyword Y will not always work if you use the headline for the keyword Y. Using other extra keywords in the title will work much better. This testing will show you that the keyword Y is “Meditation Music” and mindsvalley used in the title as well but adding extra keywords in the title “Music for meditation” worked much better and if you analyse it is the same keyword but in diffirent order.
Capitalization: This is one of the most important tip and the easiest one. Capitalize every keyword in your ad but do not capitalize the words: “in”, “and”, “on”, and those 2 words like “up”, etc… This small but powerfull tip can boost your CTR for 80%.
Repetitive keywords: Repeating words in your ads can decrease your CTR and Conversion. In this example (taken from Mindsvalley “again”) shows that they repeated two keywords in the same ad, one in the title and one in the description “Start to”. Then they changed the title from “Start to” to “Learn to”. This tiny change boosted their CTR to +36%. Learn from this that with Google adwords there is no limit to optimize your ad even tiny changes.
Think as a Google searcher: Think as one of the visitors that want to search for the keyword that you are advertising. If you are advertising the keyword “Fat loss”, what you are willing to find? I assume that something “How to loss fat”, so the user wants to learn how they can loss fat. Add in your ads “Learn How…” depends in what kind of services, product or site you are promoting. Keep splitting ads and testing to see which ad will work for you.
The Keyword: Free: The free keyword is one of the most powefull keywords that you can add in your ads if it works with what you are advertising. If you are advertising a product, service or site that give you something free is a MUST to add it on the ad, your CTR will boost up for sure. This is an example from MindValleyLabs:
Stay away from “Buy” in headlines: Many adwords advertisers believes in this, putting away the word “Buy” in the headlines. It seems that users automatically put an X in your ad when they see the keyword “buy”. In this case is good to add instead of buy, just the company name, product name or service name. For example, if you want to promote a fat loss product which is called XYZ, it will be good to just add XYZ as your headline and in the description line add the scary word “buy”.
Feel the power of “Download” keyword: Anyone tested the Download keyword in your description or headline? This is a powerfull keyword to add in your ads. Why? The keyword download might give people the idea that they can get something very fast
Time, Time & Time: You know that most search engine users are lazy and they want to find what they want as soon as possible. So let’s play with keywords that means times: “Today”, “Now”,…
The Power of “Exposed” Keyword: Adding this little keyword in my headline increased my CTR by 150%. The keyword “Exposed” is a very showy word. I tried this keyword when I am promoting a product review so I add something like this: Product name review Exposed or Product Name Exposed. You can use it in many different ways…
Include Targeted Keywords In Your Ad: When you create an ad group, the best practice is to use one or two keywords which are similar so you can add those keywords in your headline and description. Adding the targeted keywords in your ad is one of the most important things you need to do. I always add something like this: “Targetted Keyword” + Powerfull keyword (which some are mentioned above, as free, exposed…).
Sell The Benefits: This is another “old” or “classic tip” that most of the e-books recommends, adding benefits and telling the user why your ad is better than your competitors. Here are 3 examples so you can understand better about the benefits which is important:
Example #1:
This is a good example of Weight loss, the benefits are “Lose 15 lbs in 3 weeks” and as mentioned before the advertiser also add time “Quick”. Also remember the #5 tip? “Claim unbelievable stuff!” You can make better adding “40 lbs in 3 weeks”.
Example #2:
Here the benefit is: “Absorb 28% of fat…” That is in the same niche as the first example but different benefit. So if you are searching for weight loss which benefit is the best?
Example #3:
From a different niche, check that the benefit is in the second description, and the first description give the features of the product: “Free 3 months hosting, No setup fee” that I can call it a good benefit for those that are searching for a webhosting solution. Check also that they used the powerfull keyword “Free”.
Remove Common Words: Remove common words, such as “a, an, in, on, it, of”, etc. Remove every word that does not absolutely need to be in the ad. Make every word count.
Try to stay away from freebies hunters: I mentioned above that is good to have the keyword “Free” but when your product does not offer anything for free. Try to put away the users that wants free stuffs adding the price of the product. You will receive a lower CTR but we are here to make a sale and not just traffic.
Call-to-Action Phrases: This is important also depends on which niche you are, that’s why testing is the best thing you can do. Some of the call-to-action phrases: Buy Today (again adding time) – Save 50% – Download Free Trial Now (adding 3 powerfull keywords: download, free and now) – Sale Ends Tomorrow (adding time) – Subscribe – Read – Download Now – Sale Ends Tomorrow . You can see that every step can be mixed with all the tips mentioned above.
The Power of “How to” keyword: The keyword: “How to” is another powerfull keyword, in my researchers have shown that using this little keyword can increase your CTR.
Including your company name in the headline (bad advice): The idea behind this is that you are repeating your company name in the headline as well as the URL. These ads have nearly zero clickthrough unless you are a well-known brand name (such as Target, Orbitz, Expedia, and so on).
Price in case is competitive: If the product that you are advertising is highly competitive in words of price. Add the price in the description of your ad. Sometimes, it works adding the price in the headline after the main keyword that you are bidding.
Research your niche advertisers: Another general tip or kind of research to know which ads works. Go to google and put the keyword that you want to advertise. Check who are at the top and see how they wrote their ads save it and after 2 hours or 1 day, check again and see who are at the top again, if there is any new advertiser save it do this for 1-2-3-4 weeks as many as you want (if it is longer, will be better) and if you see that there are ads at the top from day 1 you will conclude that those ads are the most usefull ads and the advertiser is really getting results from them. Take a look at the ad and see what are the “key” points that make this ad a good quality ad, make your ads based on the “key” points of your research (in your market). Clear your cookies and temporarly files every time you want to refresh and do the research.
Friendly Competition: If you have a friend, family member, employee.. that is interested in the product you are promoting or a friend that really knows about the product and he search about it. Ask them to write an ad for you and test them. You can possible see that ad looks terrible but test it and you can see the results.
Endorsements and Testimonials: These are a powerful form of persuasion. If your product has been written up in a name-brand magazine such as InfoWorld try including that information in your ad: Ranked #1 in Security by InfoWorldâ. This is a very powerful technique for increasing ad clickthrough rates.
Super-Phrases to use for adwords ad-copy headlines!
Astonishing, Instant, Discover, Breakthrough, Critical, No-holds-barred, Unique, Urgent, Unbeatable, Innovative, Incredible, Enhanced, Electrifying, Guaranteed, High-Voltage, Phenomenal, Revealed, Revolutionary, Secrets, Time-Sensitive, Trailblazing, Ingenious, Pioneering, Proven Techniques, Step-By-Step, Unforgettable, In-Depth, Invaluable, Irresistible, Powerful, Shocking, Spectacular, Unlimited, How-to, YOU, Super, Tactics, First, Booming, Amazingly, Appetizing, free, cheap, sale, special offer, time limited offer, tricks, tips, enhance, fact, learn, at last, free shipping,
Click Thru Rate is one of the determining factors to quality score, and hence the success of your campaign. As you can tell by now, writing the best and most relevant ad copy to achieve such high clicks is key. The most important part of writing a good Google Adwords ad is the headline.
The most important part of your Google Adwords ad copy is the headline. A poor headline can make or break an adwords campaign and leave you way out of pocket. Five times as many people read the headline than they do the description lines and display URL, so unless your headline captures the browser, your adwords ad won’t get clicked on.
The simplest way to write headlines is to include the keyword in the headline every time.
When you know every adwords tips and how adwords works you may ask “How the hell I can write a successful ads that clicks and make a sale”. That is one of the most important factors in Adwords, having a good headline that clicks and the most difficult one (for me at least!). Testing and researching over the net I have found many good tips that most affiliate marketers will not reveal.
Use questions that arouse curiosity or interest. For instance, you can say Want to make $10,000 in one hour?
You can also offer instructions.. Cure the cold in five simple steps, or How to keep your PC virus clean, would be interesting.
Tell a story. There’s nothing better to spark interest than to appeal to your audience’s sympathy or empathy. Tell them a story like How I made $10,000 in one hour, or I lost 50 pounds in two weeks.
Divulge information. Claim something that only you know, such as The Mystery of Google AdWords. People will notice this, especially if they want to learn more about what you have to offer.
Claim unbelievable stuff! People will be intrigued with Make $10,000 in one hour or Keep thin without exercise. You can make it as absurd and unbelievable as possible, and people will surely notice!
Create (and maintain) trust. The web is all about trust these days. Recommended by the Queen, would be good.
Compare People love to go for what’s better. You can say cheaper than Wal Mart or better than Coke. If you are promoting a product that their competition is a big well known company compare it in your ad. For example you are selling a book from a bookstore that is not well-known in the market compare it saying something like this: Amazon vs X name, and say in a few words the one key comparison why x-name is better than amazon
The Three Dots: Mindvalley Labs found this and was the first to publish it. They made a comparison about adding three dots in the final phrase of each ad, and it worked very well. Why it worked so well this method? it naturally tells people that there is more information waiting behind the add.
Tiny changes: Small changes can make a huge impact in CTR. Even a word can make your ads to boost in CTR. Again, Mindvalley Labs found this they had the word “Changes” into their ads and they changed to the word “Change” and that tiny change alone resulted in a 180% increase in the Click-Through-Rate.
Mindvalley folks explained why “Change” and “Changes” can cause such a big conversion difference:
The word “changes” insinuates AUTOMATIC change. The word “change” implies the act of doing something yourself. For example, if you were advertising a tool for cleaning for your dog:
“Dog-Clean-O-Matic Washes Your Dog Spotless”
Makes the reader see the machine as an automatic tool. Toss your dog into it and voila – the animal’s now spotless. You don’t have to do any dirty work.
On the other hand:
“Dog-Clean-O-Matic: Wash Your Dog Spotless”
Makes it seem like the machine requires YOU to do manual labor. Perhaps it nothing more than a fancy new kind of fur brush.
This distinction is important depending on the product you’re selling. In the ad above, we’re selling a relaxation CD: perhaps this is why the word “Change” relates better to the audience. They want to be in control when they go through this relaxation process. The word “changes” perhaps implies something where the participant losed control – as in hypnosis. It could be intimidating.
For other ads – in the case of software for example – I have seen the word “changes” work better. This could be because, for software, we want stuff that does the work for us automatically.So try testing both phrases on your ad.
The Power of The “Secret” Keyword: One of the power headlines keywords is the word : Secrets and this resulted a huge boost in CTR +200%!
“You Need To” a powefull keyword: Another powerfull keyword is “You Need To” it usually makes people clicks less (people don’t like to be ordered) but the convertion is higher because you are visitors what to do. If they want to do it they will click on your ad.
Keywords in Different orders: If you have an ad group X and a keyword Y will not always work if you use the headline for the keyword Y. Using other extra keywords in the title will work much better. This testing will show you that the keyword Y is “Meditation Music” and mindsvalley used in the title as well but adding extra keywords in the title “Music for meditation” worked much better and if you analyse it is the same keyword but in diffirent order.
Capitalization: This is one of the most important tip and the easiest one. Capitalize every keyword in your ad but do not capitalize the words: “in”, “and”, “on”, and those 2 words like “up”, etc… This small but powerfull tip can boost your CTR for 80%.
Repetitive keywords: Repeating words in your ads can decrease your CTR and Conversion. In this example (taken from Mindsvalley “again”) shows that they repeated two keywords in the same ad, one in the title and one in the description “Start to”. Then they changed the title from “Start to” to “Learn to”. This tiny change boosted their CTR to +36%. Learn from this that with Google adwords there is no limit to optimize your ad even tiny changes.
Think as a Google searcher: Think as one of the visitors that want to search for the keyword that you are advertising. If you are advertising the keyword “Fat loss”, what you are willing to find? I assume that something “How to loss fat”, so the user wants to learn how they can loss fat. Add in your ads “Learn How…” depends in what kind of services, product or site you are promoting. Keep splitting ads and testing to see which ad will work for you.
The Keyword: Free: The free keyword is one of the most powefull keywords that you can add in your ads if it works with what you are advertising. If you are advertising a product, service or site that give you something free is a MUST to add it on the ad, your CTR will boost up for sure. This is an example from MindValleyLabs:
Stay away from “Buy” in headlines: Many adwords advertisers believes in this, putting away the word “Buy” in the headlines. It seems that users automatically put an X in your ad when they see the keyword “buy”. In this case is good to add instead of buy, just the company name, product name or service name. For example, if you want to promote a fat loss product which is called XYZ, it will be good to just add XYZ as your headline and in the description line add the scary word “buy”.
Feel the power of “Download” keyword: Anyone tested the Download keyword in your description or headline? This is a powerfull keyword to add in your ads. Why? The keyword download might give people the idea that they can get something very fast
Time, Time & Time: You know that most search engine users are lazy and they want to find what they want as soon as possible. So let’s play with keywords that means times: “Today”, “Now”,…
The Power of “Exposed” Keyword: Adding this little keyword in my headline increased my CTR by 150%. The keyword “Exposed” is a very showy word. I tried this keyword when I am promoting a product review so I add something like this: Product name review Exposed or Product Name Exposed. You can use it in many different ways…
Include Targeted Keywords In Your Ad: When you create an ad group, the best practice is to use one or two keywords which are similar so you can add those keywords in your headline and description. Adding the targeted keywords in your ad is one of the most important things you need to do. I always add something like this: “Targetted Keyword” + Powerfull keyword (which some are mentioned above, as free, exposed…).
Sell The Benefits: This is another “old” or “classic tip” that most of the e-books recommends, adding benefits and telling the user why your ad is better than your competitors. Here are 3 examples so you can understand better about the benefits which is important:
Example #1:
This is a good example of Weight loss, the benefits are “Lose 15 lbs in 3 weeks” and as mentioned before the advertiser also add time “Quick”. Also remember the #5 tip? “Claim unbelievable stuff!” You can make better adding “40 lbs in 3 weeks”.
Example #2:
Here the benefit is: “Absorb 28% of fat…” That is in the same niche as the first example but different benefit. So if you are searching for weight loss which benefit is the best?
Example #3:
From a different niche, check that the benefit is in the second description, and the first description give the features of the product: “Free 3 months hosting, No setup fee” that I can call it a good benefit for those that are searching for a webhosting solution. Check also that they used the powerfull keyword “Free”.
Remove Common Words: Remove common words, such as “a, an, in, on, it, of”, etc. Remove every word that does not absolutely need to be in the ad. Make every word count.
Try to stay away from freebies hunters: I mentioned above that is good to have the keyword “Free” but when your product does not offer anything for free. Try to put away the users that wants free stuffs adding the price of the product. You will receive a lower CTR but we are here to make a sale and not just traffic.
Call-to-Action Phrases: This is important also depends on which niche you are, that’s why testing is the best thing you can do. Some of the call-to-action phrases: Buy Today (again adding time) – Save 50% – Download Free Trial Now (adding 3 powerfull keywords: download, free and now) – Sale Ends Tomorrow (adding time) – Subscribe – Read – Download Now – Sale Ends Tomorrow . You can see that every step can be mixed with all the tips mentioned above.
The Power of “How to” keyword: The keyword: “How to” is another powerfull keyword, in my researchers have shown that using this little keyword can increase your CTR.
Including your company name in the headline (bad advice): The idea behind this is that you are repeating your company name in the headline as well as the URL. These ads have nearly zero clickthrough unless you are a well-known brand name (such as Target, Orbitz, Expedia, and so on).
Price in case is competitive: If the product that you are advertising is highly competitive in words of price. Add the price in the description of your ad. Sometimes, it works adding the price in the headline after the main keyword that you are bidding.
Research your niche advertisers: Another general tip or kind of research to know which ads works. Go to google and put the keyword that you want to advertise. Check who are at the top and see how they wrote their ads save it and after 2 hours or 1 day, check again and see who are at the top again, if there is any new advertiser save it do this for 1-2-3-4 weeks as many as you want (if it is longer, will be better) and if you see that there are ads at the top from day 1 you will conclude that those ads are the most usefull ads and the advertiser is really getting results from them. Take a look at the ad and see what are the “key” points that make this ad a good quality ad, make your ads based on the “key” points of your research (in your market). Clear your cookies and temporarly files every time you want to refresh and do the research.
Friendly Competition: If you have a friend, family member, employee.. that is interested in the product you are promoting or a friend that really knows about the product and he search about it. Ask them to write an ad for you and test them. You can possible see that ad looks terrible but test it and you can see the results.
Endorsements and Testimonials: These are a powerful form of persuasion. If your product has been written up in a name-brand magazine such as InfoWorld try including that information in your ad: Ranked #1 in Security by InfoWorldâ. This is a very powerful technique for increasing ad clickthrough rates.
Super-Phrases to use for adwords ad-copy headlines!
Astonishing, Instant, Discover, Breakthrough, Critical, No-holds-barred, Unique, Urgent, Unbeatable, Innovative, Incredible, Enhanced, Electrifying, Guaranteed, High-Voltage, Phenomenal, Revealed, Revolutionary, Secrets, Time-Sensitive, Trailblazing, Ingenious, Pioneering, Proven Techniques, Step-By-Step, Unforgettable, In-Depth, Invaluable, Irresistible, Powerful, Shocking, Spectacular, Unlimited, How-to, YOU, Super, Tactics, First, Booming, Amazingly, Appetizing, free, cheap, sale, special offer, time limited offer, tricks, tips, enhance, fact, learn, at last, free shipping,
Sunday, June 20, 2010
49 Tips on Google Adwords
Those tips on adwords have been re-collected from forums/sites, as well as my own experience. If you have new ones, please share it with us and let’s create the best adwords tips on the net without buying those useless e-books.
Note/Advice: Some people will not agree with those tips, If you are one of them please comment and say which tips you don’t agree and why.
1. I would say, be very patient and be ready to lose money before making some. The point is, even with the best techniques, you need to lose some to win some.
2. Ignore what everyone else is doing – bid the amount that makes YOU the most money, whether that puts you 1st, 5th or 55th
3. Narrowly focused ad groups, each one a variation of a single keyword.
4. Go for misspelled keywords and keywords written as one (i.e cheaphotels instead of cheap hotels). There is lots of traffic for these type of keywords at only a fraction of the cost.
5. Pick keywords that don’t cost more than they are making you! Track your clicks very carefully and ad groups as much as possible.
6. Always track keyword conversion, and split-test both your ads and your landing pages.
7. Highly specific long tail keywords, divided into very tightly focused ad groups.
8. Extreme relevance between keywords, ad text and landing page content (This works if you are an affiliate marketer).
9. High quality landing page with loads of content, bearing links to and from sites which rank high for the keywords in organic search results.
10. Continual experimentation for optimization – even if killer results are already being observed.
11. Use dynamic ads: they help increase the CTR considerably, thereby bringing down the cost.
12. Trial and error to see what makes most money for price paid is always best.
13. I would say to make sure you get inside your customers heads.
for example…
There are a few types of visitors…
The browser. The buyer. The person who wants freebies.
The browser is interested in something to do with a particular product, but isn’t sure if they want to buy. The buyer is searching on laser targeted keywords, usually keywords with the brand name in them and the guy who wants freebies is the kind of jerk that looks for anything that is free (or in marketing, buy through his own affiliate link).
Let’s take the example ‘Dog Training Guides’. Many affiliate marketers bid on that term, but I don’t. Why? Because visitors are likely to type that into a search engine, come to a review site with the ClickBank product ‘Sit Stay Fetch’ ranked #1. Afterwards, the visitor types in ‘Sit Stay Fetch’ into Google and ends up purchasing from one of the sites that appears for that term. So basically, the site advertising on the keyword ‘Dog Training Guides’ has practically given a sale to the guy promoting ‘Sit Stay Fetch’ under the term ‘Sit Stay Fetch’.
Here’s a few things you should know…
IF YOU ARE NOT MAKING SALES
If you are not making any sales at all then you do not have a crowd that is hungry enough. OR, you are presenting a hungry crowd the wrong product. So in the end they don’t buy from you.
IF YOU ARE MAKING SALES BUT NOT PROFIT
If you are making sales but not profit then the vendor’s product is decent but they may not be giving you enough commission. OR, you simply just need to delete your non converting keywords.
IF YOU ARE MAKING INCONSISTENT SALES
This is very common with Marketing products where the market is fickle. You need to find out where your traffic is coming from.
14. The one thing I haven’t seen mentioned yet (and maybe because I am in a local service industry, not a national retail site) is use lots of negative keywords to keep away non-customers and drive up your CTR.
I’m a psychotherapist, and use negative keywords like “free” “book” “association” to keep people who wouldn’t be interested in my ad, or who I wouldn’t want to spend my $2-$3 coming to my site.
15. Although it is somewhat tedious, I find that having very specific campaigns is more effective than blanket adgroups.
For example, if you have following products:
a) Product X Basic
b) Product X Small Business
c) Product X Enterprise
I would have 4 ad campaigns. One for blanketing searches on variation of “Product X”. Other 3 groups would be tailored to the specific products. The ad text should be tailored to fit the campaign so it reinforces what people are searching. Helps grab their attention when there are so many other competition ads.
16. I suggest go for a key phrase thats a moderate one. Like if there are 10000 searches for the main key phrase. You go for the one that has abt 3000 searches.. and you’ll get real traffic with lesser investment
17. dynamic keyword insertion:
I have a few ads running with it still, seems to be fine for me. Remember that if the keyword phrase is to long it’s going to use the default phase you use when creating the keyword insertion.
Also, if you’ve set up the position preference for the top 1-3 placements you may not be seeing the ad because it’s still needs approval.
When running with the position preference The best the ad can do is show on the right hand side. If the keyword phase in question shows AdWords ads in the blue above the search results those placements will be considered 1,2, and 3, leaving the right hand side to start at 4. This means your ad will never show until it’s be approved because you have it set to only show if it’s in the top 3 and google won’t let the ad show in that keyword phases top 3.
Not sure if that helps any.
18. Best Way to Lower CPC? The easiest ways:
With adwords, is simple.You must bid high on the beginning, like for the top or second position.
This way you will get more clicks (although more expensive) but you will rank better on relevancy, and quality score.
After just a few days you will check that the minimum bid needed for a specific keyword had been lowered. For instance, let’s say you advertise on the keyword youtube. You would want to deactivate content network ads this time…
Now let’s say that the youtube keyword minimum bid is 1 dollar. The guy on the top position is biding about $ 1.5
You shall bid 1.55 (leave some cents margin) for let’s say, 3 or 4 days. At the end of day 3-4 you will see that the minimum bid have dropped to 80 cents. You can now lower your bid to 1.45 and still be in the top position due to quality score.
the whole process repeats itself until the minimum bid for that keyword reaches 20 cents. This way, you can bid 35 cents for that keyword, and still be on the top position, while the other guy is biding 1.50 and in the second place.
I’ve tested this way several times, with all keywords. Working the quality score is very important. Use smaller groups of keywords and ads and monitor closely. Remove keywords and put them into different ad groups if they do not perform to get the good ad groups well positioned. Bid higher initially to get a ‘forced higher CTR%’. Then gradually lower your bids and hope that your position maintains. But this might take weeks to slowly lower it till you’re paying real low bids & still getting good positions.
One trick is really to tweak your Adcopy to make it look interesting. There have been documented examples, that between a well-written ad vs a unique ad, usually the unique ad wins. (not across all markets!)
Eg:
Auto Loan Quotes
Get Your Auto Loan Quotes Here.
Fast. Free. Instant Approval.
www.yourdomain.com
v.s.
Auto Loan Quotes
.
Free Quotes – Get Them Here.
www.yourdomain.com
This is just an example of how ‘white space’ can be used, and I have seen people with CTR in excess of 10% for ads like this. But if you’re focusing on conversions rather then CTR%, then forget this altogether as they are probably not pre-qualified traffic.
Improving CTR & Conversions
19.) Use the core/parent adgroup keyword three times in the ad text and display URL.
20.) Bid on all three match types for every keyword/keyphrase: broad, phrase, and exact. (This will get you more clicks for your money).
21.) Bid higher on terms that have been converting well.
22.) If continual ad performance improvement is one of your goals, on campaign settings, change Ad Serving to “Rotate: Show ads more evenly” from the default “Optimize: Show better performing ads more often. Then A/B split test your ads.
23.) Sign up for LowerYourBidPrice’s Winner Alert’s, letting you know which ad wins statistically without having to manually check every adgroup all day long.
24.) Use a relevant call to action in your ads (Avoid clichés such as “Click here.” which won’t be approved by Google anyway).
25.) Here are 13 calls to action verbiage ideas: Browse our store, Submit Your RFP (RFI), See our client list, Free Shipping, Order today, ship tonight. Download our brochure, Free Consultation, Free demo, Free quote, Free Report, Start now, Call 24/7.
26.) Make ad display URLs more relevant by adding a slash /keyword. Example Keyword: Red Shoes. www.companyname/redshoes.
27.) Make separate ad groups for keyword plurals for better bolding (note YSM bolds plurals in ads, Google does not, unless keyword is plural and keyword in ad is plural).
28.) Use prices in ads if:
-Lower than competition
-Competitors are not using prices.
-You are selling highly competitive commodity item in which people shop on price.
*May reduce CTR, but improve conversion rate by weeding out a certain percentage of non-buyers.
29.) Use specifics in ads: Percentages, names, product specs. Examples: Raise profits by 25%. Cut margins by 20%. Decrease skin oil by 10%.
30.) Use quotes & third party endorsements when factual and can be verified by Google. Ebert “Best movie 2007.” Oprah “My top five book.”
31.) From time to time use hyphens instead of commas as a slightly less common, and possibly more attention grabbing grammar tool.
32.) Use the words New and Free when true and appropriate.
Account Efficiency Techniques and Time Savers
33.) Download the AdWords Editor to copy and paste campaigns and adgroups easily (a must before doing #16)
34.) Separate & duplicate all campaigns and use one for Google + search partners and the other for the content network so you can see how each is doing from quick bird’s eye view without having to drill into each campaign.
35.) Clean out account of keywords with zero impressions after two months.
36.) Cross channel all other ppc platforms in order to see clicks and conversions from Yahoo!, MSN, Ask, Miva, Business.com, etc, all from your AdWords interface.
37.) Download account info into a csv using the AdWords Editor and send it to Yahoo! and MSN so they can bulk upload it. Do this after thoroughly optimizing the account, so your other ppc platforms mirror the same structure and keywords as your efficient AdWords account.
**Yahoo! is doing this for free just for a limited time because of the platform change. They will accept bulk uploads regularly if you spend 6k a month for three months. MSN only offers you one chance to do this. Give them a call and get the details.
Optimizing & Cutting Untargeted/Wasted Clicks
38.) Incorporate account wide and adgroup negative keywords by studying raw query strings which trigger your ads and eliminating non-relevant terms.
Increase Targeted Local Traffic
39.) For every campaign, duplicate it. Have one campaign that is manually geo-targeted for generic key terms/phrases and the other campaign for the same terms but with city and/or state added to the beginning or end. Example, one campaign has an adgroup for the key phrase Contract lawyer dallas which shows to all of US, another campaign adgroup had the generic key term contract lawyer, but will only show in Dallas.
40.) On the city/state stemmed keyword campaigns and adroups, use the state or city terms in the ad description text for more bolding and higher CTR.
Decreasing Cost Per Click
41.) If working with a larger budget, and you plan on constantly improving your ads, bid high to be #1 long enough to allow quality score to continually decrease your cpc.
42.) Enable content bids and bid separately for the content network. Typically start ½ – 2/3 lower and bid higher according to conversion rate.
Ad Space Savers
43.) Instead of using the word “and” use an ampersand (&). It takes up two less characters and gives you more room to sell.
44.) Use certain understood and acceptable abbreviations to save space.
Using AdWords As Market Research for SEO
45.) In the Reports tab, run a keyword report and look at high search impressions (not content targeting) on exact matches. Check for organic competition under those, and put your organic SEO efforts toward those keywords for even more clicks and conversions.
46.) Use a savvy analytics supplement to GA and study the raw query strings (GA does not show without special scripts and/or filters) that triggered your Google ads. Use the relevant buffering terms for added SEO as well as specific and relevant keywords for new ads.
47.) Keep ads running even when high on organic search for specific keywords. Having an organic listing and an ad has a 1 + 1 = 3 reinforcing each other and increasing the likelihood at least one will be clicked.
Miscellaneous No Brainers
48.) Set up at least two conversion codes. This is a no brainier and belongs on a beginner’s list. If you don’t do this, you are flying blind or basing results on the “gut feeling” email leads and incoming calls are coming from ads and web presence.
49.) Apply for pay-per-action and use it. Bid according to how much you are currently paying for leads. If you don’t know that, run a keyword report and find out how much you have to spend before a click turns into a lead. This should be simple if you have your conversion codes set up.
Note/Advice: Some people will not agree with those tips, If you are one of them please comment and say which tips you don’t agree and why.
1. I would say, be very patient and be ready to lose money before making some. The point is, even with the best techniques, you need to lose some to win some.
2. Ignore what everyone else is doing – bid the amount that makes YOU the most money, whether that puts you 1st, 5th or 55th
3. Narrowly focused ad groups, each one a variation of a single keyword.
4. Go for misspelled keywords and keywords written as one (i.e cheaphotels instead of cheap hotels). There is lots of traffic for these type of keywords at only a fraction of the cost.
5. Pick keywords that don’t cost more than they are making you! Track your clicks very carefully and ad groups as much as possible.
6. Always track keyword conversion, and split-test both your ads and your landing pages.
7. Highly specific long tail keywords, divided into very tightly focused ad groups.
8. Extreme relevance between keywords, ad text and landing page content (This works if you are an affiliate marketer).
9. High quality landing page with loads of content, bearing links to and from sites which rank high for the keywords in organic search results.
10. Continual experimentation for optimization – even if killer results are already being observed.
11. Use dynamic ads: they help increase the CTR considerably, thereby bringing down the cost.
12. Trial and error to see what makes most money for price paid is always best.
13. I would say to make sure you get inside your customers heads.
for example…
There are a few types of visitors…
The browser. The buyer. The person who wants freebies.
The browser is interested in something to do with a particular product, but isn’t sure if they want to buy. The buyer is searching on laser targeted keywords, usually keywords with the brand name in them and the guy who wants freebies is the kind of jerk that looks for anything that is free (or in marketing, buy through his own affiliate link).
Let’s take the example ‘Dog Training Guides’. Many affiliate marketers bid on that term, but I don’t. Why? Because visitors are likely to type that into a search engine, come to a review site with the ClickBank product ‘Sit Stay Fetch’ ranked #1. Afterwards, the visitor types in ‘Sit Stay Fetch’ into Google and ends up purchasing from one of the sites that appears for that term. So basically, the site advertising on the keyword ‘Dog Training Guides’ has practically given a sale to the guy promoting ‘Sit Stay Fetch’ under the term ‘Sit Stay Fetch’.
Here’s a few things you should know…
IF YOU ARE NOT MAKING SALES
If you are not making any sales at all then you do not have a crowd that is hungry enough. OR, you are presenting a hungry crowd the wrong product. So in the end they don’t buy from you.
IF YOU ARE MAKING SALES BUT NOT PROFIT
If you are making sales but not profit then the vendor’s product is decent but they may not be giving you enough commission. OR, you simply just need to delete your non converting keywords.
IF YOU ARE MAKING INCONSISTENT SALES
This is very common with Marketing products where the market is fickle. You need to find out where your traffic is coming from.
14. The one thing I haven’t seen mentioned yet (and maybe because I am in a local service industry, not a national retail site) is use lots of negative keywords to keep away non-customers and drive up your CTR.
I’m a psychotherapist, and use negative keywords like “free” “book” “association” to keep people who wouldn’t be interested in my ad, or who I wouldn’t want to spend my $2-$3 coming to my site.
15. Although it is somewhat tedious, I find that having very specific campaigns is more effective than blanket adgroups.
For example, if you have following products:
a) Product X Basic
b) Product X Small Business
c) Product X Enterprise
I would have 4 ad campaigns. One for blanketing searches on variation of “Product X”. Other 3 groups would be tailored to the specific products. The ad text should be tailored to fit the campaign so it reinforces what people are searching. Helps grab their attention when there are so many other competition ads.
16. I suggest go for a key phrase thats a moderate one. Like if there are 10000 searches for the main key phrase. You go for the one that has abt 3000 searches.. and you’ll get real traffic with lesser investment
17. dynamic keyword insertion:
I have a few ads running with it still, seems to be fine for me. Remember that if the keyword phrase is to long it’s going to use the default phase you use when creating the keyword insertion.
Also, if you’ve set up the position preference for the top 1-3 placements you may not be seeing the ad because it’s still needs approval.
When running with the position preference The best the ad can do is show on the right hand side. If the keyword phase in question shows AdWords ads in the blue above the search results those placements will be considered 1,2, and 3, leaving the right hand side to start at 4. This means your ad will never show until it’s be approved because you have it set to only show if it’s in the top 3 and google won’t let the ad show in that keyword phases top 3.
Not sure if that helps any.
18. Best Way to Lower CPC? The easiest ways:
With adwords, is simple.You must bid high on the beginning, like for the top or second position.
This way you will get more clicks (although more expensive) but you will rank better on relevancy, and quality score.
After just a few days you will check that the minimum bid needed for a specific keyword had been lowered. For instance, let’s say you advertise on the keyword youtube. You would want to deactivate content network ads this time…
Now let’s say that the youtube keyword minimum bid is 1 dollar. The guy on the top position is biding about $ 1.5
You shall bid 1.55 (leave some cents margin) for let’s say, 3 or 4 days. At the end of day 3-4 you will see that the minimum bid have dropped to 80 cents. You can now lower your bid to 1.45 and still be in the top position due to quality score.
the whole process repeats itself until the minimum bid for that keyword reaches 20 cents. This way, you can bid 35 cents for that keyword, and still be on the top position, while the other guy is biding 1.50 and in the second place.
I’ve tested this way several times, with all keywords. Working the quality score is very important. Use smaller groups of keywords and ads and monitor closely. Remove keywords and put them into different ad groups if they do not perform to get the good ad groups well positioned. Bid higher initially to get a ‘forced higher CTR%’. Then gradually lower your bids and hope that your position maintains. But this might take weeks to slowly lower it till you’re paying real low bids & still getting good positions.
One trick is really to tweak your Adcopy to make it look interesting. There have been documented examples, that between a well-written ad vs a unique ad, usually the unique ad wins. (not across all markets!)
Eg:
Auto Loan Quotes
Get Your Auto Loan Quotes Here.
Fast. Free. Instant Approval.
www.yourdomain.com
v.s.
Auto Loan Quotes
.
Free Quotes – Get Them Here.
www.yourdomain.com
This is just an example of how ‘white space’ can be used, and I have seen people with CTR in excess of 10% for ads like this. But if you’re focusing on conversions rather then CTR%, then forget this altogether as they are probably not pre-qualified traffic.
Improving CTR & Conversions
19.) Use the core/parent adgroup keyword three times in the ad text and display URL.
20.) Bid on all three match types for every keyword/keyphrase: broad, phrase, and exact. (This will get you more clicks for your money).
21.) Bid higher on terms that have been converting well.
22.) If continual ad performance improvement is one of your goals, on campaign settings, change Ad Serving to “Rotate: Show ads more evenly” from the default “Optimize: Show better performing ads more often. Then A/B split test your ads.
23.) Sign up for LowerYourBidPrice’s Winner Alert’s, letting you know which ad wins statistically without having to manually check every adgroup all day long.
24.) Use a relevant call to action in your ads (Avoid clichés such as “Click here.” which won’t be approved by Google anyway).
25.) Here are 13 calls to action verbiage ideas: Browse our store, Submit Your RFP (RFI), See our client list, Free Shipping, Order today, ship tonight. Download our brochure, Free Consultation, Free demo, Free quote, Free Report, Start now, Call 24/7.
26.) Make ad display URLs more relevant by adding a slash /keyword. Example Keyword: Red Shoes. www.companyname/redshoes.
27.) Make separate ad groups for keyword plurals for better bolding (note YSM bolds plurals in ads, Google does not, unless keyword is plural and keyword in ad is plural).
28.) Use prices in ads if:
-Lower than competition
-Competitors are not using prices.
-You are selling highly competitive commodity item in which people shop on price.
*May reduce CTR, but improve conversion rate by weeding out a certain percentage of non-buyers.
29.) Use specifics in ads: Percentages, names, product specs. Examples: Raise profits by 25%. Cut margins by 20%. Decrease skin oil by 10%.
30.) Use quotes & third party endorsements when factual and can be verified by Google. Ebert “Best movie 2007.” Oprah “My top five book.”
31.) From time to time use hyphens instead of commas as a slightly less common, and possibly more attention grabbing grammar tool.
32.) Use the words New and Free when true and appropriate.
Account Efficiency Techniques and Time Savers
33.) Download the AdWords Editor to copy and paste campaigns and adgroups easily (a must before doing #16)
34.) Separate & duplicate all campaigns and use one for Google + search partners and the other for the content network so you can see how each is doing from quick bird’s eye view without having to drill into each campaign.
35.) Clean out account of keywords with zero impressions after two months.
36.) Cross channel all other ppc platforms in order to see clicks and conversions from Yahoo!, MSN, Ask, Miva, Business.com, etc, all from your AdWords interface.
37.) Download account info into a csv using the AdWords Editor and send it to Yahoo! and MSN so they can bulk upload it. Do this after thoroughly optimizing the account, so your other ppc platforms mirror the same structure and keywords as your efficient AdWords account.
**Yahoo! is doing this for free just for a limited time because of the platform change. They will accept bulk uploads regularly if you spend 6k a month for three months. MSN only offers you one chance to do this. Give them a call and get the details.
Optimizing & Cutting Untargeted/Wasted Clicks
38.) Incorporate account wide and adgroup negative keywords by studying raw query strings which trigger your ads and eliminating non-relevant terms.
Increase Targeted Local Traffic
39.) For every campaign, duplicate it. Have one campaign that is manually geo-targeted for generic key terms/phrases and the other campaign for the same terms but with city and/or state added to the beginning or end. Example, one campaign has an adgroup for the key phrase Contract lawyer dallas which shows to all of US, another campaign adgroup had the generic key term contract lawyer, but will only show in Dallas.
40.) On the city/state stemmed keyword campaigns and adroups, use the state or city terms in the ad description text for more bolding and higher CTR.
Decreasing Cost Per Click
41.) If working with a larger budget, and you plan on constantly improving your ads, bid high to be #1 long enough to allow quality score to continually decrease your cpc.
42.) Enable content bids and bid separately for the content network. Typically start ½ – 2/3 lower and bid higher according to conversion rate.
Ad Space Savers
43.) Instead of using the word “and” use an ampersand (&). It takes up two less characters and gives you more room to sell.
44.) Use certain understood and acceptable abbreviations to save space.
Using AdWords As Market Research for SEO
45.) In the Reports tab, run a keyword report and look at high search impressions (not content targeting) on exact matches. Check for organic competition under those, and put your organic SEO efforts toward those keywords for even more clicks and conversions.
46.) Use a savvy analytics supplement to GA and study the raw query strings (GA does not show without special scripts and/or filters) that triggered your Google ads. Use the relevant buffering terms for added SEO as well as specific and relevant keywords for new ads.
47.) Keep ads running even when high on organic search for specific keywords. Having an organic listing and an ad has a 1 + 1 = 3 reinforcing each other and increasing the likelihood at least one will be clicked.
Miscellaneous No Brainers
48.) Set up at least two conversion codes. This is a no brainier and belongs on a beginner’s list. If you don’t do this, you are flying blind or basing results on the “gut feeling” email leads and incoming calls are coming from ads and web presence.
49.) Apply for pay-per-action and use it. Bid according to how much you are currently paying for leads. If you don’t know that, run a keyword report and find out how much you have to spend before a click turns into a lead. This should be simple if you have your conversion codes set up.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
How To Waste Money On Google AdWords: Bid High For Top Spot
Google’s AdWords system continues to be a popular vehicle for small businesses to advertise their offering using targeted keywords. On the off-chance that you are unfamiliar with AdWords, here it is in a nut-shell: You “bid” a certain price for certain search phrases and based on that price, your advertisement shows up in the paid search area on Google when users type in that search phrase The paid search area is usually along the top area of the page and a list of ads along the right. For many businesses, picking the right search phrases to target can drive well qualified traffic to their website.
AdWords uses an auctioning process to figure out which ads show up for certain key phrases. Based on the level of competition for that phrase, and your bid amount, Google determines at what position your ad should show up. There are other factors that go into the algorithm as well, such as how “successful” your ad has been at getting users to “click through”. This should not be surprising as Google has an incentive to reward ads that have a higher click-through as these are the ads that make them more money.
There’s a certain psychology that goes into the bidding process when using AdWords. I’ve seen many people think along these lines (and have done it myself in the past):
Step 1: Find an attractive search phrase that is targeted for my business and that will generate great potential leads.
Step 2: Determine the price that I will need to pay to get into the top spot on Google for that search phrase.
Step 3: Place a bid that will likely increase the chances of getting into the top slot (or pretty close).
The rationale here is simple: If the search phrase is highly relevant, and you’re willing to pay a price that is far below the “value” that you’re going to get, might as well bid high to get the top spot to drive as much traffic as possible. The theory is that the #1 spot in the paid listing area will drive much more traffic than the other ones. Though it is easy to believe this (because this is definitely the case in the natural search area, it is not necessarily the case for the paid search area.
Jason Miller wrote an article recently titled “Bidding On Top Ad Spot A Waste Of Money?” in which he cites a recent study involving measuring click-through rates for paid search. This study concludes that “While there is some advantage to the number one and number three slots, all positions in the listings show roughly the same click-through rates.”
If you’re spending any money on AdWords, this should be of significant interest to you. If the click-through rates are about the same, you can get away with bidding less than the amount necessary to get to the top spot. If this weren’t reason enough to bid lower than what is required to get the #1 spot, there’s an even better possible reason.
There is a chance that the actual quality of users that click through for the lower ranked ads might be higher than those that click on the ad that is in the top spot. Why might this be? Well, think about it this way. The user that clicks on the #2 or #3 spot on the paid search area will likely be a bit more determined to find what they are looking for. There is a possibility that these users are more qualified and more likely actually looking for what you have to offer. Granted, this particular argument doesn’t have any evidence to back it up, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
In short, I’d suggesting thinking about how much you are bidding for your paid search campaigns and see if you can get away with lowering your bid (and dropping a couple of spots) and see if that has any measurable impact on your traffic. If you have already tried this, or have an opinion on the matter, please leave a comment. Would love to hear your thoughts.
AdWords uses an auctioning process to figure out which ads show up for certain key phrases. Based on the level of competition for that phrase, and your bid amount, Google determines at what position your ad should show up. There are other factors that go into the algorithm as well, such as how “successful” your ad has been at getting users to “click through”. This should not be surprising as Google has an incentive to reward ads that have a higher click-through as these are the ads that make them more money.
There’s a certain psychology that goes into the bidding process when using AdWords. I’ve seen many people think along these lines (and have done it myself in the past):
Step 1: Find an attractive search phrase that is targeted for my business and that will generate great potential leads.
Step 2: Determine the price that I will need to pay to get into the top spot on Google for that search phrase.
Step 3: Place a bid that will likely increase the chances of getting into the top slot (or pretty close).
The rationale here is simple: If the search phrase is highly relevant, and you’re willing to pay a price that is far below the “value” that you’re going to get, might as well bid high to get the top spot to drive as much traffic as possible. The theory is that the #1 spot in the paid listing area will drive much more traffic than the other ones. Though it is easy to believe this (because this is definitely the case in the natural search area, it is not necessarily the case for the paid search area.
Jason Miller wrote an article recently titled “Bidding On Top Ad Spot A Waste Of Money?” in which he cites a recent study involving measuring click-through rates for paid search. This study concludes that “While there is some advantage to the number one and number three slots, all positions in the listings show roughly the same click-through rates.”
If you’re spending any money on AdWords, this should be of significant interest to you. If the click-through rates are about the same, you can get away with bidding less than the amount necessary to get to the top spot. If this weren’t reason enough to bid lower than what is required to get the #1 spot, there’s an even better possible reason.
There is a chance that the actual quality of users that click through for the lower ranked ads might be higher than those that click on the ad that is in the top spot. Why might this be? Well, think about it this way. The user that clicks on the #2 or #3 spot on the paid search area will likely be a bit more determined to find what they are looking for. There is a possibility that these users are more qualified and more likely actually looking for what you have to offer. Granted, this particular argument doesn’t have any evidence to back it up, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
In short, I’d suggesting thinking about how much you are bidding for your paid search campaigns and see if you can get away with lowering your bid (and dropping a couple of spots) and see if that has any measurable impact on your traffic. If you have already tried this, or have an opinion on the matter, please leave a comment. Would love to hear your thoughts.
31 Killer Writing AdWords Ads Tips
The higher up the search ladder you go, the more potential clicks you will receive since the searcher will see your ad first. This means that you will make money online. This creates an upward spiral which if you can get on the right side of with relevant ad copy from the beginning, you’ll end up paying less per click, and getting more clicks on your ad for the same daily budget.
Click Thru Rate is one of the determining factors to quality score, and hence the success of your campaign. As you can tell by now, writing the best and most relevant ad copy to achieve such high clicks is key. The most important part of writing a good Google Adwords ad is the headline.
The most important part of your Google Adwords ad copy is the headline. A poor headline can make or break an adwords campaign and leave you way out of pocket. Five times as many people read the headline than they do the description lines and display URL, so unless your headline captures the browser, your adwords ad won’t get clicked on.
The simplest way to write headlines is to include the keyword in the headline every time.
When you know every adwords tips and how adwords works you may ask “How the hell I can write a successful ads that clicks and make a sale”. That is one of the most important factors in Adwords, having a good headline that clicks and the most difficult one (for me at least!). Testing and researching over the net I have found many good tips that most affiliate marketers will not reveal.
Use questions that arouse curiosity or interest. For instance, you can say Want to make $10,000 in one hour?
You can also offer instructions.. Cure the cold in five simple steps, or How to keep your PC virus clean, would be interesting.
Tell a story. There’s nothing better to spark interest than to appeal to your audience’s sympathy or empathy. Tell them a story like How I made $10,000 in one hour, or I lost 50 pounds in two weeks.
Divulge information. Claim something that only you know, such as The Mystery of Google AdWords. People will notice this, especially if they want to learn more about what you have to offer.
Claim unbelievable stuff! People will be intrigued with Make $10,000 in one hour or Keep thin without exercise. You can make it as absurd and unbelievable as possible, and people will surely notice!
Create (and maintain) trust. The web is all about trust these days. Recommended by the Queen, would be good.
Compare People love to go for what’s better. You can say cheaper than Wal Mart or better than Coke. If you are promoting a product that their competition is a big well known company compare it in your ad. For example you are selling a book from a bookstore that is not well-known in the market compare it saying something like this: Amazon vs X name, and say in a few words the one key comparison why x-name is better than amazon
The Three Dots: Mindvalley Labs found this and was the first to publish it. They made a comparison about adding three dots in the final phrase of each ad, and it worked very well. Why it worked so well this method? it naturally tells people that there is more information waiting behind the add.
Tiny changes: Small changes can make a huge impact in CTR. Even a word can make your ads to boost in CTR. Again, Mindvalley Labs found this they had the word “Changes” into their ads and they changed to the word “Change” and that tiny change alone resulted in a 180% increase in the Click-Through-Rate.
Mindvalley folks explained why “Change” and “Changes” can cause such a big conversion difference:
The word “changes” insinuates AUTOMATIC change. The word “change” implies the act of doing something yourself. For example, if you were advertising a tool for cleaning for your dog:
“Dog-Clean-O-Matic Washes Your Dog Spotless”
Makes the reader see the machine as an automatic tool. Toss your dog into it and voila – the animal’s now spotless. You don’t have to do any dirty work.
On the other hand:
“Dog-Clean-O-Matic: Wash Your Dog Spotless”
Makes it seem like the machine requires YOU to do manual labor. Perhaps it nothing more than a fancy new kind of fur brush.
This distinction is important depending on the product you’re selling. In the ad above, we’re selling a relaxation CD: perhaps this is why the word “Change” relates better to the audience. They want to be in control when they go through this relaxation process. The word “changes” perhaps implies something where the participant losed control – as in hypnosis. It could be intimidating.
For other ads – in the case of software for example – I have seen the word “changes” work better. This could be because, for software, we want stuff that does the work for us automatically.So try testing both phrases on your ad.
The Power of The “Secret” Keyword: One of the power headlines keywords is the word : Secrets and this resulted a huge boost in CTR +200%!
“You Need To” a powefull keyword: Another powerfull keyword is “You Need To” it usually makes people clicks less (people don’t like to be ordered) but the convertion is higher because you are visitors what to do. If they want to do it they will click on your ad.
Keywords in Different orders: If you have an ad group X and a keyword Y will not always work if you use the headline for the keyword Y. Using other extra keywords in the title will work much better. This testing will show you that the keyword Y is “Meditation Music” and mindsvalley used in the title as well but adding extra keywords in the title “Music for meditation” worked much better and if you analyse it is the same keyword but in diffirent order.
Capitalization: This is one of the most important tip and the easiest one. Capitalize every keyword in your ad but do not capitalize the words: “in”, “and”, “on”, and those 2 words like “up”, etc… This small but powerfull tip can boost your CTR for 80%.
Repetitive keywords: Repeating words in your ads can decrease your CTR and Conversion. In this example (taken from Mindsvalley “again”) shows that they repeated two keywords in the same ad, one in the title and one in the description “Start to”. Then they changed the title from “Start to” to “Learn to”. This tiny change boosted their CTR to +36%. Learn from this that with Google adwords there is no limit to optimize your ad even tiny changes.
Think as a Google searcher: Think as one of the visitors that want to search for the keyword that you are advertising. If you are advertising the keyword “Fat loss”, what you are willing to find? I assume that something “How to loss fat”, so the user wants to learn how they can loss fat. Add in your ads “Learn How…” depends in what kind of services, product or site you are promoting. Keep splitting ads and testing to see which ad will work for you.
The Keyword: Free: The free keyword is one of the most powefull keywords that you can add in your ads if it works with what you are advertising. If you are advertising a product, service or site that give you something free is a MUST to add it on the ad, your CTR will boost up for sure. This is an example from MindValleyLabs:
Stay away from “Buy” in headlines: Many adwords advertisers believes in this, putting away the word “Buy” in the headlines. It seems that users automatically put an X in your ad when they see the keyword “buy”. In this case is good to add instead of buy, just the company name, product name or service name. For example, if you want to promote a fat loss product which is called XYZ, it will be good to just add XYZ as your headline and in the description line add the scary word “buy”.
Feel the power of “Download” keyword: Anyone tested the Download keyword in your description or headline? This is a powerfull keyword to add in your ads. Why? The keyword download might give people the idea that they can get something very fast
Time, Time & Time: You know that most search engine users are lazy and they want to find what they want as soon as possible. So let’s play with keywords that means times: “Today”, “Now”,…
The Power of “Exposed” Keyword: Adding this little keyword in my headline increased my CTR by 150%. The keyword “Exposed” is a very showy word. I tried this keyword when I am promoting a product review so I add something like this: Product name review Exposed or Product Name Exposed. You can use it in many different ways…
Include Targeted Keywords In Your Ad: When you create an ad group, the best practice is to use one or two keywords which are similar so you can add those keywords in your headline and description. Adding the targeted keywords in your ad is one of the most important things you need to do. I always add something like this: “Targetted Keyword” + Powerfull keyword (which some are mentioned above, as free, exposed…).
Sell The Benefits: This is another “old” or “classic tip” that most of the e-books recommends, adding benefits and telling the user why your ad is better than your competitors. Here are 3 examples so you can understand better about the benefits which is important:
Example #1:
This is a good example of Weight loss, the benefits are “Lose 15 lbs in 3 weeks” and as mentioned before the advertiser also add time “Quick”. Also remember the #5 tip? “Claim unbelievable stuff!” You can make better adding “40 lbs in 3 weeks”.
Example #2:
Here the benefit is: “Absorb 28% of fat…” That is in the same niche as the first example but different benefit. So if you are searching for weight loss which benefit is the best?
Example #3:
From a different niche, check that the benefit is in the second description, and the first description give the features of the product: “Free 3 months hosting, No setup fee” that I can call it a good benefit for those that are searching for a webhosting solution. Check also that they used the powerfull keyword “Free”.
Remove Common Words: Remove common words, such as “a, an, in, on, it, of”, etc. Remove every word that does not absolutely need to be in the ad. Make every word count.
Try to stay away from freebies hunters: I mentioned above that is good to have the keyword “Free” but when your product does not offer anything for free. Try to put away the users that wants free stuffs adding the price of the product. You will receive a lower CTR but we are here to make a sale and not just traffic.
Call-to-Action Phrases: This is important also depends on which niche you are, that’s why testing is the best thing you can do. Some of the call-to-action phrases: Buy Today (again adding time) – Save 50% – Download Free Trial Now (adding 3 powerfull keywords: download, free and now) – Sale Ends Tomorrow (adding time) – Subscribe – Read – Download Now – Sale Ends Tomorrow . You can see that every step can be mixed with all the tips mentioned above.
The Power of “How to” keyword: The keyword: “How to” is another powerfull keyword, in my researchers have shown that using this little keyword can increase your CTR.
Including your company name in the headline (bad advice): The idea behind this is that you are repeating your company name in the headline as well as the URL. These ads have nearly zero clickthrough unless you are a well-known brand name (such as Target, Orbitz, Expedia, and so on).
Price in case is competitive: If the product that you are advertising is highly competitive in words of price. Add the price in the description of your ad. Sometimes, it works adding the price in the headline after the main keyword that you are bidding.
Research your niche advertisers: Another general tip or kind of research to know which ads works. Go to google and put the keyword that you want to advertise. Check who are at the top and see how they wrote their ads save it and after 2 hours or 1 day, check again and see who are at the top again, if there is any new advertiser save it do this for 1-2-3-4 weeks as many as you want (if it is longer, will be better) and if you see that there are ads at the top from day 1 you will conclude that those ads are the most usefull ads and the advertiser is really getting results from them. Take a look at the ad and see what are the “key” points that make this ad a good quality ad, make your ads based on the “key” points of your research (in your market). Clear your cookies and temporarly files every time you want to refresh and do the research.
Friendly Competition: If you have a friend, family member, employee.. that is interested in the product you are promoting or a friend that really knows about the product and he search about it. Ask them to write an ad for you and test them. You can possible see that ad looks terrible but test it and you can see the results.
Endorsements and Testimonials: These are a powerful form of persuasion. If your product has been written up in a name-brand magazine such as InfoWorld try including that information in your ad: Ranked #1 in Security by InfoWorldâ. This is a very powerful technique for increasing ad clickthrough rates.
Super-Phrases to use for adwords ad-copy headlines!
Astonishing, Instant, Discover, Breakthrough, Critical, No-holds-barred, Unique, Urgent, Unbeatable, Innovative, Incredible, Enhanced, Electrifying, Guaranteed, High-Voltage, Phenomenal, Revealed, Revolutionary, Secrets, Time-Sensitive, Trailblazing, Ingenious, Pioneering, Proven Techniques, Step-By-Step, Unforgettable, In-Depth, Invaluable, Irresistible, Powerful, Shocking, Spectacular, Unlimited, How-to, YOU, Super, Tactics, First, Booming, Amazingly, Appetizing, free, cheap, sale, special offer, time limited offer, tricks, tips, enhance, fact, learn, at last, free shipping,
Click Thru Rate is one of the determining factors to quality score, and hence the success of your campaign. As you can tell by now, writing the best and most relevant ad copy to achieve such high clicks is key. The most important part of writing a good Google Adwords ad is the headline.
The most important part of your Google Adwords ad copy is the headline. A poor headline can make or break an adwords campaign and leave you way out of pocket. Five times as many people read the headline than they do the description lines and display URL, so unless your headline captures the browser, your adwords ad won’t get clicked on.
The simplest way to write headlines is to include the keyword in the headline every time.
When you know every adwords tips and how adwords works you may ask “How the hell I can write a successful ads that clicks and make a sale”. That is one of the most important factors in Adwords, having a good headline that clicks and the most difficult one (for me at least!). Testing and researching over the net I have found many good tips that most affiliate marketers will not reveal.
Use questions that arouse curiosity or interest. For instance, you can say Want to make $10,000 in one hour?
You can also offer instructions.. Cure the cold in five simple steps, or How to keep your PC virus clean, would be interesting.
Tell a story. There’s nothing better to spark interest than to appeal to your audience’s sympathy or empathy. Tell them a story like How I made $10,000 in one hour, or I lost 50 pounds in two weeks.
Divulge information. Claim something that only you know, such as The Mystery of Google AdWords. People will notice this, especially if they want to learn more about what you have to offer.
Claim unbelievable stuff! People will be intrigued with Make $10,000 in one hour or Keep thin without exercise. You can make it as absurd and unbelievable as possible, and people will surely notice!
Create (and maintain) trust. The web is all about trust these days. Recommended by the Queen, would be good.
Compare People love to go for what’s better. You can say cheaper than Wal Mart or better than Coke. If you are promoting a product that their competition is a big well known company compare it in your ad. For example you are selling a book from a bookstore that is not well-known in the market compare it saying something like this: Amazon vs X name, and say in a few words the one key comparison why x-name is better than amazon
The Three Dots: Mindvalley Labs found this and was the first to publish it. They made a comparison about adding three dots in the final phrase of each ad, and it worked very well. Why it worked so well this method? it naturally tells people that there is more information waiting behind the add.
Tiny changes: Small changes can make a huge impact in CTR. Even a word can make your ads to boost in CTR. Again, Mindvalley Labs found this they had the word “Changes” into their ads and they changed to the word “Change” and that tiny change alone resulted in a 180% increase in the Click-Through-Rate.
Mindvalley folks explained why “Change” and “Changes” can cause such a big conversion difference:
The word “changes” insinuates AUTOMATIC change. The word “change” implies the act of doing something yourself. For example, if you were advertising a tool for cleaning for your dog:
“Dog-Clean-O-Matic Washes Your Dog Spotless”
Makes the reader see the machine as an automatic tool. Toss your dog into it and voila – the animal’s now spotless. You don’t have to do any dirty work.
On the other hand:
“Dog-Clean-O-Matic: Wash Your Dog Spotless”
Makes it seem like the machine requires YOU to do manual labor. Perhaps it nothing more than a fancy new kind of fur brush.
This distinction is important depending on the product you’re selling. In the ad above, we’re selling a relaxation CD: perhaps this is why the word “Change” relates better to the audience. They want to be in control when they go through this relaxation process. The word “changes” perhaps implies something where the participant losed control – as in hypnosis. It could be intimidating.
For other ads – in the case of software for example – I have seen the word “changes” work better. This could be because, for software, we want stuff that does the work for us automatically.So try testing both phrases on your ad.
The Power of The “Secret” Keyword: One of the power headlines keywords is the word : Secrets and this resulted a huge boost in CTR +200%!
“You Need To” a powefull keyword: Another powerfull keyword is “You Need To” it usually makes people clicks less (people don’t like to be ordered) but the convertion is higher because you are visitors what to do. If they want to do it they will click on your ad.
Keywords in Different orders: If you have an ad group X and a keyword Y will not always work if you use the headline for the keyword Y. Using other extra keywords in the title will work much better. This testing will show you that the keyword Y is “Meditation Music” and mindsvalley used in the title as well but adding extra keywords in the title “Music for meditation” worked much better and if you analyse it is the same keyword but in diffirent order.
Capitalization: This is one of the most important tip and the easiest one. Capitalize every keyword in your ad but do not capitalize the words: “in”, “and”, “on”, and those 2 words like “up”, etc… This small but powerfull tip can boost your CTR for 80%.
Repetitive keywords: Repeating words in your ads can decrease your CTR and Conversion. In this example (taken from Mindsvalley “again”) shows that they repeated two keywords in the same ad, one in the title and one in the description “Start to”. Then they changed the title from “Start to” to “Learn to”. This tiny change boosted their CTR to +36%. Learn from this that with Google adwords there is no limit to optimize your ad even tiny changes.
Think as a Google searcher: Think as one of the visitors that want to search for the keyword that you are advertising. If you are advertising the keyword “Fat loss”, what you are willing to find? I assume that something “How to loss fat”, so the user wants to learn how they can loss fat. Add in your ads “Learn How…” depends in what kind of services, product or site you are promoting. Keep splitting ads and testing to see which ad will work for you.
The Keyword: Free: The free keyword is one of the most powefull keywords that you can add in your ads if it works with what you are advertising. If you are advertising a product, service or site that give you something free is a MUST to add it on the ad, your CTR will boost up for sure. This is an example from MindValleyLabs:
Stay away from “Buy” in headlines: Many adwords advertisers believes in this, putting away the word “Buy” in the headlines. It seems that users automatically put an X in your ad when they see the keyword “buy”. In this case is good to add instead of buy, just the company name, product name or service name. For example, if you want to promote a fat loss product which is called XYZ, it will be good to just add XYZ as your headline and in the description line add the scary word “buy”.
Feel the power of “Download” keyword: Anyone tested the Download keyword in your description or headline? This is a powerfull keyword to add in your ads. Why? The keyword download might give people the idea that they can get something very fast
Time, Time & Time: You know that most search engine users are lazy and they want to find what they want as soon as possible. So let’s play with keywords that means times: “Today”, “Now”,…
The Power of “Exposed” Keyword: Adding this little keyword in my headline increased my CTR by 150%. The keyword “Exposed” is a very showy word. I tried this keyword when I am promoting a product review so I add something like this: Product name review Exposed or Product Name Exposed. You can use it in many different ways…
Include Targeted Keywords In Your Ad: When you create an ad group, the best practice is to use one or two keywords which are similar so you can add those keywords in your headline and description. Adding the targeted keywords in your ad is one of the most important things you need to do. I always add something like this: “Targetted Keyword” + Powerfull keyword (which some are mentioned above, as free, exposed…).
Sell The Benefits: This is another “old” or “classic tip” that most of the e-books recommends, adding benefits and telling the user why your ad is better than your competitors. Here are 3 examples so you can understand better about the benefits which is important:
Example #1:
This is a good example of Weight loss, the benefits are “Lose 15 lbs in 3 weeks” and as mentioned before the advertiser also add time “Quick”. Also remember the #5 tip? “Claim unbelievable stuff!” You can make better adding “40 lbs in 3 weeks”.
Example #2:
Here the benefit is: “Absorb 28% of fat…” That is in the same niche as the first example but different benefit. So if you are searching for weight loss which benefit is the best?
Example #3:
From a different niche, check that the benefit is in the second description, and the first description give the features of the product: “Free 3 months hosting, No setup fee” that I can call it a good benefit for those that are searching for a webhosting solution. Check also that they used the powerfull keyword “Free”.
Remove Common Words: Remove common words, such as “a, an, in, on, it, of”, etc. Remove every word that does not absolutely need to be in the ad. Make every word count.
Try to stay away from freebies hunters: I mentioned above that is good to have the keyword “Free” but when your product does not offer anything for free. Try to put away the users that wants free stuffs adding the price of the product. You will receive a lower CTR but we are here to make a sale and not just traffic.
Call-to-Action Phrases: This is important also depends on which niche you are, that’s why testing is the best thing you can do. Some of the call-to-action phrases: Buy Today (again adding time) – Save 50% – Download Free Trial Now (adding 3 powerfull keywords: download, free and now) – Sale Ends Tomorrow (adding time) – Subscribe – Read – Download Now – Sale Ends Tomorrow . You can see that every step can be mixed with all the tips mentioned above.
The Power of “How to” keyword: The keyword: “How to” is another powerfull keyword, in my researchers have shown that using this little keyword can increase your CTR.
Including your company name in the headline (bad advice): The idea behind this is that you are repeating your company name in the headline as well as the URL. These ads have nearly zero clickthrough unless you are a well-known brand name (such as Target, Orbitz, Expedia, and so on).
Price in case is competitive: If the product that you are advertising is highly competitive in words of price. Add the price in the description of your ad. Sometimes, it works adding the price in the headline after the main keyword that you are bidding.
Research your niche advertisers: Another general tip or kind of research to know which ads works. Go to google and put the keyword that you want to advertise. Check who are at the top and see how they wrote their ads save it and after 2 hours or 1 day, check again and see who are at the top again, if there is any new advertiser save it do this for 1-2-3-4 weeks as many as you want (if it is longer, will be better) and if you see that there are ads at the top from day 1 you will conclude that those ads are the most usefull ads and the advertiser is really getting results from them. Take a look at the ad and see what are the “key” points that make this ad a good quality ad, make your ads based on the “key” points of your research (in your market). Clear your cookies and temporarly files every time you want to refresh and do the research.
Friendly Competition: If you have a friend, family member, employee.. that is interested in the product you are promoting or a friend that really knows about the product and he search about it. Ask them to write an ad for you and test them. You can possible see that ad looks terrible but test it and you can see the results.
Endorsements and Testimonials: These are a powerful form of persuasion. If your product has been written up in a name-brand magazine such as InfoWorld try including that information in your ad: Ranked #1 in Security by InfoWorldâ. This is a very powerful technique for increasing ad clickthrough rates.
Super-Phrases to use for adwords ad-copy headlines!
Astonishing, Instant, Discover, Breakthrough, Critical, No-holds-barred, Unique, Urgent, Unbeatable, Innovative, Incredible, Enhanced, Electrifying, Guaranteed, High-Voltage, Phenomenal, Revealed, Revolutionary, Secrets, Time-Sensitive, Trailblazing, Ingenious, Pioneering, Proven Techniques, Step-By-Step, Unforgettable, In-Depth, Invaluable, Irresistible, Powerful, Shocking, Spectacular, Unlimited, How-to, YOU, Super, Tactics, First, Booming, Amazingly, Appetizing, free, cheap, sale, special offer, time limited offer, tricks, tips, enhance, fact, learn, at last, free shipping,
Friday, June 18, 2010
Are you upset with Google Adwords performance?
Are you getting frustrated with Google Adwords? Are you investing money, but not getting anything in return or have your bid prices gone through the roof? Don't freak out, don't give up!
What you need to know is how to achieve $0.01 bid prices and get traffic from Google for literally pennies. You need to know exactly how Google wants you to setup your Adwords account so that you can achieve the best Quality Score possible.
Beating Adwords is the most complete Adwords Guide on the market today. Wether you're brand new to internet marketing or an experienced marketeer, this Adwords Guide will teach you all the Adwords secrets!
What you need to know is how to achieve $0.01 bid prices and get traffic from Google for literally pennies. You need to know exactly how Google wants you to setup your Adwords account so that you can achieve the best Quality Score possible.
Beating Adwords is the most complete Adwords Guide on the market today. Wether you're brand new to internet marketing or an experienced marketeer, this Adwords Guide will teach you all the Adwords secrets!
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