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,
Friday, September 3, 2010
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!
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Google cleared in AdWords trademark suit
Google does not violate the trademarks of companies when it allows online advertisers to use keywords identical to those trademarks, according to a ruling handed down by a European court.
On Tuesday, the European Union's highest court cleared Google in a trademark lawsuit filed by luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton and two other companies. One of several businesses owned by LVMH, Louis Vuitton had argued that the search giant was infringing on its rights by allowing other advertisers to use its trademarks as search terms for Google's AdWords. The concern is that by using such keywords, competing products could show up in search results alongside the trademarked items.
The Luxembourgh-based European Court of Justice (ECJ) disagreed as far as Google's culpability, issuing a statement on Tuesday that "Google has not infringed trademark law by allowing advertisers to purchase keywords corresponding to their competitors' trademarks." But the decision doesn't leave Google completely in the clear.
The court also found that Google is obligated to remove ads if trademark owners complain that their rights have been violated. The judges sidestepped the issue of whether Google is responsible for policing AdWords on its own to track down and remove any violations. Instead, the ECJ said, that is a matter for national courts to examine.
The ruling did indicate that the actual online advertisers, rather than Google, could be found culpable of violating registered trademarks.
"Advertisers themselves, however, cannot, by using such keywords, arrange for Google to display ads which do not allow Internet users easily to establish from which undertaking the goods or services covered by the ad in question originate," said the court in a statement.
In a blog post Tuesday, Google said the ruling confirms that it has not infringed on trademarks. The company painted the case as an attempt to restrict the information available to users conducting Web searches.
Written by Harjinder Obhi, Google's senior litigation counsel for Europe, the blog post added that Google also has strict policies in place to stop the advertising of counterfeit items and that the company works with trademark owners to catch and deal with counterfeiters. The advertising and sale of fake goods has been a concern for LVMH and other companies, prompting them to take legal action against eBay as well as Google.
LVMH hailed the court's ruling that an online advertiser can't use a trademark without the consent of the trademark holder. "This long-awaited decision will be welcomed by the business community as well as by consumers," said LVMH in a statement. "It confirms and emphasizes the critical role played by trademarks in a dynamic economy to protect innovation and the investments carried out by businesses."
A group comprising several European luxury goods makers also chimed in, proclaiming the ruling as a victory for their industry. Guy Salter, a spokesman for the group, issued the following statement: "Today's ruling is important for both brand owners and consumers as it ensures that the principles of EU law will be applied equally to both offline and online in Europe. This upholds the logical conclusion that ownership of a brand name is the same no matter whether this is online or offline. This is a victory for common sense."
Google has been in and out of court with Louis Vuitton and other companies for years over trademark issues. In an attempt to resolve the matter, Google has repeatedly asked judges in both the U.S. and Europe to rule on whether its AdWords practices potentially violate trademarks and whether Google is responsible for policing the keywords used by its online advertisers. Last September, a major adviser to the European Union voiced his opinion in favor of Google, an opinion that may have had some weight with the European high court.
Some courts have sided with Google, including a U.S. Federal Court in 2006, while others have ruled against it, such as a French court in 2005 and again in 2006.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
New Google adwords updates, long overdue
As you probably know, broad match can produce some rather broad terms. Sometimes they can be downright irrelevant. Some call it the wild west of keywords.
Google are launching a new match type for advertisers in the UK and Canada, called "broad match modifier".
Here is how it works based on some examples from Google:
Broad: formal shoes - also matches: formal footwear, evening footwear, men's dress wingtips and so on.
Modified Broad: formal +shoes - also matches: evening shoes, black dress shoes and so on.
Modified Broad: +formal +shoes - also matches: frmal shoes, formal evening shoes and so on.
It would seem as if this is exactly what most people would have wanted broad match to do in the first place.
Google are launching a new match type for advertisers in the UK and Canada, called "broad match modifier".
Here is how it works based on some examples from Google:
Broad: formal shoes - also matches: formal footwear, evening footwear, men's dress wingtips and so on.
Modified Broad: formal +shoes - also matches: evening shoes, black dress shoes and so on.
Modified Broad: +formal +shoes - also matches: frmal shoes, formal evening shoes and so on.
It would seem as if this is exactly what most people would have wanted broad match to do in the first place.
Last week's AdWords performance with this week's performance?
Have you ever wanted to compare last week's AdWords performance with this week's performance?
This was possible previously by way of the account snapshot page, however that was for the entire account. Looking at just one ad group or campaign was more difficult.
Google have now made slight modifications to the Graph options to provide a way to compare date ranges.
In order to see this new feature, click on the graph icon above the graph within your AdWords account in order to toggle open the graph options.
You then need to select a primary metric, for example clicks.
Then you need to choose what to compare that to.
You can either choose another metric such as conversions, or you can compare a date range. If you choose date range, it will compare the primary metric for the current date range with the previous date range.
This was possible previously by way of the account snapshot page, however that was for the entire account. Looking at just one ad group or campaign was more difficult.
Google have now made slight modifications to the Graph options to provide a way to compare date ranges.
In order to see this new feature, click on the graph icon above the graph within your AdWords account in order to toggle open the graph options.
You then need to select a primary metric, for example clicks.
Then you need to choose what to compare that to.
You can either choose another metric such as conversions, or you can compare a date range. If you choose date range, it will compare the primary metric for the current date range with the previous date range.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
How Adwords Keyword Tool can assist you?
You’ll be able to utilise info that you acquire of Google AdWords to aid you compose keyword-rich article and also rewrite the article so that it acquires additional page hits. The finest matter on these tools is that it would assist you to decide which keywords and keyphrases would leave you with additional hits.
To any keyword, you’ll prefer to produce a content, web log, or a few types of internet site transcript that associates to it. Whenever you focus along words that won’t do good to your internet site, it could lose you a considerable measure of time. Accepting the correct words in the first place would assure that your time was used intelligently and would extend to favorable outcomes.
The AdWords Keyword Tool in usage
Google AdWords Keyword Tool would allow you on info that ought to be analysed so you’ll be able to apply that information to construct a internet commercialising design.
While you utilise the Adwords Keyword Tool, you will get hold on special thoughts about which keywords you’ll be able to apply to your site. All you require to execute is to key-in the primary subject of your site and so click, “Get keyword ideas.” Google would furnish you on a group of similar keywords that people have applied. This information is stashed away in the Google database.
If you apply the keyword list, you’ll be able to also ascertain a number of matters on this keywords. You’ll be able to discover about how numerous times it was explored in a applied period of time and how many advertizers is applying the equivalent keywords. These aids you to form your scheme in commercialising your site.
What you require to anticipate is to ascertain keywords that have been explored a lot of times but doesn’t have adequate contenders in conditions of advertising. This keywords is what you will require to produce an efficient commercialising campaign.
How You Can Utilise Adwords Keyword Tool For Current Site Content
What will happen if you already got site articles and you merely require to make it better?
No idea how to do it? Get the group of keywords churned out from the AdWords keyword tool and so re-phrase your article, making a point that you’ve utilised the keyword generously. Nevertheless, be mindful not to duplicate the keyword many times or you’ll be punished by Google.
While you apply the keywords too much, you won’t have a lot of people desiring to read your site anymore. This would also drive SEs to shut down your site of their directories. Your site articles ought to be understandable, enlightening, and is of prime quality so that you’ll acquire a lot of traffic and a more beneficial page ranking.
To any keyword, you’ll prefer to produce a content, web log, or a few types of internet site transcript that associates to it. Whenever you focus along words that won’t do good to your internet site, it could lose you a considerable measure of time. Accepting the correct words in the first place would assure that your time was used intelligently and would extend to favorable outcomes.
The AdWords Keyword Tool in usage
Google AdWords Keyword Tool would allow you on info that ought to be analysed so you’ll be able to apply that information to construct a internet commercialising design.
While you utilise the Adwords Keyword Tool, you will get hold on special thoughts about which keywords you’ll be able to apply to your site. All you require to execute is to key-in the primary subject of your site and so click, “Get keyword ideas.” Google would furnish you on a group of similar keywords that people have applied. This information is stashed away in the Google database.
If you apply the keyword list, you’ll be able to also ascertain a number of matters on this keywords. You’ll be able to discover about how numerous times it was explored in a applied period of time and how many advertizers is applying the equivalent keywords. These aids you to form your scheme in commercialising your site.
What you require to anticipate is to ascertain keywords that have been explored a lot of times but doesn’t have adequate contenders in conditions of advertising. This keywords is what you will require to produce an efficient commercialising campaign.
How You Can Utilise Adwords Keyword Tool For Current Site Content
What will happen if you already got site articles and you merely require to make it better?
No idea how to do it? Get the group of keywords churned out from the AdWords keyword tool and so re-phrase your article, making a point that you’ve utilised the keyword generously. Nevertheless, be mindful not to duplicate the keyword many times or you’ll be punished by Google.
While you apply the keywords too much, you won’t have a lot of people desiring to read your site anymore. This would also drive SEs to shut down your site of their directories. Your site articles ought to be understandable, enlightening, and is of prime quality so that you’ll acquire a lot of traffic and a more beneficial page ranking.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Getting Your Money's Worth From Google Adwords
Are you one of the 150,000 Webmasters and advertisers using Google's AdWords Select keyword targeted text advertising to drive traffic to your Website? If so, you may be able to save a bundle by cheating Google! Okay, so it's not exactly cheating per se, but if you're not using all the tools and tricks that AdWords provides, then you're definitely leaving money on the table. And, when your competitors see your results, they'll think you've somehow cheated the AdWords system.
This series of articles will systematically show you how to:
Generate the absolute best keyword list for your target market
Use simple techniques to vastly expand your productive keyword list
Create highly clickable copy for your ad
Precisely limit the distribution of your ad to only those prospects who are most interested
Beat the competition with creative bidding strategies
Dramatically reduce costs of your campaigns while increasing clickthroughs
The series has five parts:
Part 1 - Keywords (starts below)
Part 2 - Create your Google AdWords Ad
Part 3 - Ad Distribution and Bid Strategies
Part 4 - Results Tracking and ROI Reports
Let's get started!
Generating Your Keyword List in 5 Easy Steps
In order to get the most out of the AdWords Select program, you simply must have a great keyword list. If your keyword list is not deep enough, you will be doomed to pay top dollar on only a few highly-trafficked phrases that garner top dollar bids. So, what are the steps to developing a great keyword list?
First things first: you need your core list of targeted keywords and search phrases. These are the terms that your customers will type in to find your goods and services. Let's say you have an online store that sells handheld organizers like the Palm Pilot. Take a minute and think about how you would go about searching for a personal digital assistant (PDA) online. Would you search on the term 'digital device'? How about 'PDA'? Maybe 'Palm Pilot' or 'Palm V'? Would you try 'personal electronics'? My point is that there are many, many different and distinct search terms that will get you where you want to go.
So, how can you determine which search terms to use when advertising your goods and services? Follow these instructions:
Write down the top search terms that you can think of that describe your business or service. I suggest keeping this list on a spreadsheet if at all possible -- this will make it easier to organize and submit later.
Use the Overture 'Search Suggestion Tool' to get an idea of the popularity of each search term and enter this number under a 'monthly impressions' column in your spreadsheet. The tool is located here.
When I searched on our example keywords, I found that those search terms were recently searched as follows:
Pda - 420,800
palm pilot - 75,982
palm V - 3,899
digital device - 376
personal electronics - 250
Use the Search Suggestion Tool to lengthen your list of search terms. Not only does the Search Suggestion Tool reveal the number of searches for any given search phrase, it also displays any closely related search terms.
Another excellent resource is found at www.wordtracker.com. At $199 for an annual membership, this service will reveal which terms are the most searched on the Web, and also give suggestions for alternative search phrases. Typing 'palm pilot' into Word Tracker also shows a list of search terms (suggestions), and the number of times the associated terms were searched at Overture in the previous month:
palm pilot software – 6,960
palm pilot game – 5,486
palm pilot free game – 5,478
palm pilot free ware – 2,315
palm pilot free software – 2,203
palm pilot downloads – 1,995
free palm pilot downloads – 1,931
palm pilot accessory – 1,291
palm pilot share ware – 985
Add all the new relevant terms and monthly impressions to your spreadsheet list. Be creative! Type in any series of words that you think might lead someone to your product or service. Use a thesaurus and a dictionary to assist you.
Go back to your list -– it should be pretty lengthy by now –- and add modifying words that are relevant to your product or service, such as: cheap, discount, low cost, free, premium, authentic, etc. Check the Search Suggestion Tool to assess the number of searches conducted for those terms in the previous month. Enter the terms and data into your spreadsheet under 'monthly impressions'.
In our example, if you use the keyword 'Palm Pilot', why not consider using 'discount Palm Pilot', 'cheap Palm Pilot', or 'low cost Palm Pilot' if they apply to your business? The purpose of these activities is to generate the longest possible list of relevant search terms possible. Why? Remember, you only pay when someone actually clicks on your message. You pay nothing extra to simply list more keywords. Additionally, the more keywords you have, and the more specific the search phrases are, the more likely that your visitor will be truly interested in your product or service. For example: 'pda' is a very general search term. Anyone interested in handheld organizers might search using this term. However, 'Palm V' is a more targeted search term. These customers are narrowed to a particular brand and model. The search phrase 'discount Palm V' is even more targeted, and will attract price conscious Palm V shoppers.
A longer list of relevant search phrases also increases the likelihood that you will attract visitors to your site at a lower cost. That is because it is often possible to bid less for a click if the search term is less popular. More search terms, bid at a lower cost, mean more traffic to your site for fewer advertising dollars.
At this point in the process, you should have a fairly comprehensive list of targeted search terms and phrases. I suggest you sort the terms on your spreadsheet by 'monthly impressions' to get a sense of which terms are most popular. These are the terms that can end up costing you the most advertising dollars if you choose to bid for a high ranking.
Congratulations! You have now generated a comprehensive keyword list that will get you ahead of your competitors.
This series of articles will systematically show you how to:
Generate the absolute best keyword list for your target market
Use simple techniques to vastly expand your productive keyword list
Create highly clickable copy for your ad
Precisely limit the distribution of your ad to only those prospects who are most interested
Beat the competition with creative bidding strategies
Dramatically reduce costs of your campaigns while increasing clickthroughs
The series has five parts:
Part 1 - Keywords (starts below)
Part 2 - Create your Google AdWords Ad
Part 3 - Ad Distribution and Bid Strategies
Part 4 - Results Tracking and ROI Reports
Let's get started!
Generating Your Keyword List in 5 Easy Steps
In order to get the most out of the AdWords Select program, you simply must have a great keyword list. If your keyword list is not deep enough, you will be doomed to pay top dollar on only a few highly-trafficked phrases that garner top dollar bids. So, what are the steps to developing a great keyword list?
First things first: you need your core list of targeted keywords and search phrases. These are the terms that your customers will type in to find your goods and services. Let's say you have an online store that sells handheld organizers like the Palm Pilot. Take a minute and think about how you would go about searching for a personal digital assistant (PDA) online. Would you search on the term 'digital device'? How about 'PDA'? Maybe 'Palm Pilot' or 'Palm V'? Would you try 'personal electronics'? My point is that there are many, many different and distinct search terms that will get you where you want to go.
So, how can you determine which search terms to use when advertising your goods and services? Follow these instructions:
Write down the top search terms that you can think of that describe your business or service. I suggest keeping this list on a spreadsheet if at all possible -- this will make it easier to organize and submit later.
Use the Overture 'Search Suggestion Tool' to get an idea of the popularity of each search term and enter this number under a 'monthly impressions' column in your spreadsheet. The tool is located here.
When I searched on our example keywords, I found that those search terms were recently searched as follows:
Pda - 420,800
palm pilot - 75,982
palm V - 3,899
digital device - 376
personal electronics - 250
Use the Search Suggestion Tool to lengthen your list of search terms. Not only does the Search Suggestion Tool reveal the number of searches for any given search phrase, it also displays any closely related search terms.
Another excellent resource is found at www.wordtracker.com. At $199 for an annual membership, this service will reveal which terms are the most searched on the Web, and also give suggestions for alternative search phrases. Typing 'palm pilot' into Word Tracker also shows a list of search terms (suggestions), and the number of times the associated terms were searched at Overture in the previous month:
palm pilot software – 6,960
palm pilot game – 5,486
palm pilot free game – 5,478
palm pilot free ware – 2,315
palm pilot free software – 2,203
palm pilot downloads – 1,995
free palm pilot downloads – 1,931
palm pilot accessory – 1,291
palm pilot share ware – 985
Add all the new relevant terms and monthly impressions to your spreadsheet list. Be creative! Type in any series of words that you think might lead someone to your product or service. Use a thesaurus and a dictionary to assist you.
Go back to your list -– it should be pretty lengthy by now –- and add modifying words that are relevant to your product or service, such as: cheap, discount, low cost, free, premium, authentic, etc. Check the Search Suggestion Tool to assess the number of searches conducted for those terms in the previous month. Enter the terms and data into your spreadsheet under 'monthly impressions'.
In our example, if you use the keyword 'Palm Pilot', why not consider using 'discount Palm Pilot', 'cheap Palm Pilot', or 'low cost Palm Pilot' if they apply to your business? The purpose of these activities is to generate the longest possible list of relevant search terms possible. Why? Remember, you only pay when someone actually clicks on your message. You pay nothing extra to simply list more keywords. Additionally, the more keywords you have, and the more specific the search phrases are, the more likely that your visitor will be truly interested in your product or service. For example: 'pda' is a very general search term. Anyone interested in handheld organizers might search using this term. However, 'Palm V' is a more targeted search term. These customers are narrowed to a particular brand and model. The search phrase 'discount Palm V' is even more targeted, and will attract price conscious Palm V shoppers.
A longer list of relevant search phrases also increases the likelihood that you will attract visitors to your site at a lower cost. That is because it is often possible to bid less for a click if the search term is less popular. More search terms, bid at a lower cost, mean more traffic to your site for fewer advertising dollars.
At this point in the process, you should have a fairly comprehensive list of targeted search terms and phrases. I suggest you sort the terms on your spreadsheet by 'monthly impressions' to get a sense of which terms are most popular. These are the terms that can end up costing you the most advertising dollars if you choose to bid for a high ranking.
Congratulations! You have now generated a comprehensive keyword list that will get you ahead of your competitors.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
7 Ways to Build Your Business With Google Adwords
In the world of PPC, Google AdWords still holds the reign over the other pay per click marketing options. The only one that comes close is Yahoo's sponsored search marketing (previously known as Overture), and even that has made changes to imitate Google's AdWords.
Using AdWords can increase traffic and has a huge ability to increase your knowledge within your market, as well as knowledge about your potential clients. However - not knowing how to use it properly can sometimes cause startling expenditures, and this can often scare people away from using it at all. Here are seven tips to help you get started on AdWords with a better grasp on this powerful tool.
7 Google AdWords Tips and Tricks
Turn off Content at first - You'll want to turn off the "content network" option inside your campaign settings when you start. This is something that can often lose a lot of money, with a very small CTR. If you do want to use it, I recommend starting with the search network, learning what your converting keywords/ad groups are, and then starting a separate campaign with only content network ads running. And also consider choosing which sites your ads run on explicitly. This will enable you to check and see just where your ads will show, and if it's a good site to match with your market. As usual, test and track, and keep the ones with the best conversions.
Run 2 Ads At A Time - Always, always run two ads at a time. This will make sure you can keep increasing your CTR by checking to see which ad performs better, then making that the control and rewriting the other ad. It's good to get at the very least 30 clicks before deciding on a winner.
Set a Daily Budget - A lot of people aren't aware this is an option, and some keywords can cost thousands of dollars within a few hours. Make sure you set a budget you can live with so you don't find yourself spending a huge amount of money before you can make adjustments. This setting is inside the campaign settings.
Use Different Match Types - There are 3 match types: Broad, Phrase, and Exact. Knowing how each works is crucial to having a good campaign. If nothing else, know that by just putting words in your ad groups, they default to broad match. Broad match will match all searches with those words in any order, as well as any searches containing words with similar meaning (using latent semantic indexing). This means you may have a lot of searches that your ad shows up for that are not words you chose. And because of this you should...
Use Negative Keywords - In your keywords research, if you think of keywords that may cause your ads to show but are not related to your campaign, be sure to put them in as negative keywords. You can do this in each ad group by simply putting a negative sign in front of your keywords (and in front of the first quote in negative keyword phrases), but often it's best to just put it into your campaign negative keywords. You can find where to put negative campaign keywords inside your campaign page, where you'll see "campaign negative keyword(s): Edit".
Keep Related Keywords in Separate Ad Groups - This is important for several reasons. If you toss all your keywords into one ad group, there's a likely chance that no ad you can possibly write will entice people typing every one of these keywords. Keep your ad groups separate, so you can write unique ads that match with the keywords in that ad group. This will up your CTR. Also, ideally you should have unique landing pages for each ad group, if there is a page that is best for the keywords in that ad group.
Track All Results - Tossing keywords into AdWords, crossing your fingers, and hoping for the best is not a good way to do pay-per-click marketing. Track everything so you can remove badly performing keywords, expand on exceptionally performing keywords, and adjust your ads. If you have a page on your site that anyone visiting would indicate a conversion, use AdWords's conversion code option. This allows you to put code on that page so you can know exactly which keywords brought you conversions through your PPC. If this is possible on your page, do it! Knowing precisely which keywords convert will make your PPC campaign a monster, and jump your ROI through the roof.
Having a good idea how AdWords works before spending money on it will help you make sure your campaigns bring quality traffic. Follow these Google AdWords tips and tricks to keep your AdWords campaigns performing well, and you'll see great results with this very powerful internet marketing tool.
Using AdWords can increase traffic and has a huge ability to increase your knowledge within your market, as well as knowledge about your potential clients. However - not knowing how to use it properly can sometimes cause startling expenditures, and this can often scare people away from using it at all. Here are seven tips to help you get started on AdWords with a better grasp on this powerful tool.
7 Google AdWords Tips and Tricks
Turn off Content at first - You'll want to turn off the "content network" option inside your campaign settings when you start. This is something that can often lose a lot of money, with a very small CTR. If you do want to use it, I recommend starting with the search network, learning what your converting keywords/ad groups are, and then starting a separate campaign with only content network ads running. And also consider choosing which sites your ads run on explicitly. This will enable you to check and see just where your ads will show, and if it's a good site to match with your market. As usual, test and track, and keep the ones with the best conversions.
Run 2 Ads At A Time - Always, always run two ads at a time. This will make sure you can keep increasing your CTR by checking to see which ad performs better, then making that the control and rewriting the other ad. It's good to get at the very least 30 clicks before deciding on a winner.
Set a Daily Budget - A lot of people aren't aware this is an option, and some keywords can cost thousands of dollars within a few hours. Make sure you set a budget you can live with so you don't find yourself spending a huge amount of money before you can make adjustments. This setting is inside the campaign settings.
Use Different Match Types - There are 3 match types: Broad, Phrase, and Exact. Knowing how each works is crucial to having a good campaign. If nothing else, know that by just putting words in your ad groups, they default to broad match. Broad match will match all searches with those words in any order, as well as any searches containing words with similar meaning (using latent semantic indexing). This means you may have a lot of searches that your ad shows up for that are not words you chose. And because of this you should...
Use Negative Keywords - In your keywords research, if you think of keywords that may cause your ads to show but are not related to your campaign, be sure to put them in as negative keywords. You can do this in each ad group by simply putting a negative sign in front of your keywords (and in front of the first quote in negative keyword phrases), but often it's best to just put it into your campaign negative keywords. You can find where to put negative campaign keywords inside your campaign page, where you'll see "campaign negative keyword(s): Edit".
Keep Related Keywords in Separate Ad Groups - This is important for several reasons. If you toss all your keywords into one ad group, there's a likely chance that no ad you can possibly write will entice people typing every one of these keywords. Keep your ad groups separate, so you can write unique ads that match with the keywords in that ad group. This will up your CTR. Also, ideally you should have unique landing pages for each ad group, if there is a page that is best for the keywords in that ad group.
Track All Results - Tossing keywords into AdWords, crossing your fingers, and hoping for the best is not a good way to do pay-per-click marketing. Track everything so you can remove badly performing keywords, expand on exceptionally performing keywords, and adjust your ads. If you have a page on your site that anyone visiting would indicate a conversion, use AdWords's conversion code option. This allows you to put code on that page so you can know exactly which keywords brought you conversions through your PPC. If this is possible on your page, do it! Knowing precisely which keywords convert will make your PPC campaign a monster, and jump your ROI through the roof.
Having a good idea how AdWords works before spending money on it will help you make sure your campaigns bring quality traffic. Follow these Google AdWords tips and tricks to keep your AdWords campaigns performing well, and you'll see great results with this very powerful internet marketing tool.
Friday, February 26, 2010
3 Secrets About Using Google Adwords
Let’s face it... Google Adwords is not the only source of traffic on the internet, nor is it free. However, if you cannot convert the traffic you get from the pay-per-click traffic on Google Adwords, your site surely won’t convert the casual visitor who may or may not be ready to buy what you are selling.
When spending money for pay-per-click (PPC) traffic, whether it is from Google Adwords, Overture, or a 2nd-tier PPC network, the key is to track your traffic to see if it converts into sales. There are many software products and online services that can track your traffic. For a recommendation, visit:
http://www.superiormarketingpartners.com/adtracking.html
Many people that have tried Google Adwords have lost their shirt, so to speak. Some keywords on Google Adwords are cheap (keyword phrases start at a nickel per click). Some keyword phrases on Google Adwords can cost tens of dollars per click. If you end up paying high per-click prices on Google Adwords and don’t sell a high-ticket item on your site, even the most enviable sales conversion rate won’t turn a profit.
There are several tricks to advertising on Google Adwords that unless you know them, it becomes almost impossible to turn a profit on your advertising.
Secret #1 - Only bid on exact match keywords
Google Adwords has a few different ‘keyword matching options’ available. When a keyword is placed in brackets like this:
[keyword], it is called an ‘exact match.’ This means that only when someone enters that EXACT keyword phrase will your ad appear. It might occur to you that by limiting your keyword(s) to only exact match, you are eliminating all those people that may be searching for the phrase "cheap widgets" or even "widget" singular, since only the keyword "widgets" plural is an exact match. Believe me, this is exactly what you want. Sure, it will take extra time to create an adgroup within the Google Adwords system for each keyword phrase you want to bid on, but you will know with 100% certainty which keyword(s) are converting into sales this way. If you do NOT use the exact match option in Google Adwords, then there is absolutely no way to know which keyword(s) are resulting in sales on your site.
Secret #2 - Bid to be in position #2 or 3
When someone searches on Google for your keyword, the first page of search results are going to reach the most people. What you want to do is position your ad in one of the top 3 spots. You don’t want position #1 necessarily, because that position costs the most and doesn’t give you much more benefit than being in position 2 or 3. You pay less for these spots than position 1 and gain most of the benefit.
By being in one of these top spots, your ad gets a higher ‘click-thru rate’ (CTR). This is good is because the Google Adwords system actually rewards you for having an ad with a high CTR by charging you less per click! Google Adwords exists to make money for Google. If they have two companies advertising for the same keyword, and your ad pulls a 10% CTR and your competitor’s ad for the same keyword pulls a 5% CTR, then Google Adwords makes more money from your ad. Google Adwords rewards you for this higher CTR by charging you less per click than your competitor!
Secret #3 - Negatively qualify your ads
Admittedly, the problem with having an ad that has a great CTR is that it gets a lot of clicks! Unless your traffic converts into sales, it’s hard to turn a profit on your Google Adwords ads. The key is to put words in the ad that DISCOURAGE people from clicking on the ad unless they ‘pre-qualified’ to convert to a sale. For example, if you have site that sells widgets that cost $10.00 each, then put something in one of the lines of text in your ad like ‘Widgets cost only $10.00.’ The only catch is that if your ad isn’t getting a very good CTR in the first place, then a negative qualifier is only going to reduce your CTR.
When spending money for pay-per-click (PPC) traffic, whether it is from Google Adwords, Overture, or a 2nd-tier PPC network, the key is to track your traffic to see if it converts into sales. There are many software products and online services that can track your traffic. For a recommendation, visit:
http://www.superiormarketingpartners.com/adtracking.html
Many people that have tried Google Adwords have lost their shirt, so to speak. Some keywords on Google Adwords are cheap (keyword phrases start at a nickel per click). Some keyword phrases on Google Adwords can cost tens of dollars per click. If you end up paying high per-click prices on Google Adwords and don’t sell a high-ticket item on your site, even the most enviable sales conversion rate won’t turn a profit.
There are several tricks to advertising on Google Adwords that unless you know them, it becomes almost impossible to turn a profit on your advertising.
Secret #1 - Only bid on exact match keywords
Google Adwords has a few different ‘keyword matching options’ available. When a keyword is placed in brackets like this:
[keyword], it is called an ‘exact match.’ This means that only when someone enters that EXACT keyword phrase will your ad appear. It might occur to you that by limiting your keyword(s) to only exact match, you are eliminating all those people that may be searching for the phrase "cheap widgets" or even "widget" singular, since only the keyword "widgets" plural is an exact match. Believe me, this is exactly what you want. Sure, it will take extra time to create an adgroup within the Google Adwords system for each keyword phrase you want to bid on, but you will know with 100% certainty which keyword(s) are converting into sales this way. If you do NOT use the exact match option in Google Adwords, then there is absolutely no way to know which keyword(s) are resulting in sales on your site.
Secret #2 - Bid to be in position #2 or 3
When someone searches on Google for your keyword, the first page of search results are going to reach the most people. What you want to do is position your ad in one of the top 3 spots. You don’t want position #1 necessarily, because that position costs the most and doesn’t give you much more benefit than being in position 2 or 3. You pay less for these spots than position 1 and gain most of the benefit.
By being in one of these top spots, your ad gets a higher ‘click-thru rate’ (CTR). This is good is because the Google Adwords system actually rewards you for having an ad with a high CTR by charging you less per click! Google Adwords exists to make money for Google. If they have two companies advertising for the same keyword, and your ad pulls a 10% CTR and your competitor’s ad for the same keyword pulls a 5% CTR, then Google Adwords makes more money from your ad. Google Adwords rewards you for this higher CTR by charging you less per click than your competitor!
Secret #3 - Negatively qualify your ads
Admittedly, the problem with having an ad that has a great CTR is that it gets a lot of clicks! Unless your traffic converts into sales, it’s hard to turn a profit on your Google Adwords ads. The key is to put words in the ad that DISCOURAGE people from clicking on the ad unless they ‘pre-qualified’ to convert to a sale. For example, if you have site that sells widgets that cost $10.00 each, then put something in one of the lines of text in your ad like ‘Widgets cost only $10.00.’ The only catch is that if your ad isn’t getting a very good CTR in the first place, then a negative qualifier is only going to reduce your CTR.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Google Adwords New Keyword Research Tool
The AdWords team have rolled out a completely overhauled keyword suggestion research tool. Smooth user interface and updates make using the new tool a much better experience.
In this article I will share some alternative uses for the AdWords Keyword Tool and run down the new features in this beta release.
Accessing the Beta Keyword Tool
To access the new beta AdWords Keyword Tool login to adwords.google.com, click the “Opportunities” tab, find the current Keyword Tool link and then click the (beta) link.
The general purpose of this tool has always been to help advertisers find relevant, popular keywords.
As it turns out, the AdWords Keyword Tool is pretty useful for publishers and developers to get a glimpse at this data for various reasons.
7 Alternative Uses of Google AdWords Keyword Tool
Cover all the bases of a specific niche.
Discover areas of interest to publish content about.
View what phrases are trending or becoming extinct.
Improve keyword optimization on your website.
Target untapped, low competition keywords.
Find complementary keywords for articles to boost ranking.
Find exact match available domain names to purchase.
New Keyword Tool Beta Features
The new AdWords tool enables you to search by keywords and a URL simultaneously. Additionally you can filter or browse results from popular defined categories found in the sidebar.
Also new in this beta release is the ability to search broad matches (the original standard) as well as Exact Match and Phrase Match keywords.
Once your searches are complete and you’re satisfied with keywords you see you can download all data for each keyword result or the entire table and let further research begin.
In this article I will share some alternative uses for the AdWords Keyword Tool and run down the new features in this beta release.
Accessing the Beta Keyword Tool
To access the new beta AdWords Keyword Tool login to adwords.google.com, click the “Opportunities” tab, find the current Keyword Tool link and then click the (beta) link.
The general purpose of this tool has always been to help advertisers find relevant, popular keywords.
As it turns out, the AdWords Keyword Tool is pretty useful for publishers and developers to get a glimpse at this data for various reasons.
7 Alternative Uses of Google AdWords Keyword Tool
Cover all the bases of a specific niche.
Discover areas of interest to publish content about.
View what phrases are trending or becoming extinct.
Improve keyword optimization on your website.
Target untapped, low competition keywords.
Find complementary keywords for articles to boost ranking.
Find exact match available domain names to purchase.
New Keyword Tool Beta Features
The new AdWords tool enables you to search by keywords and a URL simultaneously. Additionally you can filter or browse results from popular defined categories found in the sidebar.
Also new in this beta release is the ability to search broad matches (the original standard) as well as Exact Match and Phrase Match keywords.
Once your searches are complete and you’re satisfied with keywords you see you can download all data for each keyword result or the entire table and let further research begin.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Google Adwords Guide to Success
Most businesses want a cost-effective way to bring in more customers. The challenge is to find prospects who are thinking about your products at the exact time that you reach them.
With the advent of Google AdWords, it's possible to target prospects at the very moment they're thinking about buying your products or services. If someone runs a Google search on digital cameras, they only see ads for digital cameras. If someone performs a search on organically grown coffee beans, they only see ads for organically grown coffee. Google AdWords enables you to implement precisely targeted advertising.
Read on to learn how to maximize your success with Google AdWords. With proper preparation and execution, starting Google AdWords can be like planting a money tree that will provide your business with a steady stream of revenue.
What is Google AdWords?
Open up a Web browser and go to the Google website. Type in the search term "coffee" and click search. Essentially, two types of search results come up: on the left and below the search box are the organic search results that nobody has sponsored. On the right side of your browser window, and sometimes above the organic results are the Sponsored Links. The Sponsored Links are paid advertisements. Sponsored links are always identified as such by the heading Sponsored Links.
As participants in what is actually automated auction, each of these advertisers (or Sponsors) is bidding for the keyword "coffee". They only pay if someone is interested enough to click on the advertisement; if nobody clicks on the ad, the cost to that advertiser is zero. The higher the advertiser bids on a keyword, the higher in the rankings the ad appears, and the more likely it is that web searchers will see the ad. Ranking means visibility, though you do not have to be at the top of the rankings or make the highest bid in order for prospects to see your ad and click on it. Your goal is to get the lowest Cost-Per-Click (CPC) and the highest quality clicks (sales and leads) for your budget.
Find your Niche
Often, many companies compete for popular keywords (e.g., coffee). On the other hand, popular keywords get millions of searches, so there may be enough clicks to go around -- in this case, you don't need to be the highest, or nearly-highest bidder in order to achieve good results from your campaign. The only way to find out if a particular keyword will work for you is to try it out. The problem is that many other advertisers may also be bidding for the popular keywords, so your cost per click (or CPC) is likely to be high. You are more likely to get a low CPC with more obscure, highly targeted keywords. It will take some thought to come up with the right keywords for your particular site and product.
Our coffee roaster would probably want to try the keyword coffee, and watch it like a hawk as it could result in many low quality clicks (not many conversions to leads or sales). If a keyword does not produce high quality clicks after a reasonable trial period (a couple weeks), then remove it; it may even be obvious sooner that a particular keyword is costing money but not producing results.
Perhaps our coffee roaster sells shade-grown coffee that protects Central American songbird habitat. While far fewer people are likely to search for "shade-grown coffee" than for "coffee", the more targeted term is likely to yield a lower CPC and higher quality clicks.
Do some brainstorming and write down an initial list of keywords that matches your market niche. This process of finding targeted keywords will be a useful exercise to help you focus your campaigns and maximize your return on investment.
Getting Started
The first thing you need to get started with AdWords is a goal. Is your goal to make direct sales via ecommerce on your website? Is your goal to capture sales leads that you can follow up with to make the sale? Alternatively, is your goal a combination of both of these outcomes? Once you have determined a goal, you need a website that helps you achieve that goal.
Your website should be eye-catching and well organized, and include landing pages for your products or services. To see some examples of landing pages, perform a search for your services, and look at what other companies in your market are doing. The landing page for your advertisement might be your main website or homepage if your website focuses tightly on one product or service that you're advertising (e.g., this permission-based email marketing website). Otherwise, the landing page should be a page within your website that focuses on the specific product or service you're advertising.
If you're selling directly from your website, your site should include a secure ecommerce system. Any good, technically competent web design firm can set this up for you.
If you want sales leads, then your site should include a call to action to persuade people to request more information. The way they submit a lead is to click on a link to a lead capture form. You need a form that, at a minimum, sends you -- or the appropriate sales staff -- an email containing the lead's details. Ideally, the system would also create a lead for you in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system such as SalesForce or SugarCRM.
Whether you're selling directly from your website or capturing leads, your website should always provide obvious ways to contact you using whatever method the prospect feels most comfortable with: a contact form, email, or telephone. Some company websites make it hard for users to figure out how to contact the company for more information.
It's important to have a number of people -- both inside and outside of your company -- test your website's ease of use. Prospects should never have to wonder how to buy from you, or how to contact you to ask a question about your products and services.
Sign Up for Google AdWords
Once you have a goal, web site, and landing page, you're ready to sign up for Google AdWords. Learn by doing -- it's easy to write the advertisement and select keywords using the tools that Google provides during the sign up process. In addition, some web hosting providers have collaborated with Google, and can offer you a free AdWords coupon to get you started.
If you plan to spend at least $30 per day on AdWords, Google offers a JumpStart program to help you get started using the program. Google JumpStart specialists will help you create a campaign. The cost of the program is $299, but Google will apply that as a credit toward the cost of your initial clicks. Not having used JumpStart myself, I cannot vouch for its quality, though Google generally offers high quality services.
Campaigns and Ad Groups
The Campaign level is where you set your daily budget, language targeting, location targeting, ad distribution preferences, and the start and end dates for your campaigns (if applicable).
The Ad Group level is where enter your keywords and the advertisements themselves. Each Ad Group has one or more ads. Write at least two ads for each ad group so you can try different approaches and compare the results.
In my experience, it has been beneficial to create multiple campaigns so I can experiment with different parameters and compare the results. I keep campaigns that work well and delete those that do not.
Targeting
Choose the language you want to target, and then the countries or territories. This requires some thought. Can you offer your product or service globally, in the United States, or in just your city or region? You can target your campaign to the world or to specific countries, regions, states, or cities.
For even more precise targeting, you can target your campaign to a certain number of miles from your business or even an area bounded by coordinates. Choosing carefully will ensure that you maximize the return you make on your investment in the advertisement.
Write your Advertisements
You have a 25-character title get searchers' attention, and a 70-character ad to make them interested enough to want to click on your ad. This isn't a lot of text, so make your content pithy.
Write the Headline, the text of the ad, and enter the Display Link (always link to main page of your website), and then enter the Destination URL (your landing page). As we discussed above, the Destination URL might be your main page, or a page within your website that's dedicated to selling the product in question. Below are a couple of fictional ad examples. I don't work in the coffee industry, but I do enjoy a good cup of coffee.
Headline: Shade Grown Coffee Beans
Description line 1: Shade grown coffee. Tastes
Description line 2: better & saves valuable rainforest.
Display URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com
Destination URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com?&utm_id=coff1
Another example:
Headline: Shade Grown Coffee Beans
Description line 1: Coffee that tastes better and
Description line 2: protects valuable rainforest.
Display URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com/
Destination URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com?&utm_id=coff2
Conversion Tracking
Tracking the conversion rate of your campaigns -- i.e., how many sales or leads you generate from your investment -- requires a little preparation. You will need to have your webmaster embed snippets of code into the appropriate pages on your website. Google explains how to do this in its online AdWords documentation.
Google Analytics
In the fictional advertisement examples I gave above, you may have noticed the codes in the destination URL's: "coff1" and "coff2". These are tracking codes that facilitate the tracking of a wealth of information by Google Analytics.
Google Analytics, which Google integrated with AdWords, is a very powerful service for tracking the success of both the organic and paid search results for your website. It will help you better understand your website visitors' experiences in detail. In addition, you can learn which keywords attract the best prospects, and which of your campaigns deliver the best return on investment. You can use Google Analytics to track marketing campaigns other than AdWords as well. Unfortunately, Google Analytics is too big a topic to cover here, though there is plenty of information on it online -- the Google website is a good place to start!
Choose Your Keywords
As I mentioned earlier, it's important to pick good keywords. Initially, choose both general keywords and narrowly targeted keywords, and carefully evaluate the results. Keep keywords that generate results, and remove keywords that aren't working for you. You'll probably need to run your campaigns for a while before you have enough information to determine which keywords are succeeding for you.
In the keyword space provided in the setup process, list the keywords or keyword phrases you would like to use. Because people tend to type fast when they search the web, be sure to include common mis-spellings of your keywords. Here are some example keywords that our fictional coffee roaster might use:
coffee
coffe
shade grown coffee
shade grown coffe
shade grown
shade coffee
coffee shade grown
shade grown coffee migratory birds
benefits of shade grown coffee
gourmet coffee
gourmet coffee beans
gourmet coffees
coffee beans
gourmet coffee beans
organic coffee
organic coffee beans
certified organic coffee
coffee beans organic
mail order organic coffee
bulk coffee
To generate more keywords, enter a keyword into the Keyword Tool Box and click on Get More Keywords. This will generate additional keywords, some of which will be relevant to you, and some of which will not. Keep the relevant keywords and toss the rest.
Now, you have a good starting list. Later, you will want to add new keywords, and remove non-performing keywords. A good keyword is one that yields you conversions into customers or good leads.
Google Search versus Google Content Network
Google AdWords can place your ad in two places: in Google search and the content network. Google search provides results from searches that prospective customers run directly using www.google.com. The content network consists of Google partner sites and sites that run advertisements through Google's AdSense program.
In my experience, Google search has yielded more quality clicks than the content network. The content network is worth trying, but I recommend you put it into a separate campaign so that you can measure its results against your Google search campaign.
The content network is an opt-out service, though it's not possible to opt out during the setup process. To opt out of the content network for a specific campaign, you can go back to the Campaign Settings and uncheck the checkbox for content network.
Then, set up a separate campaign where you focus on the content network and opt out of the search network. Compare the results between the two campaigns. It is possible that you'll find Google search is more productive than the content network but, of course, your results may be different from mine.
If you want to keep it simple until you are more comfortable with AdWords, I recommend that you start with the search network. Then, come back in a few weeks and set up a separate campaign to try the content network, and compare the results with those you generate through the search network.
Your Daily Budget
Your daily budget for your campaign is the ceiling on your daily spending. You can set this number to whatever figure you want. It's a good idea to start out with a relatively low daily budget while you refine your AdWords effectiveness. As your ad campaigns succeed and bring you more business, you'll likely want to increase your budget.
Start with a daily budget of about $10 to $15 per day, and gradually increase that amount as you fine-tune your approach.
Your Bid
In addition to your daily budget, you will need to set a maximum bid that you are willing to pay as a Cost Per Click (CPC). This require some trial and error to get right. Being the highest bidder is not really what that you want. Instead, you want to get the greatest number of quality clicks for your budget. If you bid too high, your CPC will be too high and will eat up your budget too fast; if you bid to low, you won't generate enough clicks or sales.
You might try starting with a bid of $2.50, and see what happens for a day or two. Then gradually raise or lower the bid, depending on results. If clicks consume your daily budget in a couple of hours, then lower your bid. If the advertisements aren't getting many clicks, raise your bid. Continue this process until you find the optimal bid.
Leads and Sales
What if visitors are clicking on your ad but aren't buying from or contacting you? That likely means your ad is working but your website or landing page is not persuading prospective customers to take the next step. It can also mean that your product or service needs some work to become more competitive. Compare what you offer to your competitors.
The simplest things can make a dramatic difference. When your landing page is not getting you conversions, change one aspect, then wait to see what happens over the next day or two. That way, you can determine which changes work. Don't be afraid to try possible solutions, knowing that some changes will fail and some will work well.
Recently, one of our landing pages was not generating a suitable number of conversions. I made some minor changes to the wording on the page and conversions started going up the next day. On another page, we replaced our very simple order form with a much more elaborate version. Our sales for that service immediately plummeted. We simply changed the order form back to the simpler version and sales picked up again immediately.
Harvesting From the Money Tree
The Google AdWords money tree is now planted, optimized, and working to bring you leads and sales. What do you do now? Harvest it, of course, by solid follow-through and by providing the best possible service for your clients.
Go back from time to time, and take a look at your results. Make adjustments to your budget and bids as needed. Write another advertisement that takes a slightly different tack. Remove an ad that's not producing high quality clicks for you. Make some improvements to your website to see if you can increase your conversion rate.
Practice Kaizen -- a Japanese word for continuous, incremental improvement. Even if your Google AdWords money tree is providing good yields, there are always ways to improve its performance.
So pour yourself a cup of good coffee, and get started using Google AdWords today!
With the advent of Google AdWords, it's possible to target prospects at the very moment they're thinking about buying your products or services. If someone runs a Google search on digital cameras, they only see ads for digital cameras. If someone performs a search on organically grown coffee beans, they only see ads for organically grown coffee. Google AdWords enables you to implement precisely targeted advertising.
Read on to learn how to maximize your success with Google AdWords. With proper preparation and execution, starting Google AdWords can be like planting a money tree that will provide your business with a steady stream of revenue.
What is Google AdWords?
Open up a Web browser and go to the Google website. Type in the search term "coffee" and click search. Essentially, two types of search results come up: on the left and below the search box are the organic search results that nobody has sponsored. On the right side of your browser window, and sometimes above the organic results are the Sponsored Links. The Sponsored Links are paid advertisements. Sponsored links are always identified as such by the heading Sponsored Links.
As participants in what is actually automated auction, each of these advertisers (or Sponsors) is bidding for the keyword "coffee". They only pay if someone is interested enough to click on the advertisement; if nobody clicks on the ad, the cost to that advertiser is zero. The higher the advertiser bids on a keyword, the higher in the rankings the ad appears, and the more likely it is that web searchers will see the ad. Ranking means visibility, though you do not have to be at the top of the rankings or make the highest bid in order for prospects to see your ad and click on it. Your goal is to get the lowest Cost-Per-Click (CPC) and the highest quality clicks (sales and leads) for your budget.
Find your Niche
Often, many companies compete for popular keywords (e.g., coffee). On the other hand, popular keywords get millions of searches, so there may be enough clicks to go around -- in this case, you don't need to be the highest, or nearly-highest bidder in order to achieve good results from your campaign. The only way to find out if a particular keyword will work for you is to try it out. The problem is that many other advertisers may also be bidding for the popular keywords, so your cost per click (or CPC) is likely to be high. You are more likely to get a low CPC with more obscure, highly targeted keywords. It will take some thought to come up with the right keywords for your particular site and product.
Our coffee roaster would probably want to try the keyword coffee, and watch it like a hawk as it could result in many low quality clicks (not many conversions to leads or sales). If a keyword does not produce high quality clicks after a reasonable trial period (a couple weeks), then remove it; it may even be obvious sooner that a particular keyword is costing money but not producing results.
Perhaps our coffee roaster sells shade-grown coffee that protects Central American songbird habitat. While far fewer people are likely to search for "shade-grown coffee" than for "coffee", the more targeted term is likely to yield a lower CPC and higher quality clicks.
Do some brainstorming and write down an initial list of keywords that matches your market niche. This process of finding targeted keywords will be a useful exercise to help you focus your campaigns and maximize your return on investment.
Getting Started
The first thing you need to get started with AdWords is a goal. Is your goal to make direct sales via ecommerce on your website? Is your goal to capture sales leads that you can follow up with to make the sale? Alternatively, is your goal a combination of both of these outcomes? Once you have determined a goal, you need a website that helps you achieve that goal.
Your website should be eye-catching and well organized, and include landing pages for your products or services. To see some examples of landing pages, perform a search for your services, and look at what other companies in your market are doing. The landing page for your advertisement might be your main website or homepage if your website focuses tightly on one product or service that you're advertising (e.g., this permission-based email marketing website). Otherwise, the landing page should be a page within your website that focuses on the specific product or service you're advertising.
If you're selling directly from your website, your site should include a secure ecommerce system. Any good, technically competent web design firm can set this up for you.
If you want sales leads, then your site should include a call to action to persuade people to request more information. The way they submit a lead is to click on a link to a lead capture form. You need a form that, at a minimum, sends you -- or the appropriate sales staff -- an email containing the lead's details. Ideally, the system would also create a lead for you in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system such as SalesForce or SugarCRM.
Whether you're selling directly from your website or capturing leads, your website should always provide obvious ways to contact you using whatever method the prospect feels most comfortable with: a contact form, email, or telephone. Some company websites make it hard for users to figure out how to contact the company for more information.
It's important to have a number of people -- both inside and outside of your company -- test your website's ease of use. Prospects should never have to wonder how to buy from you, or how to contact you to ask a question about your products and services.
Sign Up for Google AdWords
Once you have a goal, web site, and landing page, you're ready to sign up for Google AdWords. Learn by doing -- it's easy to write the advertisement and select keywords using the tools that Google provides during the sign up process. In addition, some web hosting providers have collaborated with Google, and can offer you a free AdWords coupon to get you started.
If you plan to spend at least $30 per day on AdWords, Google offers a JumpStart program to help you get started using the program. Google JumpStart specialists will help you create a campaign. The cost of the program is $299, but Google will apply that as a credit toward the cost of your initial clicks. Not having used JumpStart myself, I cannot vouch for its quality, though Google generally offers high quality services.
Campaigns and Ad Groups
The Campaign level is where you set your daily budget, language targeting, location targeting, ad distribution preferences, and the start and end dates for your campaigns (if applicable).
The Ad Group level is where enter your keywords and the advertisements themselves. Each Ad Group has one or more ads. Write at least two ads for each ad group so you can try different approaches and compare the results.
In my experience, it has been beneficial to create multiple campaigns so I can experiment with different parameters and compare the results. I keep campaigns that work well and delete those that do not.
Targeting
Choose the language you want to target, and then the countries or territories. This requires some thought. Can you offer your product or service globally, in the United States, or in just your city or region? You can target your campaign to the world or to specific countries, regions, states, or cities.
For even more precise targeting, you can target your campaign to a certain number of miles from your business or even an area bounded by coordinates. Choosing carefully will ensure that you maximize the return you make on your investment in the advertisement.
Write your Advertisements
You have a 25-character title get searchers' attention, and a 70-character ad to make them interested enough to want to click on your ad. This isn't a lot of text, so make your content pithy.
Write the Headline, the text of the ad, and enter the Display Link (always link to main page of your website), and then enter the Destination URL (your landing page). As we discussed above, the Destination URL might be your main page, or a page within your website that's dedicated to selling the product in question. Below are a couple of fictional ad examples. I don't work in the coffee industry, but I do enjoy a good cup of coffee.
Headline: Shade Grown Coffee Beans
Description line 1: Shade grown coffee. Tastes
Description line 2: better & saves valuable rainforest.
Display URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com
Destination URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com?&utm_id=coff1
Another example:
Headline: Shade Grown Coffee Beans
Description line 1: Coffee that tastes better and
Description line 2: protects valuable rainforest.
Display URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com/
Destination URL: www.goodshadegrowncoffee.com?&utm_id=coff2
Conversion Tracking
Tracking the conversion rate of your campaigns -- i.e., how many sales or leads you generate from your investment -- requires a little preparation. You will need to have your webmaster embed snippets of code into the appropriate pages on your website. Google explains how to do this in its online AdWords documentation.
Google Analytics
In the fictional advertisement examples I gave above, you may have noticed the codes in the destination URL's: "coff1" and "coff2". These are tracking codes that facilitate the tracking of a wealth of information by Google Analytics.
Google Analytics, which Google integrated with AdWords, is a very powerful service for tracking the success of both the organic and paid search results for your website. It will help you better understand your website visitors' experiences in detail. In addition, you can learn which keywords attract the best prospects, and which of your campaigns deliver the best return on investment. You can use Google Analytics to track marketing campaigns other than AdWords as well. Unfortunately, Google Analytics is too big a topic to cover here, though there is plenty of information on it online -- the Google website is a good place to start!
Choose Your Keywords
As I mentioned earlier, it's important to pick good keywords. Initially, choose both general keywords and narrowly targeted keywords, and carefully evaluate the results. Keep keywords that generate results, and remove keywords that aren't working for you. You'll probably need to run your campaigns for a while before you have enough information to determine which keywords are succeeding for you.
In the keyword space provided in the setup process, list the keywords or keyword phrases you would like to use. Because people tend to type fast when they search the web, be sure to include common mis-spellings of your keywords. Here are some example keywords that our fictional coffee roaster might use:
coffee
coffe
shade grown coffee
shade grown coffe
shade grown
shade coffee
coffee shade grown
shade grown coffee migratory birds
benefits of shade grown coffee
gourmet coffee
gourmet coffee beans
gourmet coffees
coffee beans
gourmet coffee beans
organic coffee
organic coffee beans
certified organic coffee
coffee beans organic
mail order organic coffee
bulk coffee
To generate more keywords, enter a keyword into the Keyword Tool Box and click on Get More Keywords. This will generate additional keywords, some of which will be relevant to you, and some of which will not. Keep the relevant keywords and toss the rest.
Now, you have a good starting list. Later, you will want to add new keywords, and remove non-performing keywords. A good keyword is one that yields you conversions into customers or good leads.
Google Search versus Google Content Network
Google AdWords can place your ad in two places: in Google search and the content network. Google search provides results from searches that prospective customers run directly using www.google.com. The content network consists of Google partner sites and sites that run advertisements through Google's AdSense program.
In my experience, Google search has yielded more quality clicks than the content network. The content network is worth trying, but I recommend you put it into a separate campaign so that you can measure its results against your Google search campaign.
The content network is an opt-out service, though it's not possible to opt out during the setup process. To opt out of the content network for a specific campaign, you can go back to the Campaign Settings and uncheck the checkbox for content network.
Then, set up a separate campaign where you focus on the content network and opt out of the search network. Compare the results between the two campaigns. It is possible that you'll find Google search is more productive than the content network but, of course, your results may be different from mine.
If you want to keep it simple until you are more comfortable with AdWords, I recommend that you start with the search network. Then, come back in a few weeks and set up a separate campaign to try the content network, and compare the results with those you generate through the search network.
Your Daily Budget
Your daily budget for your campaign is the ceiling on your daily spending. You can set this number to whatever figure you want. It's a good idea to start out with a relatively low daily budget while you refine your AdWords effectiveness. As your ad campaigns succeed and bring you more business, you'll likely want to increase your budget.
Start with a daily budget of about $10 to $15 per day, and gradually increase that amount as you fine-tune your approach.
Your Bid
In addition to your daily budget, you will need to set a maximum bid that you are willing to pay as a Cost Per Click (CPC). This require some trial and error to get right. Being the highest bidder is not really what that you want. Instead, you want to get the greatest number of quality clicks for your budget. If you bid too high, your CPC will be too high and will eat up your budget too fast; if you bid to low, you won't generate enough clicks or sales.
You might try starting with a bid of $2.50, and see what happens for a day or two. Then gradually raise or lower the bid, depending on results. If clicks consume your daily budget in a couple of hours, then lower your bid. If the advertisements aren't getting many clicks, raise your bid. Continue this process until you find the optimal bid.
Leads and Sales
What if visitors are clicking on your ad but aren't buying from or contacting you? That likely means your ad is working but your website or landing page is not persuading prospective customers to take the next step. It can also mean that your product or service needs some work to become more competitive. Compare what you offer to your competitors.
The simplest things can make a dramatic difference. When your landing page is not getting you conversions, change one aspect, then wait to see what happens over the next day or two. That way, you can determine which changes work. Don't be afraid to try possible solutions, knowing that some changes will fail and some will work well.
Recently, one of our landing pages was not generating a suitable number of conversions. I made some minor changes to the wording on the page and conversions started going up the next day. On another page, we replaced our very simple order form with a much more elaborate version. Our sales for that service immediately plummeted. We simply changed the order form back to the simpler version and sales picked up again immediately.
Harvesting From the Money Tree
The Google AdWords money tree is now planted, optimized, and working to bring you leads and sales. What do you do now? Harvest it, of course, by solid follow-through and by providing the best possible service for your clients.
Go back from time to time, and take a look at your results. Make adjustments to your budget and bids as needed. Write another advertisement that takes a slightly different tack. Remove an ad that's not producing high quality clicks for you. Make some improvements to your website to see if you can increase your conversion rate.
Practice Kaizen -- a Japanese word for continuous, incremental improvement. Even if your Google AdWords money tree is providing good yields, there are always ways to improve its performance.
So pour yourself a cup of good coffee, and get started using Google AdWords today!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Google AdWords The Good and the Bad
I’ve talked a lot of smack about the PPC technique of making money online. Well, to be honest, it’s a necessary evil, and used correctly, you may even make some money off of it. The question is how you go about doing that.
The first step is selecting your PPC advertising network. There are many options out there. The most well-known one is Google AdWords. Yahoo is still ranking up there, but since Bing took over their paid search, no one actually seems to know where Yahoo will be. I would be wary of them, although they are still one of the bigger players out there. In addition to Google AdWords, the other two top-tier PPC networks are Microsoft adCenter and Yahoo Ambassador (again, pending governmental approval, who knows how long that will last). I would also recommend taking a look at the following five smaller PPC ad networks:
· AdBrite
· LookSmart
· Bidvertiser
· Miva
· JumpFly
Please note that these are all targeted toward the US; if you want something for the UK, Australian, or general European market this post may not be for you.
In my next several posts, I will focus on-and-off on the positives and negatives of each network. Let’s start with Google AdWords.
Pros of AdWords:
· You will be seen on the search engine results pages (SERPs) for Google search queries – it’s a great way to maximize your exposure. This definitely increases your chances for visibility in a very competitive world.
· AdWords has awesome tracking – like most-to-all of Google’s products. (I am a HUGE Analytics junkie. I could never understand why you would want to pay for an Analytics program when you have Google Analytics at your fingertips for free.)
· It’s fast – you can be set up in, say, five minutes.
Cons of AdWords:
· Clicks generated?
o Using Google AdWords is a double-edged sword. Yes, you want your ads to be visible in the search engines, considering how many users visit the search engine results pages for a given keyword. However, most people do NOT look at the advertisements at the top/right-hand side of the page simply because they know that the results located in those areas ARE advertisements. (Which is the point of SEO – it’s organic, thus people click on those results, believing them to be the most naturally relevant for their search queries.)
· Amount of training time
o It takes a while to become an expert in AdWords – and a tidy sum of money. You will fail in the beginning, simply because you don’t know what you’re doing. You can read all of the AdWords tutorials that are available back-to-front. It won’t matter. Until you actually get out there in the field (so to speak), you are NOT an AdWords expert. It will be a costly experience.
The first step is selecting your PPC advertising network. There are many options out there. The most well-known one is Google AdWords. Yahoo is still ranking up there, but since Bing took over their paid search, no one actually seems to know where Yahoo will be. I would be wary of them, although they are still one of the bigger players out there. In addition to Google AdWords, the other two top-tier PPC networks are Microsoft adCenter and Yahoo Ambassador (again, pending governmental approval, who knows how long that will last). I would also recommend taking a look at the following five smaller PPC ad networks:
· AdBrite
· LookSmart
· Bidvertiser
· Miva
· JumpFly
Please note that these are all targeted toward the US; if you want something for the UK, Australian, or general European market this post may not be for you.
In my next several posts, I will focus on-and-off on the positives and negatives of each network. Let’s start with Google AdWords.
Pros of AdWords:
· You will be seen on the search engine results pages (SERPs) for Google search queries – it’s a great way to maximize your exposure. This definitely increases your chances for visibility in a very competitive world.
· AdWords has awesome tracking – like most-to-all of Google’s products. (I am a HUGE Analytics junkie. I could never understand why you would want to pay for an Analytics program when you have Google Analytics at your fingertips for free.)
· It’s fast – you can be set up in, say, five minutes.
Cons of AdWords:
· Clicks generated?
o Using Google AdWords is a double-edged sword. Yes, you want your ads to be visible in the search engines, considering how many users visit the search engine results pages for a given keyword. However, most people do NOT look at the advertisements at the top/right-hand side of the page simply because they know that the results located in those areas ARE advertisements. (Which is the point of SEO – it’s organic, thus people click on those results, believing them to be the most naturally relevant for their search queries.)
· Amount of training time
o It takes a while to become an expert in AdWords – and a tidy sum of money. You will fail in the beginning, simply because you don’t know what you’re doing. You can read all of the AdWords tutorials that are available back-to-front. It won’t matter. Until you actually get out there in the field (so to speak), you are NOT an AdWords expert. It will be a costly experience.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Basics of Google Adwords
Google's Adwords is still the yardstick by which other search advertising platforms measure themselves. This isn't merely an industry observation, but a respectful sentiment that I share now, having learned the ins and outs of Adwords first hand. At ICMediaDirect.com I use this experience to give clients advice that saves them money.
No two advertising campaigns are alike, so naturally each one requires its own strategy. But there are general suggestions that a first time Adwords user should heed. What I have are a few tips aimed at saving the new advertiser money. Just because I learned a few of them the hard way doesn't mean you should have to: caution and patience are key virtues for an Adwords novice. Incidentally, since Google announced new localized features for Adwords, I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of new users in upcoming months.
Do not assume that the popularity of Adwords stems from a gentle or forgiving platform. You've got to watch your ads with the same eye you'd use to watch your chips in a game of Texas Hold'Em. Carelessness in Adwords will cost you as quickly and dearly as it would in poker.
It's crucial to economize your campaign. Competition from other advertisers within the Adwords space has made it more expensive to use. Bigger advertisers, like an eBay for instance, can be particularly daunting in the way they throw money around. You can't compete with them, so as you craft a detailed plan, you should manage your budget closely, as every penny counts.
Remember to:
1) Deploy a negative keyword strategy �
I cannot stress this enough. As an advertiser you have almost no control over where your ad goes, but you have the option to keep it from going where it won't work! The negative keyword function essentially blocks your ads from being shown with search results you feel are not likely to generate business. In other words, it keeps your ads from being exposed to people looking for something else. Clicks from unwanted showings means wasted expense.
2) Stick to a daily budget �
Online advertising offers us unprecedented measurability. We know how many people have seen our ads. But, like in any new endeavor, we should still proceed carefully until we are sure of ourselves. We must apportion daily budgets.
You could lose your shirt on Adwords if you don't set some limits. Sometimes advertisers are too gung-ho and let expenditures grow with the faith that clicks equals sales growth. There are no guarantees that the advertising will work or that you're doing it correctly from the get-go. Remember, if clicks are ineffective � you do not get your money back, nor should you. Start slow, learn the ropes, and then prosper.
3) Target for success �
Adwords now lets you target your advertising by nation, state and/or municipality. You may also opt for a stated radius. These features, which are the first steps towards the onset of local search, significantly boost click-through rates. If geography has any relevancy in your business plan, then localized tools are a must.
4) Mind CPC rates �
As part of your budget, your CPC rate is important. Keep it down. I know, I know, these rates being measured in cents don't look like much, but they quickly add up to real cost, believe me. Adwords has introduced a policy of minimum keyword bids that many feel has made Adwords a more expensive place to advertise. Not so. It's only made Adwords a slightly more difficult place to advertise because some advertisers subsequently bid too high. Be patient and find your place. It would be better to start too low, and not get enough clicks, than to start too high and burn advertising capital.
5) USD, that's United States Dollars -
Where is your trade, is it the United States? Set your account up in dollars. If you're doing business in Europe, set it up in Euros. More than a few people have had rude awakenings by not squaring their denominations with their geographic trade base. The transaction charges are steep.
6) Scrutinize click quality �
There is fear about click fraud in Adwords, legitimate fear. There are, for instance, unethical adversaries who will click your ad to cost you money. (Yet another reason to be nice to everyone you meet!) It is tough to prevent ethical lapses in other people, but if you feel your clicks are suspicious, contact Google immediately and stop running the ads.
The web developer clickbot farms are another issue of concern. These are the kind that are the most threatening, but can be defeated. They are simply websites designed to click your ads in order to steal your advertising money - nothing more and nothing less. If Google values their advertisers, they'll continue to combat click fraud and, it stands to reason, eliminate it as the current scourge it is. They've accomplished bigger feats already and if they don't, the competition will. Bank on it.
Be cautious and be thrifty when beginning Adwords. It's a wonderful advertising tool that will not only help your business, but also give you a working, hands-on education, in a field that continues to grow with each passing day, search advertising.
No two advertising campaigns are alike, so naturally each one requires its own strategy. But there are general suggestions that a first time Adwords user should heed. What I have are a few tips aimed at saving the new advertiser money. Just because I learned a few of them the hard way doesn't mean you should have to: caution and patience are key virtues for an Adwords novice. Incidentally, since Google announced new localized features for Adwords, I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of new users in upcoming months.
Do not assume that the popularity of Adwords stems from a gentle or forgiving platform. You've got to watch your ads with the same eye you'd use to watch your chips in a game of Texas Hold'Em. Carelessness in Adwords will cost you as quickly and dearly as it would in poker.
It's crucial to economize your campaign. Competition from other advertisers within the Adwords space has made it more expensive to use. Bigger advertisers, like an eBay for instance, can be particularly daunting in the way they throw money around. You can't compete with them, so as you craft a detailed plan, you should manage your budget closely, as every penny counts.
Remember to:
1) Deploy a negative keyword strategy �
I cannot stress this enough. As an advertiser you have almost no control over where your ad goes, but you have the option to keep it from going where it won't work! The negative keyword function essentially blocks your ads from being shown with search results you feel are not likely to generate business. In other words, it keeps your ads from being exposed to people looking for something else. Clicks from unwanted showings means wasted expense.
2) Stick to a daily budget �
Online advertising offers us unprecedented measurability. We know how many people have seen our ads. But, like in any new endeavor, we should still proceed carefully until we are sure of ourselves. We must apportion daily budgets.
You could lose your shirt on Adwords if you don't set some limits. Sometimes advertisers are too gung-ho and let expenditures grow with the faith that clicks equals sales growth. There are no guarantees that the advertising will work or that you're doing it correctly from the get-go. Remember, if clicks are ineffective � you do not get your money back, nor should you. Start slow, learn the ropes, and then prosper.
3) Target for success �
Adwords now lets you target your advertising by nation, state and/or municipality. You may also opt for a stated radius. These features, which are the first steps towards the onset of local search, significantly boost click-through rates. If geography has any relevancy in your business plan, then localized tools are a must.
4) Mind CPC rates �
As part of your budget, your CPC rate is important. Keep it down. I know, I know, these rates being measured in cents don't look like much, but they quickly add up to real cost, believe me. Adwords has introduced a policy of minimum keyword bids that many feel has made Adwords a more expensive place to advertise. Not so. It's only made Adwords a slightly more difficult place to advertise because some advertisers subsequently bid too high. Be patient and find your place. It would be better to start too low, and not get enough clicks, than to start too high and burn advertising capital.
5) USD, that's United States Dollars -
Where is your trade, is it the United States? Set your account up in dollars. If you're doing business in Europe, set it up in Euros. More than a few people have had rude awakenings by not squaring their denominations with their geographic trade base. The transaction charges are steep.
6) Scrutinize click quality �
There is fear about click fraud in Adwords, legitimate fear. There are, for instance, unethical adversaries who will click your ad to cost you money. (Yet another reason to be nice to everyone you meet!) It is tough to prevent ethical lapses in other people, but if you feel your clicks are suspicious, contact Google immediately and stop running the ads.
The web developer clickbot farms are another issue of concern. These are the kind that are the most threatening, but can be defeated. They are simply websites designed to click your ads in order to steal your advertising money - nothing more and nothing less. If Google values their advertisers, they'll continue to combat click fraud and, it stands to reason, eliminate it as the current scourge it is. They've accomplished bigger feats already and if they don't, the competition will. Bank on it.
Be cautious and be thrifty when beginning Adwords. It's a wonderful advertising tool that will not only help your business, but also give you a working, hands-on education, in a field that continues to grow with each passing day, search advertising.
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