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Google Adwords Top Tips – Part 2

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Welcome to part 2 of this 5 part series on Google Adwords.Google AdWords is one of the best advertising tools on the Internet, but only if you know how to implement Adwords properly to achieve maximum potential. So here are the next ten tips to ensure that you get the best possible results from using Google Adwords.

1. Organise your campaigns by topic

You don’t want to have your health supplements in with your running shoes now do you? Each campaign should be for a unique topic. If you sell one type of product then keep to one campaign unless there is a good reason to do otherwise. It will be easier to manage this way.

2. Target the right languages and locations

I see this mistake over and over again. You run an ad that is selling blue widgets and you want to target the ad to the folks in Kentucky, then what happens? Because you have your settings wrong, Mr Wong goes onto Google China and sees your ad for Blue widgets.

You have targeted the wrong country, and the wrong language!

3. Make sure your Ad Groups are highly specific

As with your campaigns, each and every ad group should be aimed at a unique product or service. Example: Campaign 1 – Omega 3 Supplements Ad Groups – FISH OIL – all keywords relating to fish oil EPA – all keywords relating to EPA (the most important ingredient of fish oil) OMEGA 3 – All keywords relating to Omega-3 MIXED – Mixed terms relating to all above If you are very serious about maximising your profits and really giving AdWords good shot, you will need to do this for every product or service that you are advertising. Keep it organised, clean and laser targeted!

4. Optimise all of your Ad including your URL

Let’s say for example you were selling golf clubs. Think about which URL looks better: www.sportsshop.com/asp.369£0-/lop0-9823309877654/4/a/098665 or SportsShop.com/GolfClubs

You also need to remember that the ad copy is what is going to make people click through, so make sure it is keyword rich and appealing In a display URL on AdWords, the domain name (www.sportsshop.com) must exist, but the extension (/golfclubs) does not need to exist, so use it as another opportunity to state your keywords and tell your users that you have a whole section on this topic.

5. Avoid your home page as your landing page

The landing page is the page that the person who clicked on your ad will see when they come through to your site. Don’t use your homepage as your landing page unless it deals only with selling the product you’re advertising. For instance, if you’re selling posters, have a landing page for ‘flower’ posters and a landing page for ‘car’. You can even go one better and have a landing page for each poster – so you’ll have a page for ‘sunflower posters’ and ‘bmw 5 series posters’.

Land people in the relevant place.

6. Track conversions

This could actually be the biggest key to helping you increase your AdWord profits, if you don’t know which words are turning into conversions then you are on a loser right from the word go! Just because an ad has a high CTR doesn’t mean that it is making you money! How would you know if you are not tracking it? You can use Google’s own conversion tracking codes, or you can use your own software. Use Googles as it will be easier! You need to know which keywords are performing so you can put more money there and switch off words that are not getting you conversions and are wasting your money.

7. Work out your cost per sale

Why is this important? If it is costing you $20 to gain a sale and the profit on that sale is only $15, then you are losing money! Tracking your cost per sale is easy if you have the Google tracking code inserted on your site as Google work this out for you and display the result in the cost/conversion box on your account.

8. Don’t enter into bidding wars

It is easy to get into bidding wars with your competitors. You want to be number one and so does your competitor. The best thing to do is to take a step back, ten deep breaths and consider how important it really is to be in the number one spot. If you can justify it, fine but otherwise: let your competitor be number one, sit in the number two slot and wait. If you have a better product, your click-through rate will get you to the top – and you’ll still be paying the same as you were in the second position.

More and more people are using automated bidding software. This software will update at a set interval to keep the ad in the desired position. Doing battle with this kind of software is even more frustrating and less rewarding than trying to outbid a competitor. Bidding software that targets a certain position can waste a lot of money. You can be cleverer than that by working out your ROI and therefore your optimum bid price.

9. Use GeoTargeting for local campaigns

If you are running an Ad Campaign targeting certain geographical areas for example ‘golf course repairs in Florida’, make sure you use the GeoTargeting option. This will save you a lot of money on useless clicks and help speed your progress toward successful conversions and, ultimately, sales.

10. Double-up when GeoTargeting

When running GeoTargeting, always mirror the campaign with a non-GeoTargeted equivalent with place names in the keywords. For example, for a Manchester-based IT company, run ‘IT Company’ as a keyword in a campaign targeted to Manchester, and run a country-wide campaign including the keyword ‘IT Company Manchester’.

More Google Adwords Top Tips coming up in Part 3

Author:  Dave McEvoy is an Adwords expert with years of experience in ppc management. For more information please come and visit our site.