Google AdWords Advice Guide

Google AdWords Advice for anyone wishing to set up a PPC marketing campaign.

When a user searches on Google, the web sites that appear down the left hand side are those who have optimised their pages to be seen for that particular search phrase. Each page lists ten entries and to stand a chance of making your site pay, you need to appear on the first two pages of search results and, ideally, be in the first ten.

The results that appear on right hand side of the page are those sites that are advertising through the Google AdWords system.

There are a maximum of 8 entries per page and you can appear with a bid from a little as 5 cents. You don't pay for traffic with AdWords unless a visitor actually clicks on and visits your website. In essence, if you do your research and spend time setting up your adverts and related key phrases, you're only paying for highly qualified visitors to your website, or that of the site you are promoting. For the affiliate marketer, this is great news!

AdWords Process Overview

1. You have an idea or already operate in a particular market
2. Check for viability, i.e. how many people are already advertising? 
3. Carry out research into what your potential customers are actually searching for
4. Build your keyword list. Use a good 'old fashioned' text editor (I use NoteTab Pro) to sort and refine your keyword phrases
5. Write your adverts
6. Submit to Google
7. Analyse and refine your campaign. You need to track your campaign and be prepared to delete keywords, add new ones and edit adverts This is particularly key in the early stages to ensure your marketing budget doesn't just vanish without trace!
8. Repeat the process until you're happy with your monthly income

Once you've uncovered a particular area that is ripe to work in, use WordTracker to further analyse keyword phrases. This is the database of databases when it comes to search engine terms. It takes the guess work out and shows you exactly what people are typing when surfing online. You can also use it to find common misspellings and generated other ideas around using 'hyphens', 'plurals' and 'abbreviations'. You'll be surprised how quickly you can develop a list of thousands of unique search terms related to your business. If you're an internet or affiliate marketer and NOT using Wordtracker, you are at a definite disadvantage.

Use a text editor (Notepad or similar) to sort your phrases into relevant groups and remove any duplicates and/or irrelevant phrases that may have crept in. Then go on to create a new file to write your ads to correspond to these phrase groupings. This is the most time consuming part of the exercise (expect to spend at least a day doing a campaign properly) but is worth putting the extra bit of effort into. It will pay you back many times over.

Submit to Google: Once you've registered with AdWords, you can set up your first campaign. This is the subject you're dealing with, for example 'Software'. You then set up 'Adgroups' within Campaigns and basically you should expect to have many groups if you have done your keyword/ad copy matching correctly.

The really great thing about AdWords is that you can set a daily budget at the Campaign level, but can also pause specific AdGroups. This allows you to trial and adjust as you go. Keywords within Adgroups can have individual bid amounts.

Combine this with the fact that you also have language and country target (and in the US, regional), settings and you end up with an advertising medium with which you have complete and total control.

AdWords Advice:

1. Bid on low cost relevant words

2. Qualify your title and description

Using the keyword in both the title and description can increase your click through rates 40% or more. Take the time to sort your keyword phrases into groups and write ads that reflect the phrase the person searching has typed in. Give the customer what they want!

3. Use unique landing pages

No matter what you're promoting, make sure the surfer is taken straight to it. Strive to create uniquely designed landing pages.

4. Stick to your budget

How much will you earn per sale? What percentage of your visitors buy? How much are you paying per click? Set a bid limit based on your calculation of your visitor value.

5. Get the CTR

Google rewards higher Click Through Rates (CTR) so it's important that your ad copy reflects the term someone is searching for. Put the time in and be prepared for multiple ad groups per campaign. There is no point having hundreds of phrases all lumped together in one ad group. Your CTR will suffer and eventually your ad will be disabled.

6. Write Good Ad Copy

There are two primary factors to succeeding at Google AdWords. The first is choosing the right keywords. The second is writing compelling ads.

Use a benefit in your headline. For example, if you think about Anti-SPAM software, a feature would be the fact that it integrates with Outlook. A benefit would be that it keeps your Inbox free of junk mail.

When writing your ads, you need to make sure that you take the time to read through the Google AdWords Editorial Guidelines. In a nutshell, you can't hype, exaggerate or lie to entice visitors. Google want to retain their position as the top search engine and won't compromise on relevance. Unlike some other Pay-Per-Click search engines who don't care how they empty your purse or wallet, Google will always ensure that the person searching is put first. If your ad 'feels wrong' when writing it, chances are it is! If your ad is pulled, simply make amendments based on the feedback given and it will automatically be re-submitted. The AdWords team are receptive to feedback so if you feel an ad was disapproved unfairly, email them and state your case.

7. Broad, Phrase or Exact

Make sure that before you go ANYWHERE near making a live campaign you understand the difference between these and implement fully.

Broad: No quotes or brackets, e.g. internet marketing

Phrase Match: the search words, in order, but can be part of a larger phrase, e.g., "internet marketing" could be triggered by someone searching on "advice on internet marketing"

Exact: As the name suggests, the phrase exactly matches the searcher's request, e.g. [internet marketing] without any variations or additions.

Both Perry Marshall and Andrew Goodman cover this topic in great detail in their excellent Google AdWords Books.

8. Use negatives

Use negative keywords to prevent your ad being displayed for phrases not relevant to you. For example, add 'free' to your negative keyword section to prevent people searching for "free internet marketing..."

The key to successful AdWords campaign is to keep testing and tweaking until you're happy with the profit you're making. Then repeat the process!

Most of this work is carried out at the front end but once set up, runs automatically whilst you set about creating a new campaign and start multiplying your profits.

Google AdWords Resources:

• Google AdWords Books
  
  Google AdWords books. Get a great book about AdWords and see your profits saw. Two of the best are by Perry Marshall and Andrew Goodman. If you're running an AdWords campaign and haven't invested in at least one book, I guarantee you're losing money.
• Google AdWords Software
  
  Google AdWords Software features some of the best software applications to help anyone get more from their AdWords advertising
• Free Google Resources
  
  Free Google Resources features various websites and software to help with your Google marketing, including AdWords